My 1701 Post

Who knew that when I wrote THIS post in January 2009 that I would still be writing this blog over six years later, that so many of you would have followed us on this amazing journey from living in the middle of a town in Cumbria, to living in wild wooly and rural Oxfordshire, Berkshire and now in our final destination North Wales.

Make yourself a coffee, and pull up your chair and pretend you are in the front seat of my car .... we are going on a journey.

Who knew that when we set out along this track ...

... taking a photo at each bend in the road.

With the mud splashing the car ...

... not knowing 

... what was at the end.

Bend after bend ....

... until we came to a farmhouse, knocked on the door and Jill jumped in her car ...

... leaving her dog to guard the house ...

... and we continued along the track.

Past farm vehicles sat in the muddy grass ...

.... past barns and even more old and new farm machinery.

Past the tractor that stayed in exactly the same position as a landmark ...

... for all future visitors ...

... who travelled this well worn track to see us in the middle of nowhere.

Round more bends than you can imagine,

... through the fields where one day we would walk our dogs.

Along the almost final straight ....

... until there is a glimmer of what might be there ahead of you.

Until finally in the distance ....

... the house that was to start our adventure and be our home for the first three trial years of self sufficiency.  

Of learning about country ways, of joining in with Farmers Markets.  Raising chickens and pigs, growing veggies and fruit.  Spending time with family and good, good friends made along the way all through our journey.

Who knew that my musings would one day be read by thousands of lovely folk all over the world,  who joined in with us, despairing when things went wrong, buoying us up when times got hard, wet and miserable.    Who encouraged us when we took in rescue chickens and learnt with them how to scratch for our food in the earth.  When we bought and raised pigs, wallowing alongside them in more mud than we had ever seen before.   

All along the way you were there watching our successes, our failures, our fun, joining in our laughter, loving our animals almost as much as we did ourselves.  Sadly the original trio are no longer with us but they paved the way and opened our hearts to other furry characters that have overlapped, joined in and found their little bodies warmed by our open fires and their tummies fed by food grown by us, aided by them and watched by you.

Who knew that one thousand seven hundred posts would go by and still we would be here ...  it's been a journey, as long a journey as that first drive through fields seemed at the time, exciting and never quite knowing the direction things would take, being one step ahead of ourselves and at times one step behind where we should have been.  Thank you for sharing it with us ..... we are still on the path of learning that is this rural country life and enjoying almost every minute of it.

I hope you will continue with us as we carry on living ..... Our New Life in the Country

(The drive you just accompanied me on was just over two miles long ... and our route to the village and civilisation for three years, we only got snowed in a couple of times amazingly.)

Sue xx

Is Everything Designed to Self Destruct ?

 

When we moved house we used our savings to buy ourselves the nice things we had always wanted and had waited for since we got together, we left our old supermarket 'basic' toaster at the old house for the handyman to be able to use when he had his tea breaks and bought ourselves a new Russell Hobbs kettle and toaster.

 

It looked lovely on the work top all matchy matchy with the kitchen cupboards and the Aga, well guess what ..... last week with two slices of bread in it half toasted it went 'BANG', a very loud bang and then nothing ... it was dead.

 

So much for paying a bit more and going for quality, our cheapo toaster had been with us for four years and was still going strong when we left it behind.

 

We are not amused.

 

 

In fact we are so not amused we are not going to replace it at all turning instead to one of these, an Aga toast maker.  You simply pop your slices of bread or teacakes etc in between the layers close it up and place it under the hotplate lid.

 

The toast is delicious, dry right through and deliciously crunchy with a lovely texture, something we have never experienced from any other toaster.

 

 

And I love the space where the toaster used to sit even more than I loved the toaster!!

 

Then this morning we discovered a hole in the rubber door seal of the washing machine and I have discovered to my horror that we have a pool of water sitting under all the kitchen cupboards.  The washing machine too is only six months old

 

So as the title of this post says ....  Is Everything Designed to Self Destruct ?

Things at least used to last until just after their initial 12 month guarantee ran out, now they are going wrong six months into use.

 

So that's two things gone wrong, I wonder what the third will be?

 

Sue xx

 

 



Closing the Door for the Last Time

 

Closing the door for the last time on our lovely little bungalow is a strange feeling. 

 

We done so much in the two years we've been here.  We've lost family members and pets during our time here, we've held each other close and weathered every storm and we've come out stronger on the other side.  We've also had fun, lots of fun and lots of laughter, we 've had the delight of making new friends, both here in the neighbourhood and through the Blog.  It's been a good home.

 

 

But now the cupboards are bare ...

 

... barer than they've ever been.

 

 

The tools of day to day living have been shrinking away to nothing over the last few weeks, until now we are left with just one trailer load to take with us.

 

Tomorrow after the chickens have had an hour to stretch their legs at first light, have eaten their last breakfast of Layers Pellets and drank their last drink of Berkshire water they will be loaded into their crates and settled in the back of the Mitsu ready for their journey up the motorways of Britain.  The dogs will eagerly take their positions on the seat behind Lovely Hubby as he pulls away in the truck with me following closely behind in the Corsa, with the cats nestled in their travel baskets on my back seat.

 

 

We will close the door on this little 1930's bungalow, and begin our new life in a new country.

 

North Wales here we come ..... you have been warned!!

 

Sue xx

 

 

 

 

 

And in the great tradition of all good movies ..... here  is the Blooper Reel .....

 

 

Trying to do a 'staged' shot of the closed front door I left it on the catch so I wouldn't lock myself out, Archie the cat heard the door not shut properly so decided to make his way in ....

 

... the dogs heard Archie coming in and decided to make their way out ......

 

 ... take two  :-)

 

 



My Sealed Pot is No More

 

Ooops, the first casualty of the move!!

 

My lovely Sealed Pot slipped through my fingers yesterday when I went to pick it up to pack it safely away ready for the move.

 

 

Suky the Pug was first on the scene to inspect the damage.

 

 

Luckily because it has just been emptied there was only a little bit of money inside the pot, imagine if I had lifted it the other week with all that change in it.  One less thing to pack!!  Poor Sealed Pot, it was brilliant while it lasted, luckily I have a suitable tin at the other house that I can seal up and continue our saving in.

 

The final push packing away all the bits and pieces of normal living is on now, to say we are living minimally would be an understatement.  We sleep on a mattress on the floor, we have the sofa and the small TV, the biggest luxury is in the kitchen where we still have the table and chairs, so at least Blogging and eating our evening meal is done in comfort.

 

Sue xx

 

Another New House

 

 

Lovely Hubby chose the windiest of windy days to erect the new hen house last weekend.  Gales blew all around our area and indeed over lots of the country on Friday and Saturday, whole trees were blown across the road near us stopping all traffic during the night while they were cut through and moved.

 

 

But a little matter of gale force winds didn't stop my man!!

 

With the base all in place and the wheels on there was enough weight in the bottom to keep it firmly on our hillside, but that wasn't enough to keep the roof on.

 

 

Twice he chased it across the grass before he finally got enough screws in to hold it in place. 

 

 It's a lovely house, really well made and obviously well planned out.  After having our other henhouses, some bought and some designed and built ourselves, we knew exactly what to look for in the chickens new house and this one fitted the bill perfectly.

 

It's large enough to hold up to 35 birds so our 29 with a percentage of them being Bantams will fit in easily with a bit of space left over for the potential patter of tiny little feet next Spring.

 

We bought it from HERE, and I'm adding a link to them in the sidebar as I've decided that any products we use and are pleased with, will be listed on my sidebar to save answering so many emails about where do we get this or that, not that I mind but sometimes it's nice for you just to be able to see the suppliers of things we use rather than have to wait for my answer.  Here's a link to their Facebook Page too

 

I must re-iterate that I do not use products that I am asked to endorse, I only advertise for companies that I want to advertise for.  (I am currently being swamped with offers of goods and services and spending some time each day batting the emails back, this is not a blog for advertising on.)

 

While all the henhouse erecting was going on outside and I was busy painting inside Rosy took to her bed by the Aga ...

 

... and Suky watched proceedings from the conservatory door.

 

 (Note the brand new cat flap!!  Gosh our moggies are spoilt, we had to have a whole new double glazed unit installed in the door to be able to fit it, I am telling LH that to make it more financially viable we really do need a couple of extra cats, that way there will be much more usage and therefore it will be better value for money!!   :-)

 

But after a while even watching your Dad run round the field chasing roof panels gets a little bit boring.

Especially when he eventually decides to hide inside the house fitting the perches!!

 

I'll take some more photos of the henhouse next week when the girls themselves are in residence and we have the temporary fence around it.  We intend to have an outside covered area, a dust bathing area under the house and access to two different halves of the grass so that one can recover while the girls run on the other.

 

We've learnt a lot of lessons in the five or so years we've kept chickens and it's nice that we can finally put them all into action on our very own bit of land.

 

 Sue xx

Painting Almost Done

 

 We've almost reached the end of the painting, it's been a long hard slog with every room needing it's ceiling doing, two coats of paint on the walls and all the woodwork gloss painted, but at last, thank goodness, the end is in sight.

 

Lovely Hubby did the first coat on the walls in the conservatory last weekend.   We didn't get around to assembling the new henhouse as I originally said we would, which hopefully will be done this weekend instead, otherwise the chickens who are coming with us next week will have nowhere to sleep, instead we decided to concentrate on the inside of our house rather than the hens!!

 

 

Telling him he looked like he was worshipping his paint tray on the first picture he decided to actually do it on this one :-)

 

It's all looking very bare and clean in the conservatory now a completely different story to how it was before,  we used it as our store for all things DIY and without a place of their own.

 

 

The kitchen however, is a different kettle of fish, the worktops keep filling up with all the bits and pieces we are using over the course of each day and it's an on-going struggle to make space to eat every now and then, but one that we do do otherwise it will all get out of hand. 

 

In the brown paper box is my surprise Christmas present from LH, delivered to the house last week, I have no idea what it is .... but it doesn't rattle at all, is quite lightweight and smells of nothing in particular ;-)

Little finishing touches are being added all around.

 



 

I'm in two minds whether to paint the little gate that stops the dogs from going upstairs or leave it 'rustic' as it matches the carpet so well.  The dogs by the way do not seem at all bothered that they have no access to the upstairs, they sneak up for a peek every now and then when the gate is left open when our arms are too full to be able to close it behind us, but finding no doggy toys up there or nothing of interest they usually come down without even being asked.

 

Our lovely new mirror has now gone up on the bedroom wall, as well as the lampshade that we have brought with us from the bungalow, it matches the bedside lamps we already have and looks just as good with the new curtains here as it did with the ones back home.   Hopefully our king sized bed will fit on this weeks trailer load so we can finally sleep in our own bedroom rather than the guest room.

 

  LH has a friend coming round tonight to help load the trailer with some of our heavier items and is hoping to phone around some of our new contacts at the other end to help with the unloading.  So I better get off the computer now and go and get some more packing and shifting done in readiness.

 

It's nice to know that we're on target for our Christmas move.

 

Sue xx

 



Cold Days, Warm Soup

 

These cold, cold days mean only one thing in this house.

 

 

Six scoops of dried soup mix bought from Approved Foods whenever it is on offer (the last lot cost me 25p a bag) ...

 

 

 

... and one large scoop of Vegetable Bouillon mix from the same place (an unbelievable £1 for a 2.5kg tub) ...

 

 

.... equals one huge pan of steaming hot and tasty soup. 

 

I add any veggies that are lurking in the bottom of the fridge and a spoonful of garlic or chilli flakes, this alters the flavour slightly each time and keeps things interesting.  Making it at the start of the week and keeping it in a couple of large jugs in the fridge, it means that I can have a warming bowl of soup for lunch in amongst the sorting and packing, and taken to work in his 'soup mug' Lovely Hubby can zap it in the microwave and have one too.

 

Simple food at it's best.

 

So we are literally eating for pennies, the only drawback is it's not emptying the freezer as quickly as we would have liked and there is still quite a bit to eat our way through.

 

Sue xx