OUR 2ND TEMPORARY HOME - Aug/Sept 2012

After 2 weeks at the first place, we packed up our belongings and headed for our next rented home - an hour's drive. The cats traveled better this time as I negotiated roundabouts and bends from the start. The new place had more room so was more suitable. We would be here for 4 weeks before having to move on again.

As it is situated on a fairly busy road, again we decided to keep the cats in, at least for the time being. The house had great views, which changed from day to day, hour to hour depending on the weather. It overlooked a graveyard instead of a back garden. Beyond that, nostalgia set in, as we spotted a little white bus weaving its way through fields and around hills just as the little red van did in Postman Pat land and probably still does! Beyond Postman Pat land is the sea, the St Tudwal's Islands and the Snowdonia range.

I wanted to watch the Paralympics - ideal with plenty of time on my hands. However, the signal here was very poor and the TV only worked sometimes. If we found the signal, but then moved our bodies slightly, the signal disappeared again - for days at a time. 

I wanted to make phone calls, but again, a dodgy signal meant that the mobiles only worked in rare fine weather. 

I wanted to access the Internet so Will bought a dongle. This gave us Internet access - but only if we were pressed right up against the kitchen window! Our way around this was to make twice weekly visits to the nearest Little Chef for their free Wi Fi,  to access emails, etc.

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At the end of August friends visited. We took a glorious walk along a long sandy beach (of which we have a large selection) accompanied by the usual strong winds, whisking up the sand into a mini sandstorm. The beach is huge, but only a couple of dog walkers shared it with us.

Early September, we drove to another large beach. An interesting one, surrounded by hills under which sits a row of about 80 colourful beach huts. This one however, is clearly a very busy beach. At the end of an overcast afternoon with an autumn feel to it, there were hoards of people in towels and swimwear climbing the steps from the beach to the car park, having spent the day there. At £4 per parking ticket, perhaps they were getting their money's worth. Meanwhile we wore fleeces and cagoules, and I wondered if they lived in a parallel universe? Probably 'not so parallel' going by what they were not wearing! 

We met family at another beach later in the month. It was a hot Saturday afternoon. For your £4 you park your car wherever you want on this vast expanse of beach, along with the hoards, who take out their deckchairs and picnics and sit by their cars watching the sea while the more energetic families play cricket, and the boy racers zoom across the beach to get as close to the sea as they can in their souped up Ford Fiestas without sinking, before zooming away again across the sea in jet-skis. 

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At this time we visited our own house approximately twice a week. On our first visit we found it surrounded by mini diggers and the suchlike. 

A tractor with trailer were carting away rubble and big boulders from excavations made. We hadn't thought of asking to keep any boulders that were revealed. Unfortunately the one on the trailer was very heavy and too difficult to lift down again, but following our request to keep any further ones, the builders started a rock pile. 

The foundations for the new conservatory were down and now resembled an outdoor swimming pool!

Horror of horrors! The architect phoned Will to tell him that one of the two chimneys needed to be demolished as so much damp was getting in through it. My heart sank. The only way to get around it was to rebuild the whole stack from floor level - Floor? What floor? On my last inspection, we had no floor! This would be at a great expense and we already wondered if our budget would cover the work being done. Will took no time in telling the architect “No problem, get rid of it”!

I felt sick. My aim has always been to retain as much as possible of the original character of this old house. I have already had to accept that my little painted wooden sash windows are out of the question. Such windows would be made and installed at the expense of the rest of the building works, and then apparently wouldn't last long with the Welsh coastal weather. 

It is of my opinion that a Welsh cottage needs 2 chimneys and small wooden sash windows. I cringed with guilt whenever I saw a cottage which had managed to preserve both these. However, I have since, after a fashion, managed to justify our decisions, in an effort to rid me of my guilt and sickness ...

1. The original part of the building has been added to so many times over the years, that we have no idea what it originally looked like, but it probably only had two habitable rooms. It would be virtually impossible to, and impracticable to return it to its original state. 
2. The existing windows are plastic, in reasonable condition and not the shape they would have been, not that there would have been windows in the barn buildings in the first place. So we would not be replacing original windows,
3. Although a Welsh cottage would not have had a conservatory, we are making improvements by replacing an existing one that was in a state of disrepair. 
4. The lost chimney? Well, it wasn't being used, and we had no plans to use it. But to me, it just looked right. Having spent a long time trying to dry the house, it would be a pointless chore if we are continue letting the damp in through an unused chimney.
5. We have potentially saved the house from becoming derelict. Derelict houses here cannot be rebuilt in accordance with the Council's rules in this area of outstanding beauty.

There! I feel better now!


Next blog - Meet the cats.

THE 1ST OF OUR TEMPORARY NEW HOMES - Aug 2012

Friday. We arrived at our first temporary place – a small one-bedroomed terraced cottage on a main road. The cats were not impressed. They were very hostile and angry, and remained so during our stay there. It didn't help that they were cooped up inside, with us having made the decision to keep them in as we were only staying for a fortnight and on a busy road. They tended to stay as far away from us as possible on a window sill.

We spent the first day with Will's brother and his family who had hired a narrow boat at Llangollen for the week. We couldn't have asked for a better-timed afternoon, unwinding on a canal over aqueducts and through tunnels with nothing to think about except the rush and stress we were trying to recover from and wondering what we had forgotten to bring to Wales?

                             

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Wednesday. The builders want to start work on the house so we went to meet them and they agreed to start work on the following Monday, giving us time to clear the rooms of any belongings for them. 

A felted roof with a very low pitch needed raising and tiling to better accommodate the Welsh weather. In doing so we would gain an extra upstairs room. The rotting conservatory, porch and stairs and soggy living room floor needed replacing. We also wanted an existing unused barn at the top end of the house to be made habitable with a view to using it as a utility room to help extend the small kitchen and provide a muddy boot room with entrance.

Thursday. We visited the house with the intention of moving furniture, etc, to a room not needed by the builders, only to find they had already moved it and the porch was part way to being demolished.

The house was covered in scaffolding and the stairs had disappeared. They clearly intended to get on with the job. No time to change our minds!

Friday. An internal wall and the living room floor have disappeared. The floor is now lower and down to bare earth.

Weekend. The conservatory is demolished!

Yesterday there was a conservatory here!

Monday – The builders are supposed to start work!

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We took some lovely walks around our temporary home in Snowdonia with stunning views, valleys and waterfalls probably all the more wonderful following the 3 months of continuous rain we had been experiencing. We met a farmer trying to find his sheep around the mountains and forests. We told him we were moving to the Llŷn Peninsula. He told us that the Llŷn experienced lovely weather in comparison and some farmers in Snowdonia buy land on the Llŷn because of the better weather. Music to our ears.

Next blog - our 2nd temporary home.

WE MOVE HOUSE AS THE BUILDERS NEARLY START WORK - July/Aug 2012

The last week at work was hectic, trying to get everything in place for whoever to take over from me when I left. On the last day the house sale was confirmed and my reduced pension/early retirement officially accepted! An exciting day!

I looked forward to having at least the summer holidays to clear out everything we did not need in our new life, and being able to pack in plenty of time. I would have time to say my goodbyes to EVERYONE in person. We would celebrate my retirement. We would have a goodbye party. I could have a relaxing birthday. I had no intention of repeating our previous house move experience, when at 7 months pregnant with 3 young children, I had left too much to do, relying on the children's very kind and patient aunty to keep them entertained. No this time I am organised ...

... that is until the next day when the Estate Agents informed us that our buyer wanted to be moved in 2 and a half weeks in order to benefit from a mortgage deal!

2 and a half weeks to sort, dispose of, or pack 20 years worth of bringing up 4 children! Still do-able but we wouldn't be able to sort out as much as I would have liked. Kieran spent many a day outside keeping the chimnea alight with burnable stuff, as we sorted through file after file of rubbish. As days past, the enormity of the task ahead started to sink in. Some things that we probably wouldn't need were boxed up. Bags and boxes of stuff were rushed to the charity shop or the tip. So much for my goodbyes, which needless to say, didn't happen ..."the best laid schemes of mice and men"??!!

NOT good timing! The builders needed to start working on the house over the next week or so. They estimated it would take about 3 to 4 months, and the extent of the work meant they couldn't get on with it while we lived in the house. We had very kind offers of accommodation from friends and family, but we felt after moving out of the house, we wanted to be in Wales near our new home. So Will spent day after day phoning holiday agents and places with short term lets to find somewhere to house us for that length of time at short notice. The minimum stay in short term lets was 6 months. Holiday lets although more expensive wouldn't include bills, etc, so probably worked out a similar price, but the maximum stay was for 28 days, meaning we would have to move on each month. Trying to find places that would take 3 cats proved difficult. Eventually we found a place in Snowdonia about an hour's drive from our new house where we could stay for 2 weeks. This would be followed by one about 15 minutes from our house for the following 4 weeks. We decided we would determine the stage the building work was at before committing ourselves to the next 'home'.

The removal men took our belongings to a storage facility, through 2 or 3 trips in a small lorry over a few days days.

Final removal day arrived without warning! The removal men arrived at 7.30 am to cart away the last of our belongings and left an hour later, leaving us with 3 ½ hours to clear up remaining rubbish and clean the house. It sounded like adequate time, but there was still stuff to be taken to the tip, the charity shop and pack up to take with us. With half an hour to go we realised we hadn't got time to sift through remaining belongings, so we put it all into 2 piles – essentials and non-essentials. Non-essentials were whisked away to a kind, unsuspecting neighbour's house & garden while they were on holiday for 3 weeks. The rest, thrown into bin liners & put out the front for further sorting so at least the house was clear for the new owners to arrive. The estate agents had phoned us several times, putting pressure on us to hand in the keys. We later discovered that it was some days before the new owners moved in! At last everything was in a vehicle, house or other, all except the cats. But we were going nowhere. I had packed my car keys! Eventually I found them inside a box of tissues in the boot of the car! Where else would they be? 

Cats in car, loaded up, house keys dropped off, we were off.

I took all 3 cats in cat baskets in my car along with a few belongings. Will took the rest in the beast. Traveling in convoy, Will enjoyed his getaway, while I was stressed up to the eyeballs with 3 hissing cats who, however hot, don't like car windows open because of the sound of big lorries passing. They also dislike acceleration, but the very worst thing - roundabouts - they HATE them. So I took my time at roundabouts, with very little acceleration away from them, much to the annoyance of a building queue of traffic behind me. I wished I'd had a sign in my rear window "Dangerous animals on board". The cats and I calmed with a stop and a drink at the services half-way, and they slept for a while on the 2^nd half of the journey. 

Fine until we hit Wales and the Welsh bendy roads when I could have sworn I had a large angry dog in my car. The cats hissed, howled, barked, snarled and growled over all the hills and around every bend until we reached our destination where my relief was immense.

Next blog - Our temporary new home

AN ANCIENT LOCAL RESIDENT & WORK ON THE DRIVE - July 2012

So, there I was, in the middle of the local town centre (about 15 minutes drive from our new house) minding my own business when a voice nearby called for help. I turned to see a tiny, very elderly lady bent double, walking slowly with her two sticks and carrying a big bag hanging heavily around her neck, pulling her down. She wanted support to cross the busy road. 

She was a very cheery soul, chatting excitedly about her life of 96 years, as I escorted her across the road and to the bus station where she was heading. She talked about starting work as a young maid in a big house when she was no more than a child. She told me how she now lived alone but was never lonely as the ghosts of young children playing happily in her house kept her company. I listened avidly to her interesting and amusing tales and she repaid my interest by telling me that she had met me on the way to heaven! 

Apparently the doctor had told her she shouldn't go out alone, but she felt she didn't want to be housebound and on a beautiful sunny day like this she couldn't see why she shouldn't to go out and catch a bus somewhere. 

She told me she had just done the "silliest of things" – she had seen some lovely curtains in a charity shop so she had bought them. Unfortunately they were so heavy that when she put them in her large bag she told me, the weight pulled her head towards the ground. In order to illustrate this, she re-enacted what had happened and suddenly her chin was no more than a foot above the pavement! Because of the weight of the curtains, she had decided to leave them at a nearby shop for a family member to pick up at a later date. The silly thing was, she told me, that she didn't need curtains, she had plenty! Furthermore she had done another "silly thing" – bought 2 small pictures in the same shop.  "I have a house full of pictures, I don't have room for pretty robin and blue tit prints either" she told me. She asked if I would like them or the pretty curtains for my new house. I told her I didn't have room either. 

Some time later I left her at the bus station perched on a little wall, with a six foot drop behind her. She was insistent that she was safe and wouldn't fall. She had an hour to wait for her bus, but didn't mind. I said I would wait with her, but she said she didn't need me to. She asked a woman at the bus shelter if she would help her onto the bus when it arrived. The woman said she would but asked why she didn't have family with her to help. At this, I thought she was about to hit the woman with her sticks, but she kept her cool and told the woman that she had brought her children up to be independent, not to spend their time looking after an old lady like her. As she sat on the wall, she pulled out a wrapped tray of fish & chips from her bag and happily sat eating them. Her bag was still around her neck, but was now weightless as it rested on the wall. I left her, thinking that one slight move from the bag in the wrong direction and it would have pulled her tiny frame by her neck head over heels backwards into the brambles six feet below!

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We have a drive leading up to the front of the house, to a turning circle which through lack of use had turned into what appeared to be a well kept lawn. 

The reality is that during wet weather and through proper use (ie being driven on by vehicles) it turned into a mudbath which proved difficult to drive on. Will and Richard worked tirelessly to dig up the grass with spade to get down to the hard core. But despite their effort there was very little to see for it. So Will  hired a mini-digger for a week to help clear the drive and turning area of grass, soil and mud with a view to helping drain the area. Will's brother and nephew visited for a few days and together with Will and Richard they were in their element, enjoying a 'boys and toys' time with the digger. When they left, other friends arrived for the weekend and the digger was well used and the drive cleared.

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We are lucky to have an abundance of interesting walks, long or short, easy or strenuous, inland or coastal from our front door. 

During a walk with our visitors along the coast and back up through fields, we came across a rusty old metal bedstead which didn't appear to be doing anything useful. So at my request  the 'men' graciously carried the heavy lump of iron back to the house.

It has now very nicely patched up a hole in the fence, but is no deterrent to greedy sheep and goats who wrongly suspect that my garden has delights galore.

Another walk took us to an old granite quarry which sits quite spectacularly behind our house, overlooking the sea. The clouds were low, and the mists swirling around the buildings gave it a very mysterious and eerie feel. 

Once (approx 1850 - 1960) this would have been a VERY busy place as would have the local, now sleepy, villages which housed the quarry workers and their families as well as visitors from abroad who were well paid for their work. Now unused, it has become as much a feature of our landscape as the mountains and sea which surround it.



Next Blog - We move house and the builders start work.

WE PUT OUR HOUSE ON THE MARKET - April 2012

  

Will took early retirement in Spring 2011 and then spent his time traveling to and from Wales on roughly a fortnightly basis. I could take early retirement from July 2012 at the earliest. We both felt it would be beneficial for me to join Will as soon as possible. With this in mind, despite the poor housing market we decided to put our lovely family house on the market at the beginning of the Easter holidays, with a view to hopefully selling within the year and maybe moving in December/January 2013 or maybe a year or so later. Who can tell? 

It was a big decision to make, but one which needed to be made. We had lived here for 20 years and raised 4 children here. We loved the house. We loved its location. We had excellent friends, neighbours and facilities. I enjoyed my job. Everywhere was easily accessible, from small towns to big city centres, from local canal walks to Derbyshire's mountains and vales, from schools and doctors to theatres. However, the children had moved on and left us rattling in a large house so it was time for us to move on too. 

We had 3 different estate agents to value the house. The first valued it at the same price it was on the market for 20 years before! Even with the current climate we knew it should sell for more than that! With persuasion we managed to push up his valuation a little, knowing that we would be unlikely to sell it for the asking price in today's climate. He gave reasons for his hesitancy –

• "it would fetch more if it was on a nice estate". (We wondered what was wrong with a nice road. There must be some buyers out there who would choose to live close to amenities on a nice road rather than on a nice estate away from the town centre).
• "it would fetch more if it had a big drive – people these days like room to park 5 cars". (He seemed oblivious to the fact that there are still some people around with just one car. There are also people who don't need even one car when they are so close to all facilities. People are starting to think about their finances more, and spending less on cars and petrol. Could this not be a selling point too? Apparently not!).
• "it would fetch more if it was the right way around"!!! (The attractive side of the house - which looks like it should be the front - overlooks the mature secluded garden, not the road. It makes the house and garden what they are, and we thought a potential selling feature).

      
Guess what - No surprises - Feeling quite depressed about his comments, we decided not to go with that estate agent!

The 2^nd estate agent was very pleasant and valued the house much higher. 

The 3rd valued it slightly higher again. We decided to go with this one. 

Both these estate agents agreed that being close to facilities and the 'back-to-front house' were selling points. No mention was made of the lack of parking!

Job done ... and feelings of doubt started to creep in. Were we doing the right thing? I suddenly found myself paying attention to all the lovely things I have taken for granted over the past 20 years. The original features dating back to 1910, such as the beautiful stained glass windows. 

How could we ever replace our peaceful garden where we went for solitude, 
    
                                 

or the homely kitchen where visitors relaxed and always complimented?

And would we ever find another garden pet like 'Sonic Tiggywinkle' our resident hedgehog who brought the family much amusement and the cats company

Most of all I loved my old wooden single glazed sash windows and original wooden French doors opening out into the garden. Despite these feelings, we both felt the time was right to sell up and move on to a new life. 

The Welsh house has few original features, but that's probably not surprising in a cottage reputedly 400 years old, with several different owners over recent years who have each put their mark on the house. Was there even glass in poor cottage windows 400 years ago? I love original features and would like to restore or keep as much as possible/affordable, but I think having glassless windows would be taking that passion just a step or two too far! Some parts of the house were probably originally cow sheds which I doubt had any windows at all. The Welsh house has UPVC windows. UPVC windows have been my pet hate for many years. But with everything else the house has going for it, I have to make some compromises. I shall persuade Will to consider replacing the plastic windows with new wooden sash windows which I can then paint a colour of my choice.

We spent the two week Easter holiday working on the Welsh house. During this time the estate agent showed several people around our house. Apparently all parties were interested, but all need to sell their own houses. One family returned a few times and they had a potential buyer. They put an offer on, albeit a little low. With the house only having been on the market for 2 weeks, should we hang on and wait for a higher offer? At this stage there were other potential buyers but none of whom have sold their own houses, so we took a bit of a gamble and decided to accept the offer.

A week later the estate agents phoned to say that the buyer had made a mistake with his finances and asked if we would accept a lower offer? After a few days deliberation, we decided that this offer was still way above the first estate agent's valuation, so we accepted it with a view to having a moving date around the end of August/September. This would give us the Summer holidays and maybe a little bit more to sort out the house contents, bin or recycle anything which we did not need.

I decided I would hand in my notice at work and take early retirement in July 2012. I felt that even if this offer fell through, we had had enough interest to make us think we could sell the house reasonably quickly. I was told at work that if I hadn't moved by the time the summer holidays were over, there could be the possibility of some supply work. I decided to take the risk.

Next blog - I meet an ancient local resident and we work on the drive

A NEW WIND TURBINE? Feb/March 2012

We were invited to a neighbours (also new to the area) for an evening meal. None of us had realised that this coincided with a general meeting in the local village around the possible erection of a wind turbine. So after soup starters, we went down to the village and wandered around in search of the correct church hall where the meeting was to take place. In a small village, it didn't take too long to find. The hall was over-packed with people seated and standing huddled together around the edges and at the back. 

On arrival we were beckoned to the front as there were a few spare chairs dotted about. After clambering our way to the free seats, we realised that the meeting was to be conducted in Welsh, none of us being Welsh speakers! Too late to turn back!  However, there was no need to worry, as we and other non welsh speakers, were handed a set of head phones. A man lurking suspiciously in a doorway, wearing a small microphone and sounding remarkably like David Attenborough translated everything said/discussed/suggested into English. In a voice barely above a whisper he informed us that the speaker pointing to a slide was saying “and here we see peeping out from behind the mountain and the trees, the wing of the turbine as it would be seen to the naked eye ….” in just the way Sir David himself would have spoken about some rarely seen tropical bird. 

The meeting was very heated. Arguments and discussions around health, noise, efficiency, other energy sources, etc, arose between wealthy landowners and the less affluent villagers. An hour and a half later, fors and againsts were still battling out the pros and cons. As it was getting late we decided to leave for our main course. We don't know the outcome, but I gather the 'discussions' continue.

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It was Spring. Flowers were starting to grow. We had flowering daffodils in the garden. This caused great excitement (to me) because we were informed that sheep and goats don’t eat bulb plants :)  PAH! Wrong advice again!  'Our' sheep are partial to daffodil heads :(

Sheep hadn't spotted these daffodils hidden in a secluded spot

Thanks to Linda who put us onto 'wikiHow'. Through this, Will taught himself how to dry stone wall. He built a small retaining wall which will be the edge of our patio at some point in the future. Behind it we were to throw any rubble to use as hard core.

We decided it could be a good idea to grow a small woodland area in our field with a view to converting it into logs in years to come. I researched the cost of buying small saplings and came to the conclusion that our budget would not stretch that far and other necessities would take priority. The guttering around the house was near to useless due to the amount of mud and weeds filling it. In torrentially rainy conditions, Richard & I cleared the gutters of their contents. Among the grass were several ash tree saplings.

 I rescued these and they have become the start of my potential woodland. I found further saplings around the house. Altogether, I rescued about 100, but it remains to be seen whether or not the verb 'rescued' needs to be replaced by 'killed off'. In an effort to protect them from the jaws of my fleecy friends I commandeered an old dog cage found in the house and am raising an army of trees in it. 

Start of my woodland which is now growing in pots 3 to 4 storeys high inside the cage.

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As we no longer need the lower lounge for the time being, it became the 'shed' and was used to house tools and equipment needed for our renovations.

We totally gutted the kitchen and removed the cement from the walls to allow them to dry out.

Kitchen wall

We discovered what appeared to be a small door in a wall which backed onto a bank of soil. We wondered if it could lead to a (wine) cellar beneath the farmers fields. Further investigation revealed an old fireplace, so we decided to keep it revealed as a feature.

We relocated the old sink from the lower kitchen to be used temporarily in this kitchen. 'Temporarily' in this house means months, maybe years, not days or weeks.

Next blog - we put our old house on the market