Abdicating decision-making can be such a good decision

I’ve long since given up – or at any rate delegated to a significantly more competent authority – power of decision over where I live. 

After 35 years of marriage, it’s become clear which matters are much better left to my wife, and choosing addresses is one where her superiority is manifest and entirely recognised by me.

Maybe, in the fullness of time, we'll identify some areas in which I excel in turn.

The latest address selected by Danielle is a small flat in Valencia, in southern Spain. It takes the place of the apartment in Kehl, in the far west of Germany, which we recently vacated. Kehl has many great virtues – the city of Strasbourg just beyond its doorstep, the Vosges mountains in France and the Black Forest in Germany, the river Rhine, the Swiss city of Basel an easy drive away – but Valencia, as well as its charm as a city, also has the sea and a quality particularly dear to me right now (after an apparently interminable winter), of a mild and pleasant climate.

I say particularly dear right now because, before leaving for Valencia, I spent two hours in a sleet storm stuck on the tarmac at Luton aiport waiting for de-icing. That’s in spite of our being just a week away from the reintroduction of summer time. Whatever the calendar may say, England continues grey, cold and wet. The idea of something that actually feels like spring was immensely attractive.

As a general rule, when we’re moving to a new home, we go through a little pantomime where I visit the place before the deal is finalised. I try to gauge Danielle’s feelings on the choice, so that I can prove my unerring judgement by shaking my head and suggesting “not sure whether this is right for us” about ones she doesn’t like, or expressing enthusiasm for the ones she does. This time we dispensed with this admittedly slightly vacuous ritual, and she just went ahead and took the flat before I’d even seen it.

That made the trip out doubly exciting: not just getting away from winter but getting to see the place of which I was now the proud joint-owner without having more than a vague idea of what it looked like.

The event entirely fulfilled my expectations. OK, the city wasn’t that hot – only 14C, which is just nudging the bottom end of what one might call spring-like but, hey, that was fourteen degrees more than in England when I left.

High celings in Valencia
Danielle in the foreground with Sheena
In the background: Ikea man assembling a bed

As for the new flat – well, it has ceilings that feel as high as a small church’s, mini-balconies at both ends, and amusingly tiled floors. What’s more, Danielle, my son Nicky and daughter-out-law (who I hope will soon become a daughter-in-law) Sheena, saw to it before I even got there, that those fine people at Ikea would equip us with beds in time for our first night in the place. That was vital, since some of the furniture we rescued from our old home in Kehl is due to arrive here, but not until May. Those tiled floors may be amusing, but I suspect they’d be no fun to sleep on.

Tiles on our bedroom floor
Fun to look at. Not to sleep on

A great city, a huge improvement in weather, and an attractive flat. Everything combined to confirm the quality of the decision I’d made.

That, of course, is the decision to leave all decisions about the places we live in to Danielle and only turn up once they’ve been made.

Nicky enjoying the mini-balcony at the back