Ready to swap my fixer-upper and see the world

My wife and I have talked for years about swapping homes with someone either in France or Scotland and getting away for a summer vacation.

But actually converting the idea from daydream to reality has been another thing altogether.

The half finished state of our Natick fixer-upper – and the feeling we didn’t have much to swap – is one thing that has held us back.

But our addition and renovation is now complete – we moved into the new half of the house back in May.

Anyway, I got a nice little nudge recently from a feature in the Globe on the house swapping phenomenon.

That helps with the novelty of the idea, at least for me. My wife, Karen, has been all over the idea, scoping out different web sites.

It’s clearly much more of a trend than I had realized – with more than 300 homes listed locally.

Now we just have to come to an agreement on who to swap with.

Karen, who is fluent in French and has close friends in Normandy, would obviously vote to exchange with someone there.

I spent a year back in the late 1980s at a university at the foot of the Scottish Highlands, but have never made it back.

It should be an interesting discussion, to say the least. Maybe we just take the best offer.

Anyway, this summer is almost gone – and the remaining weeks are booked with kids’ camp, work and the like.

So we will have more than enough time to talk it over.