Sold out

We have just heard that our flat is now sold, subject to contract! The housing association has accepted the application from the lovely Italian girl, and we are now off the market. It's time for the solicitors to be instructed and the reems of paperwork to begin. I'm so excited that we have got here. The flat was only on the market for four weeks so I feel in a fairly stagnant property market we've been pretty lucky. Maybe this year will be our year... It's certainly beginning to feel like it.

It also feels like the end of an era. A decade spent as a mortgage slave in zone one is coming to an end. This chapter draws to a close. London has been very kind to me in recent years, but I've also had my battles to fight here. It is the right time to say goodbye. I feel nostalgic to leave our beautiful flat behind - the Boy and I have been so happy there - but I know it is in good hands in the buyer. She reminds me a lot of myself when I bought the place - a young, single girl trying to make her way in the big smoke. I hope it brings her as much joy as it has brought me.

And as well as the excitement and sadness, I also feel pride. I've worked so hard for everything I've achieved in the last 10 years. I'd love to be able to go back to the me that started out here so many years ago, working two jobs and seven days a week to pay the mortgage, and despairing that I would ever break even financially, let alone be sufficient. I remember well the nights I couldn't sleep and just cried because it was all too much worry and stress - but the struggle was so worth it in the end. It so often is - you just never know it at the time.

I look forward with anticipation to what a new start in Kent will mean for us. Further from the city, but much closer to family and friends of old. Party shoes - for the most part! - hung up, to be replaced by wellies for the local country walks, and the ultimate luxury, a garden of our own. I feel like good times await, and that this next part of our lives is going to be just as exciting and loving as the last few years have been.