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This is the house where we have lived since 1995. Nineteen years almost. The longest I have lived in any one place.
Homes have always been important to me.
Before moving to Norfolk, we lived in London for a few years, in Crouch End. It was a really fine big flat but after a while we were missing the countryside and used to feel a sinking feeling driving home if we had been away for the weekend.
We rented a farm cottage just outside Norwich and started looking for a place that would feel like home. It wasn't easy. I think we looked at over seventy houses, and several thousand bits of paper describing houses. At some point we both thought "This is absurd, maybe we are too fussy, maybe we will never find the ideal place that we are looking for..." We both decided to write a list of everything that we wanted from a house, everything that was making each of us say no to the houses we had looked at. I seem to remember the list had about twenty things on it. The house had to be nineteenth century or older, it had to be in the middle of a plot and not right against the road, in a quiet location, the windows were to be irregular shapes and sizes, and not uPVC, I wanted a stream or river running through the garden, we wanted mature trees in the garden, I needed a suitable work room etc etc.
Too perfectionist...we'll never find it. At some point the list disappeared down the back of a sofa. The search muddled on.
One day we came across this old cottage. I was sure this was the best place we would find and after a few negotiations we were able to buy it.

Several months later, we came across our old list of twenty points. The cottage met sixteen of the criteria on the list. Unfortunately no stream or river through the garden. But there is one in the meadow just across the lane.
I believe this says something about the value of visualising what you want in detail. It never turns out quite as dreamed of but I suspect dreaming helps in some way.

P.S. This is a backblip. Today's blip is posted here.