On this day 2012 my family was officially made homeless

For our family it was a moment in our history, it was a new start.  A commitment to a change that had now run its course to the painful conclusion, repossession.   The notion of being made homeless with your children at Christmas is unthinkable...."But dad, where is the Christmas tree?" asked the little boy with his cap in his hand.

It was today in 2012 that I received the letter to leave my house.

When the letter came to confirm the date of repossession, i was honestly sad eventhough i had resigned myself to the inevitable.  All those happy memories of getting the keys for the first time, or bringing the children up there.  The house had lots of memories some badly done DIY at the time, some dodgy paintwork, the parties, and family get togethers.  All those things were such a big part of my life so it felt as though part of me was going also.  

   

Above My son, the band, my wife and both children around that time we lost the house

But this is a message of hope

It was nearly Christmas and we had to get out of our house and find another place to live and put all our stuff.  The reality was daunting to say the least.  Six months earlier my Aunt had sadly passed away and i had no idea she had left us a little gift in her will and that letter came in to my mum a couple of days later.  And that helped us with enough money to rent a house somewhere, now we were able to go and find one in a hurry.   It meant we had a chance at having a place to stay at Christmas and we had enough for some food, a couple of treats and a couple of presents for the children.  This is the best we had felt in ages, it's the little things you miss when you can't just go and buy a takeout, or some other treat, it's running out of coffee and not being able to have one..with a headache.

My wifes work colleague knew a farmer who offered her a house but she turned it down and said she would organise a visit for us.  When we arrived to see it, it was run down, overgrown, two huge sheds that were about to collapse with a tree growing through he roof of one of them.  There was a pond that had turned into a swamp with dead rats in the garden, the extension had been ripped down by the council.  The plumbing was severed and two 6 foot jets of water shot horizontally into the garden when you turned on the taps in the kitchen.

The inside didn't improve either, the house was damp with mould, dirt, the wallpaper hanging off the walls, no carpets and a creepy room with a chair pointing at a wall where lots of pictures had been hanging.  It was so far removed from our house, so different.  Our new landlady owned the farm and had a huge pet mackaw that flew around the house squaking and terrifying all of us.  It landed on my shoulder and looked at me as if it was going to peck my eye out.  I was so far out of my comfort zone at this point i could have been on a different planet.

 

(My old house, quite different to where we were going)

My wife looked at me and smiled and she knew this was the one, i don't know how she was so confident but she was.  That Christmas we had two tub chairs in an empty room and a Christmas tree, a kettle and a microwave, and no heating but we laughed, we explored the possibilities of what we would do, watched Elf and ate lots of chocolate, we had that adventure together of working as a family to salvage the possessions from the sinking ship when loading the removal van.  We all sat on the floor infront of a small fan heater hugging to keep warm and telling stories of our misspent youth by the glow of the heater. At this festive time when so many people were rushing around, we sat there with nothing but each other. 

  I no longer was a home owner but that was okay and there seemed to be a world of potential for all of us now, home schooling, growing food, animals all those potential things we had been talking about for years was now possible.  That was the best Christmas present ever, hope.

I was so grateful for what little i had, but it was everything that was left.......it was priceless on Christmas 2012

We had a great year, the year i lost it all, the year i gained it all, and the year that will always keep me humble and remember my blessings and what is really of value this time of the year.

   

This is how the rat, swamp garden looked this year.

If you liked the post please upvote and follow, thanks for reading.