Chapter 11: From 1992 to the Present Day

I seem to have done a rough tally of my entire expenditure on the house in about 2011, which came up with a total expenditure of £134,133 for all the works to the house up to that point. Obviously the outlay since (more than £40,000) has added to this figure, which in any case includes maintenance as well as capital expenditure. Nevertheless, it makes it possible to get a rough sense of what the house has cost me overall over the past thirty years, which works out as a little more than the amount I paid for it in the first place. Does this make it good value? I don’t know. What needs to be borne in mind is that, by doing the work piecemeal, I mostly paid for everything out of my current income without having to take out extra loans, and on the whole everything went smoothly: I don’t think I ever had to cut corners or economise on works that I would have liked to do better, which is very satisfying.

View from bathroom French windows

I should add as an envoi what a pleasure it has been to live in this lovely house, decorated and furnished exactly to my taste, with its amazing views of the Old Town and the sea. Obviously when I die someone else will take it over and rip it apart to suit their tastes, but I have enjoyed every moment that I have lived here.