What do you know about your home?

Yesterday's walk also took us through a new housing estate not far from us. I know from elderly locals that the area used to be covered in bush and that their children, now in their fifties, used to play there all the time in the school holidays. Fionn likes it now principally because it has a super smooth footpath which is perfect for super speedy scootering. There is nothing hidden, no garden surprises on these cleared sections. A rather large number of them are for sale, at prices which don't suggest they'll be snapped up overnight.

So I got thinking about the history of our home. I've always lived in rented accommodation from when I was 18 until last year but those flast and houses fascinated me too. I loved to collect stories about previous inhabitants and activities. A fragment of each of those homes have come with me as I've moved on in the form of memories and photographs, my own and those of others who shared the journey.

I hear often from local people about the house we live in now. It has hosted many good parties over the years - we've heard that from a large number of people so we definitely believe it. Hopefully we'll have a few big ones and lots of smaller special gatherings ourselves. I met a man who lived at our place in the 1970s recently. When he arrived to move in, he discovered that the previous tenant had recently skinned an animal in the lounge. His wife cried when she saw the state of the place. I told him about the reports of great parties. "Not in my time" he commented dourly. Thankfully there'd been a good clean up before we moved in.

We are going to see if we can find the original plans for the house. The actual house is largely unchanged apart from the fire, but there have been changes to the outbuildings and we want to restore or add a couple of lean-tos for wood and for hothousing tomatoes.

Maybe I'll create a blog just about our house. I'm finding blogging in some undefineable way more interesting than keeping a private journal and have had several ideas of other blogs I might create, like one telling the stories of my elderly local relatives. Blogs must be the coolest things for family historians. Maybe my brother and sister and I should do one - all be writers and create together a cache of family stories and then send an invitation to our parents to view it at Christmas? hmmmm. Bloody housework, gets in the way of dreams.