Reasons To Be Cheerful

                                This is the reason we are packing up the happy bus - cake!

 I have long dreamt of starting a little baking business - sadly our current much loved home does not have the space to accommodate my dream. On one of our regular dog walking routes we had often admired some of the houses on a particular street a short stroll from home, and when one came up for sale we immediately realised that our budget would quite simply not stretch and resigned ourselves to staying put and maybe converting an outbuilding to house my proposed business - we even christened said building 'The Cake Shed'..........

Moving on to September 2012  (a year or so later), the outbuilding remained just that and the big old house around the corner remained unsold. After a hastily organised viewing we put in a rather cheeky offer which was more or less immediately accepted.

Since then we have been on a veritable bungee jump of emotions, we've had cash buyers for our home - disastrous surveys on both properties - cue departure of said cash buyers - and despite our determination, a feeling that perhaps it just wasn't meant to be. We cried, we stamped our feet and we had tantrums the like of which even 'Supernanny' Jo Frost has never experienced, but give up on our dream - never!

We took stock of our situation, strengthened our resolve and dropped our asking price. Then three viewings of our home in as many days - and a further drop in our asking price, buffered by an injection of cash from my lovely Mum - brought about the result we had hoped for and as I write this we are awaiting our completion date.

We don't know how things will work out, the new house needs so much work and we will probably never finish it ........... but we're going to give it our best shot!

On The Move - for the final time!!

Our proposed new home ..... well it was new approximately one hundred and forty years ago!! As the enormity of what we are about to take on hits home I am beginning to feel just a tad nervous. We are no strangers to moving and setting up home - being ex military it was a way of life in the early days of our marriage! But this move is huge, it's massive...... and it's very very scary! We are leaving behind our cosy and comfortable little Victorian semi ........

.... with three bedrooms

comfy sitting room ...

beautiful bathroom.....

large family kitchen ......  

   & delightful little garden .......

to move just around the corner (literally), to a much bigger property, in need of a great deal of tender loving care! I have not the foggiest idea of how to write a blog, but intend to use this as a diary to enable me to record this, our final house move.


We are not only leaving behind lots of memories, our two children spent some of their teenage years here, and now as married couples themselves have each brought their own little reproductions here to visit! We have the most incredibly kind neighbours, one of whom has regularly - (since the appearance of the estate agent's bright red board in the garden), been bringing me little incentives, mostly in the form of chocolate, to try and persuade me to take down the aforementioned 'nasty' board and stay! This same gentleman also bakes cakes for our foster kids and extended family as well as numerous 'others' (nursing homes and the local hospice to name just a couple)! We will miss freshly baked apple pies from the eighty nine year old lady across the road, no matter when you call she is always in the kitchen rustling something delicious up on her huge industrial sized stove! But, if I am to realise my long awaited dream of my own little business, then move we must ..........