So we looked at another housing development, this time to the east of the city.
Its a small village that only just manages to hang onto a Leeds postcode, only just hangs within the West Yorkshire border by its fingertips, another few yards and it would be in North Yorks.
Its so much cheaper once you leave the city, and the houses are bigger, you get a bit more land to park the house on, and they are cheaper, did I mention they are cheaper, and because everyone wants to live in the city these days the developers can’t sell houses out in the sticks, so they are so much cheaper, did I mention they are cheaper ?
So we’re driving out there and we’re only half way there, we’re still on the Leeds Ring Road and not even heading east yet when Amanda declares that this is too far out and she reckons she’d already be spending well over £30 on a taxi fare from town by now and I think she has a point until I realise that she probably isn’t going to be moving out here with us as she’s talking about getting a place of her own any day soon – things are changing really fast this year.
And then we are driving out into countryside and even the landscape has changed, its flatter out here and as the bedrock is limestone instead of sandstone then all the old houses are built from white stone rather than yellow, its nice, I’ve always liked it out there, the patch of countryside ‘twix Leeds and Selby – nice.
And when we walk in the sales office at the building site there is better news, I ask for details on a three bed house that I saw on the internet but the woman shows us a four bed house and I tell her its probably out of our price range, she just smiles and tells us its just been reduced – its now well inside our price range and she gives us the keys to go look round.
Its nice, has a small garden though but for a price reduction of twenty grand I can live with that, its on the edge of the site and beyond the fence is woodland, they do a part exchange deal too, its looking good.
And yet my now grown up children are still not sure, even when we promise Jodie the top floor all to herself, bedroom, dressing room and her own bathroom, she still wants to know where the hell we are, it has seemed like forever getting here and she wants to know how she’ll get into Leeds for her College and her Saturday job.
We’ve got that covered, there is a railway station not three minutes from the site, its looking good.
And then we get back home, and I concede to several minus points…
The railway station – its not on the Leeds line, to get to Leeds would be two trains and a change at York, hmmmm
The plot is not very big, in fact its small, and its view out of the front window is the wall of the house opposite, hmmmm
It sounds nice, living in a village, but its not a pretty postcard village, its an old mining community, some parts of it are, for want of a better word, shit, hmmmm
It has no supermarket, not within eight miles, I am informed that this is bad, I confess to knowing nothing of these matters, apparently this is bad, hmmmm
According to Amanda it would be a £40 taxi ride from Leeds on unlit country roads and she doesn’t trust immigrant taxi drivers, I see her grandfathers breeding coming out more every day, hmmmm
I don’t think we’ll be moving out there any time soon.
It was a hell of a bargain though.
