With the prospect of Louise getting a good job in York, we were suddenly faced with the prospect of needing to move to York for sometime in November.
Suddenly the dream seemed very, very close.
Naturally we panicked.
What about schools?
What about a house?
We figured we might have to rent first but where did we want to live?
So Sunday August 27th we piled into the car and drove 131 miles to York.
Having done a bit of research about areas we decided to look in the York suburbs particularly around Holgate and Acomb. There were 2 good catholic primary schools in the area and it was close to where Louise would be working.
The day started out well, everyone in good spirits about the day. We'd told Molly what we were planning by this point and she was a confused mixture of excitement and fear over it all.
But by the time we got to Acomb and had a look round it all started to go wrong.
Acomb was very similar to somewhere like Perry Common or Erdington. And if we were going to be moving all that way, trying to change our lives, the last thing we really wanted to do was move to a semi-rundown commuter town. What was the point of that.
Even worse, we'd gone as far as arranging a viewing on a house in Acomb. We drove up into a really bad estate, took one look at the house and the neighbours and carried on driving.
After this the day got worse.
Both local primary schools looked bloody awful, deeply embedded in a really scummy estate.
We spent all afternoon just driving around York's suburbs looking at houses for sale. We soon realised that if we wanted to live somewhere nice there was no way we could afford to move up here and live this close to York.
Demoralised and with both of us thinking that the dream may have just disappeared from beneath us in one afternoon we spent a fractious meal in a pizza place in York and decided to head back and work out what to do from there.
I can't really begin to get over how low we both felt on the drive back. We talked a bit about it all and just couldn't see a way around the problem. With no idea what school we could send Molly to and no affordable place we wanted to live we realised that Louise would have to pull out of a fantastic job offer.
Worse than that was the feeling of suddenness about it all. After being so very close to moving, it was all suddenly off again and we had to return to work and regular life feeling like we'd just lost out on something wonderful.
To be that close to living a dream and then having it snatched away is really horrible.
Naturally the mood for the rest of the night was black.
Next day Louise phones up the job and tells them what had happened and that there was no way she could come up for the second interview or accept the job without knowing where Molly was going to school.
They were really good about it, understood completely and then threw us the lifeline that we never dreamed we'd get. The boss explained that it would obviously be a few weeks before he'd have chance to interview again for it, we were to let him know if anything changed.
Bloody hell.
After being so low the night before we suddenly realised it might be possible again.
Up and down, up and down, up and down. It's a wonder we weren't sea-sick.
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