Gazumped! It’s an ugly word and being gazumped feels ugly too. But that was last week. Now it’s time to think again about where we will be moving and what it means to have a ‘home’.

I knew buying a house in the UK was fraught with ups and downs but we’d never had it this bad before. After taking months to decide what we wanted and where to buy, we thought the hard part was over. But there was worse to come – pitching bids, countering higher bids and finally that sickening feeling of being gazumped at the last minute. It was at times like this that I wished SNP MPs had more power and could bring in the same rules about purchasing houses as they have in Scotland. No fear of gazumping there as once your offer is accepted it’s legally binding.

After a dreary few days of mourning the loss of our prospective new home in the UK and watching the dreams and ideas we had been building sink to the bottom of the pool, we are picking ourselves up. There are consolations. We have an army quarter to move to. It’s got a roof and heating. I can’t vouch for the colour of the carpets or the state of the kitchen or even the age of the cooker….but it is on an island off the south coast and within a minute’s walk of the sea. It’s not right next to a main road either. In fact it’s part of an illustrious ‘gated community’ and you’d need photo ID to get there!

So, we will have a place to call ‘home’ again in the UK, even if it’s a temporary one.

So what makes a ‘home’? The perfect kitchen, open plan living, a fireplace, the tranquil garden and that climbing rose over the doorway? Trawling through estate agent house images on screen I find myself asking, what would this house be like with us living there… our pictures on the walls and our African carvings in the corner? In some places it’s hard to imagine, while others seem to fit. One of our children has told us “There’s no perfect house – there’ll always be something wrong.” And it seems very true, because with looking at so many different properties for sale the problems almost immediately jump out. I know ‘home’ is a million things more than bricks and mortar, or even stone and wood. It’s what we make it. It’s the welcome when you arrive. It’s the enticing smells from the kitchen, the familiar objects that have been with us for years and the permission just to relax and be yourself. The home I grew up in smelt predominantly of washing powder, because my mum often had clothes airing on a dryer high up above the Aga in the kitchen. That smell welcomed me into our rambling, often untidy home, whether I was returning from school or later back from university. It didn’t matter about perfection, what mattered was that my mum and dad were there and ‘Phew!’ I was back home – I could relax and I was safe.

Whichever house we end up buying in the future and wherever we settle, I want to make it feel like ‘home’ for all the family and friends that we welcome in. Time to put the coffee on and the bread in the oven – I feel in need of some ‘home cooking’ smells! And at least our Cyprus sign will still make sense in the next house for now…