Fit for purpose

Where was I...

... I had been looking on RightMove for ages. Properties came and went but the lighthouse cottage stayed. To this day I have no idea how it came up in a RightMove search as I didn’t even really know where The Lizard was, although when I eventually viewed the property I realised I’d been there before on one of my weekend jaunts. I did make a tentative call to the lettings agent before Christmas asking why it was still available to be told it was a bit remote and put potential renters off. Which did the trick of putting me off too (temporarily). Moving to Cornwall where you don’t know anyone except your hairdresser’s sister is bonkers enough without living in the middle of nowhere without even a cat for company.

The weekend after the kids departed I started searching RightMove in earnest, with the help of a map of Cornwall and Google. I decided to look at half a dozen locations rather than limit my search to the area I knew and loved best; St Ives, to keep my options open. I couldn’t get the lighthouse cottage out of my mind so I rang up the agent again and ended up making an appointment. I decided to view it first and then I could cross it off the list as being highly unfit for purpose and visit the other, more suitable, options.

Ten days later I flew down to Cornwall, picked up my hire car and with my list of properties beside me started my three day property finding expedition. My first thought, as I drove through a forlorn, grey Cornwall was “what the f*** am I doing” (I think that a lot), in fact I thought that for the first forty minutes or so until I turned left onto The Lizard, the rain stopped and the sun came out. As I drove on I caught my first glimpse of the sea which never fails to remind me of holidays as a child (“who can see the sea?” as we rounded the bend in the road and the sea would be all sparkly below us).

I drove through Lizard village and onwards along the only road there was, signposted appropriately enough to Lizard Lighthouse. And there it was in front of me. I have to say I had a bit of a moment which I hadn’t expected at all. 

A couple of minutes later I was parked up. After a short delay when Linda, the lovely lettings agent couldn’t open the door and I, as a highly experienced estate agent, could, we walked into the austere hallway of Peninnis Cottage. As we walked from room to room I could barely restrain myself from doing the happy dance. What an amazing property. An amazing Emma Holder property, not an amazing most normal people property. By the time we’d finished walking round, well me jigging from foot to foot and Linda walking normally, I had fallen for it hook, line and sinker.

Long story short (as Ei my cleaner at the coffee shop would say), I visited quite a lot of other properties in the next couple of days. I took a breather in Charlestown where I now realise a snippet of Poldark was shot, the one with the tall ships in harbour. I know, I know, who was looking at the tall ships? Who even knows or cares what the story line is come to that? So, there I was sitting on a bench looking at the tall ship sans Ross Poldark, when I realised that if I was going to have an adventure then it might as well be in a lighthouse cottage at the very most southerly point of England where the fog horn blows every 30 seconds at the merest hint of mist. Ergo fit for purpose.