We had lived at 20 Willow Lane for ten years when we decided to sell it and buy a smaller house in a nearby village. During that time the bungalow had been extended twice. We had moved into a house that looked and smelled old, the roof tiles clogged with moss and the garden anciently landscaped with walls and rockeries of flint stones. We knocked out its windows, extended its roof, dug up its paths, pulled down its walls, restored its plumbing and added a garage and utility. It was not the same place any more, we had customised it to meet our needs and preferences. It had been made new.

We had sensible reasons for moving. They had been analysed ad nauseum during the months of debate that preceded putting it on the market. Sentimental considerations, although not totally ignored had, nevertheless, been put to one side when they threatened the reasoned course of action – which they did from time to time.

Such feelings were deeply rooted, however, and I nursed some forebodings about how I would feel afterwards and, in particular, my waking thoughts the day after the move had been effected. However the desire to leave our house looking clean, bright and sparkling for its new owner was the prevailing emotion on Completion Day and exhaustion numbed the pain when we closed the front door for the last time on 15th August.

The following morning, much to my relief, I did not wake up with a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. As I opened my eyes I closed my mind to that other bedroom with the view across the hills and the bird sitting on the topmost branch of my neighbours’ tree and I looked at the ceiling. It needed painting. Every ceiling in the house needed painting, every wall too. Most floors needed re-carpeting. The new house looked old. We didn’t make plans, we just started work. It seemed important to do as much as we could while the sun still shone and the days were warm and comforting. By Christmas, the work was done and the weather had turned cold.

Half a year has passed and I haven’t missed my previous house much at all, my real sense of loss was its garden; the sloping lawn that was so difficult to mow, the old apple trees that dropped fruit and encouraged wasps and the pond in which the apples bobbed and competed with the pond weed.

When I woke this morning I imagined the apple trees ringed by daffodils and tulips pushing through the stony ground. I wondered if the pond had filled mysteriously overnight with frog spawn and whether the new people had noticed the patch of snowdrops flowering discreetly in a far corner of the garden.

The new house feels like home now and the old one has become a pleasant but fading memory. The garden has not. It lives on in my imagination still bursting with spring flowers and promises of the summer to come, while the new garden seems to be a bare and hostile place dominated by a dying cherry tree.