The move stage 1-
Two and a half weeks into the move onto our smallholding and it still feels like there’s an enormous mountain to go, to be fair there is. We are however climbing it, albeit with a lot of perseverance (and currently no wine as my 13 year old had decided we have had enough of that and put us on a health kick). She’s probably right or we will both be raging alcoholics by the end of the year.
It is indeed a lot easier to be forgiving to ourselves on this crazy project through slightly wine tinted vision, watching the sun come down over the hills with a glass of wine in hand you tend to forget that giant crack in the wall, the rising damp and potentially dry rot oh and the rat infestation, not to mention the smell. Honestly, we are so happy we have done this.
The journey so far has been unusual, or perhaps not – I’ve never attempted anything like this before. We moved onto the land of our house in our mini camper van a week before the completion date. The house bought at auction had already seen us exchange but not complete. The previous owner agreed he was happy for us to do this in exchange for some help removing his belongings which were (are) immense, we agreed. Little did we realize how much there was still to be removed. 1 week 4 humans and 8-10 hour days finally saw us see the empty inside of our new home. The outside is still ongoing, but to be fair there’s a substantial bit of outside.
It’s fair to say that the week we arrived feeling like we were on holiday and we came armed with a can-do attitude and nothings going to bring us down. We were fairly excited, having talked about the idea for over 10 years we were finally here. By day four 2 of us were sick (possibly from the dust we’d created disturbing rat poo, mould and crumbling plaster whilst moving old carpets and furniture). I went out and bought some serious dust mask designed for hazardous waste removal and they have been a godsend and I also banished the youngest from the house so she could recover in the camper snuggled under a duvet with Netflix. It’s fair to say ill or not we were all exhausted but we did achieve what we set out to do and empty the site and completed on the house now ours, warts and all, and our own belongings will soon be arriving, hopefully into a cleanish, rat-free house,
During this period youngest also started school and parents arrived, (not to stay in the house, having seen how the house started I’m not sure they will ever feel brave enough to stay). Instead, parents rented a pretty little Welsh cottage a few miles away on a neighbouring mountain hillside with showers a clean kitchen and giant comfy beds, youngest was very happy with this arrangement as she moved in with them for the week.
Since the house has been ours we have cleaned, scrubbed, burnt debris and scraped years of old stuff. The project is starting to move a little quicker now.