How the Story Ended

 

After living in North Wales for seven and a half years the country life has come to an end.

Alan decided back in 2018 that he wouldn't be retiring from the day job, and so the time we were able to devote to the land was simply not enough to make it an enjoyable lifestyle.  To do this well you do both have to have a real desire to work it together and both love it equally.

So our hopes and aspirations for the country life were just not to be, so we took the decision to sell up and move on.  We have moved to a lovely little town that I have always loved and which Alan has grown to love over the last couple of years.  Here we have the best of all worlds, a thriving High Street of local independent shops, a regular street market, riverside and canal side walks, quiet country pubs and small restaurants.  Best of all we literally have the countryside on our doorstep and the sea just a twenty minute drive away, and here we are so much closer to both our families ... a bit like where we left back in 2009 really.

A final tour around the house and land.

So to round it up ... we gave it our best shot, had lots of laughs along the way, decided to change tack and came away with a small profit.  Not a bad way to spend the last twelve years. but not quite what we envisioned when I wrote THIS  post!!

Sue xx

It's Been a While ...

It's been a while.

But if you've been missing my occasional wild and wacky Challenges.  The snippets of day to day life, including the odd photo of my furry and feathered friends, I have been blogging at a different location for the last few years.

You can find me at ...


A Smaller and Simpler Life

Sue xx

Time to Say Goodbye

I thought I could do it

Come back and perhaps begin again

But I can't

It's no longer in me

I cannot write to order

Cannot post ahead of time anymore

So I'm here for a final time

To say goodbye

And to thank you for reading my intermittent musings over the years

I've been in a dark, dark place recently

And it shows in my writings

It shows in my dreams

It shows in the faces and places of the world around me

So this is it

Really the end

There's no need to record anymore

But the words and pictures that I've filled these pages with will remain for the many, many of you who are reading your way through the fun filled, laughter filled years.  The years when we found our footings, lost our hearts and began Our New Life in the Country.

Sue  💚

Simply that ....

I've given up explaining,  and not all questions that are asked need answering.

You take me as I am. 

Simply that.

❤

Sue xx

Water, No Water, Clutter, Less Clutter - Edited

Posting because I feel like posting.

Enjoy

Yesterday, on the third day of water pouring from our property across the patio and down onto the road into our roadside drain, where it can water no flowers and do no bloody good whatsoever I decided to do a job I had been putting off for ages.

Sort out our HUGE collection of Dvds.

Now Dvds are pretty much going out of fashion so you can pick them up for a song, just £3 each in Asda or Tesco if you wait for a couple of months after release before you buy them.  Even better they go for anything from 20p to a pound at a car boot sale ... although the girl who thought I would pay £15 for the boxed set of the Walking Dead must have confused me with John Gray.  So over the years I have built up quite a collection.

I love to settle down with a good film, and most of my collection are films that I will watch again and again, but they were taking up too much room.  And the clutter-y look weighed me down, yes ... even though they were behind closed doors in the cupboard.

And not just in that cupboard at the top, also in this drawer.

And on this little shelf in the spare room, where I retreat to watch films if Alan is watching rugby.

So I set to, to sort this out while the workmen finally started digging to find  the cause of our deluge.

A couple of hours later all the Dvds from the covers in the cardboard boxes were safely nestled in the little black carry case.

And another couple of hours saw the rest of them following suit.

Now the cupboard is much clearer.

And the only Dvds still in their original boxes are the large boxed sets or the few that I want to stay in their original cases for the information on them.

Oh and the little pink weights did go back in the cupboard ... after I stubbed my toes on them once too often while they waited on the floor!!

Next I did my Cd collection, quite a small one now I use our Brennan and have discovered downloads but still a few I wanted to keep.

Just as I finished the guys found the root of the problem and finally sorted it out.  A manufacturing fault on the blue water pipe.   That teeny, tiny little hole has a lot to answer for.

But it did mean that I got stuck into a job I had been putting off for ages.

--------------------

EDITED

I  thought I would just edit this post to add that although the insurance appointed workmen fixed the leak and managed to restore water to the house, in the process they completely removed a valve they said was faulty ... it turns out this valve was all that stood between us and seriously high and very damaging water pressure.  

We now have no ceiling in our hallway after a deluge from the upstairs toilet.  Thank goodness I'm married to an engineer who cleaned out the valve and replaced it as soon as he got home.  Now we just have to wait for floorboards and carpet to dry out and for a new ceiling to be installed. 

Now I'm away, and poor Alan is at home sorting this second mess out

It never rains ... literally ... but it pours.

--------------------

Don't expect me regularly.

But do look out for me now and again.

Sue xx

The Net Tunnel - June 2018

The Net Tunnel June 2018

Fully planted.

To the left from front to back -

Baby trees in pots (just visible)

Red Onions

In tyres - Courgette/Leeks/Carrots

In front of tyres - Two Aricula Primulas

Courgette

Two Cucumber plants

In front of courgette and cucumbers - Lavender (Hidcote)

Strawberry Bed

To the right from front to back -

Pots and tubs of Potatoes

Ox -Eye Daises

Turnips

White Onions

Leeks

 In the centre -

Bath containing Carrots

3 Blueberry Bushes

To the left of the front doors -

Tyres containing a Courgette plant

... with a supervisory Pug looking on

To the right of the doors -

Tyres containing two Cucumber plants

Opposite both Tunnels - 

Red Currant bushes

Sue xx

By Special Request

Someone recently asked how our story began

So here it is from the beginning 

Click here


 If you wish to read in chronological order

 Simply click on the Newer Post link at the end of each post

I'm busy

Sue xx

For Sue

Sometimes you hear news so sad you have to reappear to let a very special blogging buddy know that your heart has gone out to her.  To tell her that she is in your thoughts and prayers,  and will remain so.

With all our love to Sue on her sad, sad loss ❤

Sue and Alan xx

This Year

This blog is on hold for now ... for this year at least.

Sue xx

Well THAT was 2017 ... and Onward into 2018

It's been a good year overall,. we've done lots, achieved quite a bit and moved our lives forward in the way we hoped to.  I'm not going to go on and on but will leave you with a mostly pictorial post summing up our year.

I started the year participating in Veganuary .... and stayed vegan  :-)

I also stopped blogging, well on here anyway.

Even with no blog posts to compose, February saw us carrying on as usual, very home based and emerging from Winter in a good position, with stores from preserved Summer crops still feeding us nicely.

And with March's arrival back came the urge to post once more about our activities and Our New Life in the Country sprung back into life.

In April the chooks were on the hillside, enjoying early sunshine and the first flush of Spring.

In May we snuck off to the Cotswolds and stayed in the delightful Spring Cottage.  We visited The Black Country Living Museum for the first time during our stay over the border in mid-England.

In June car boot season was upon us and I started sorting through the house for things we no longer needed and also planting to sell.  Splitting houseplants and sowing extra seeds in the polytunnel of annuals and perennials for re-sale.

July saw us with new hens over in Chicken World, the first four arrived at the start of the month and another four later on, known forever more as 'the green girls' and 'the blue girls' after the colour of the bands on their legs.

August was Show month ... we had a great day out at Trelawnyd, meeting a couple of my lovely readers ... 

... and then two weeks later I had a very successful run with my homegrown and homemade wares at the Llanrwst Show.

In September Ethel came into our lives, wandering in off the main road and following Alan into our paddock.  We got vets and farmers advice and treated her wounds, meaning for one weekend at least, she was 'the best dressed sheep in North Wales'.

She is currently off with the tup ... and some of Will's sheep ... on fresh grazing, and after being scanned to she if she is in-lamb will be coming back to us in the next few weeks.  If she has not managed to get pregnant and provide her own company for the future, the plan is to see if we can get a couple of lambs of our own to join her on our hillside later in the Spring.

October was all about books.

I had managed to sell enough over the course of car boot season to completely empty one bookcase, so all the other books were re-organised and checked.  I'm sure a few more will go during 2018 ... well they have to, to make room for the new books I've bought recently  ;-)

In November we  re-decorated ...

... and restyled the living room.

And here we are on the last day of December.  This month our world turned white. 

We used some of our Christmas money to re-visit The Black Country Living Museum to have a weekend away for ourselves,  and to pickup some inspiration for next years Challenge.  

Our egg sales are so successful we now sell out on a regular basis.

We hung our stockings and had a very merry Christmas.

*** *** ***

So it's goodbye for now from Our New Life in the Country ...

                                                    .... which after all is not so new after nine years   ;-)

Happy New Year 

from Sue and Alan xx

Doggy Bathtime

Suky loves a good bath, although we don't do it too often as she takes a long time to dry and is not fond of being damp for long periods.

A good scrub behind her ears is her favourite bit.

Poor little soggy doggy.

Mavis had already had hers and was busy in front of a roaring fire sorting out her feet, and making sure that Dad had rearranged her beard and eyebrows to her satisfaction.

Sue xx

It's Almost Over ....

It's almost over for another year, I couldn't resist taking this photo of part of todays washing!!

Once dry the Christmas T shirts will be packed away for next year.

The contents of my advent calender are now all in the makeup bag that was the final gift on Christmas morning. 

The empty calender is being saved for me to use next year for Alan.  I will keep my eyes open for little gifts to put into the boxes over the coming year, and hopefully M&S will do the same again next year so I can have another one too, as I absolutely loved this.

My favourite gift on Christmas morning was a box made up for us by my older son, which as well as containing yummy things to eat and brilliant items for daily use, included things from my childhood, that had been discovered tucked away in my ex's house and passed on to Simon for giving to me ... saving it for Christmas was a brilliant idea ... it made my day.

Christmas lunch was a quiet affair, cooked together after our daily chores had been completed, and tucked into on our new little table, with Christmas songs playing in the background and the sound of the dogs chewing on new Christmas bones at our feet.

The most successful show of the holiday break was 'Snow Bears'.  The dogs absorbed every minute of the tale of a mummy polar bear trekking across the ice with her twin cubs.

A full hour passed of doggy silence and concentration as the adventures unfolded.

We had quite a television based Christmas this year with the bad weather outside meaning chores were done as quickly as possible and doggies walked as and when we could, but luckily it's been quite good on the old box and I've been drinking in every detail of the BBC adaptation  of Little Women which unfortunately finishes tonight. 

Our Christmas isn't completely over yet though, as my youngest son is coming for a quick overnight visit between shifts from work this weekend.  As an emergency services worker, his Christmas dinner on the actual day was a hastily grabbed and very solitary bowl of pasta, so I think an action replay of our dinner would be a grand way to end our festive celebrations.

I hope each and every one of you had a wonderful Christmas, and can I just say a massive thank you for all the Christmas wishes on the comments on the last post.  It was so lovely to hear from so many people all over the world.

Sue xx