The calm after the storm

I haven't had a moment to show you the landscape that I have moved into. Last night, during a brief break in the torrential, Malaysian style rainstorms, I took the Loyal Hound along the track from the house and took these photos for you of the nearby puddle.

This is what lies round the corner from the hovel, quite literally three minutes walk away.....





I know, it's pretty terrible isn't it? Wait till I take some pictures on a sunny day, then you'll really see how awful it can be.....

Terrified House Owner reporting for Duty.

It is done! I am now the terrified owner of a house in the middle of nowhere, as of 2.30pm today. At the moment I'm not excited about it. Instead I'm wondering if I have made the worst mistake of my life and will be miserably unhappy there. You know how it is. You get the keys to this empty house and suddenly you see all the damp patches, the exposed pipework, the shell bath (yes, truly, there is a shell bath) in all it's glory and you think. What have I done??? I am hoping that over the next couple of days this feeling will be replaced with excitement.

I know that one of the reasons that I am not that excited yet is that I feel horribly displaced. My current hovel is a fort made of packing boxes with newspaper tumbleweed blowing down the stairs. All of it's Brambly Hedge charm has been packed away and it sounds, smells and feels like a different place. Equally the new house doesn't feel like mine yet either. Nowhere feels like mine.

This will change. It just may take time. I will take photos tomorrow of the new house for you and when I can get on line then you can see for yourselves whether you think I am a lunatic or an inspired interiors genius.

Now accepting that moving is in the top three most stressful things t do, it has been the icing on the cake that my idiotic broadband suppliers cut me off on Friday last week, instead of this coming Friday. Consequently, in between packing and a trip to Dorset and a trip to London, I have spent the last few days shouting and sobbing down premium rate phone lines at indifferent call centres. All to no avail though. It seems that cutting me off is easy, reconnecting me takes millenia. Growing crystals is faster. This is why I have been so quiet on the blogging front. I simply don't understand why it takes 'up to THIRTY FOUR DAYS' to connect me back onto broadband? What are they doing that takes that long? Weaving the lines out of spider silk? How do they expect small businesses to survive if this is their idea of speedy??? On Monday I really did break down on the phone, sobbing with frustration and fury and then slamming the phone down on them. On Tuesday I actually yelled with rage when I had to explain the situation for the SEVENTEENTH TIME. Honestly, the seventeenth. The whole thing has nearly killed me and it has certainly put me off moving ever again. I'd better learn to really love this house.

So, on top of giving up smoking I have had to give up blogging. It's too much to ask of a girl. The smoking quitting thing is going okayish I suppose. I have had the occasional cigarette break but we are talking one every four days, not one ever four minutes, so I am getting somewhere. I don't think the hypnotist can take that much credit for it though. I did have a return match there but left feeling no different (though no worse this time either).

There has been one lone ray of sunshine in the last few days though. On Saturday there dropped through my letterbox a jiffy bag filled to the brim with honest to goodness delicious chocolate. This was from Just Me (who has a link over there on the left) and who has now been elevated to a goddess in my world and is going to have a shrine built to her at the new house. I mean seriously. This is somebody who sent me chocolate because she wanted to cheer me up. Just Me - THANK YOU. You are a kind and lovely person who deserves better neighbours, the lottery numbers and your very own George Clooney. If Karma really works then all these things will be yours. You have been my silver lining this week.

So. I know this is another demented and incoherent rant from the mountainside. I blame moving and no nicotine. It fries the brain, drains the soul and leaves you a crumpled rag with no ability to be coherent. Bear with me - I promise that, Phoenix like, I shall emerge from the ashes a new and lucid Welsh Girl.

Oh BAUBLES! I've just realised I was supposed to organise a date with composer man last night and I forgot. Oops....

Do Not Leave Unsupervised with Children

Had an idyllic day at the hovel yesterday. Two sets of friends with their respective children agreed to risk their health and come for Sunday lunch. I was a paragon of efficiency and had everything organised with military precision. Well, until I decided to quickly try and do the general knowledge crossword and got distracted, forgot about the lamb and overcooked the potatoes.

The day was mild and sunny and the wind chill factor was only on the -3 mark, so T shirt weather really. The house was as tidy as I was going to make it, and I had warmed the plates and everything. Fine, the lamb wasn't as pink as I would have liked, and the leeks could have been cooked for a little longer, but the chocolate and chilli pudding was a work of art and I had all the ingredients for Bloody Mary's so everyone was happy.

The small boys had a bag full of dinosaurs to play with after lunch. Much roaring and shrieking accompanied this but they seemed pretty happy (or perhaps that was the sound of dismemberment, it can be hard to tell). The Loyal Hound did eat three of the dinosaurs, but they only found out about one and never noticed the other two were missing.

Small girl kept herself happily occupied playing shut the box, reading a book and helping to clear up the lunch by eroding the edges of the remaining hunk of pudding with her finger. It was all very M & S advertish.

After coffee, chocolates and more wine, we rose to the lure of the sunshine and went up to the pond. Mack and Mabel, the geese, have returned to their usual nest and we hauled the boat out for a tour of the island that their nest is on. Having loaded the three children into it we then kindly pushed in one of the fathers and let him row them round and round for half an hour. There were shrieks of 'ALLIGATOR' and 'CROCODILE' from the small boys who were torturing themselves by trailing their fingers in the water and then snatching them out at the prospect of primeval monsters surging up from the deep. Mack and Mabel took the gawping with good grace, though Mack did have to have strong words with one of the dogs who had also come visiting and misunderstood the territorial rights of a father goose. One chastened puppy retreated rapidly to the other side of the pond.

High entertainment was provided when small boys returned to the bank, and small girl insisted on learning to row. She sat in the middle, oars in hand and her father sat in the stern of the boat. The weight disparity between a small, sylph like child and a large man became instantly apparent. The bow of the boat was so far out of the water that the rest of us could see the keel. It looked like some sort of a Miami power boat. Small girl could scarcely reach the water with the oars she was so high up. Whilst we rolled about laughing they rowed, stately as a galleon, studiously ignoring our snorts and gasps.

Finally they returned to shore and the children's attention turned to the wildlife. It is toad shagging season and for anyone who lives near freshwater they will know that there is a week of Toad Porn going on. Everywhere you look there are clusters of toads busy ensuring the future of the species. It is not unusual to see some 40 or so toads at it in the sunshine in one small patch of water.

It didn't take the children long to spot the toads but due to their camouflage it is easy to see the small male but not the larger, drabber female beneath him. After prodding several of the beleagured things with reeds I finally agreed to sweep up a toad in a bucket so that they could study him at close quarters.

So busy were they that the toads scarcely seemed to notice their change of habitat, but the children noticed all too quickly that I had presented them with not one, but two toads, apparently giving each other piggy backs. That is of course a nice, straightforwards story that I could have used but did I? Did I heck. When asked what they were doing I absent mindedly said 'Oh, they are having sex'.

What the hell was I thinking? The boys are 3 and 4, small girl is 7. I think there are rules, inviolable rules about this sort of thing. Rules along the lines of 'don't mention sex to other people's children, even in the context of toads'. It was too late though. I had brought the topic up and was rewarded with an instant question from one of the small boys; 'what's sex?'. I will say that I recovered fast. I had realised the quicksand that I had leapt into and took steps to edge myself out. 'Sex' I replied 'is how frogspawn is made'. This was taken on board with disinterest and attention reverted to whether it would be possible to hold the copulating toads, keep them in a matchbox, or poke them with a reed. It seemed disaster was averted, but only by the skin of my teeth.

It is one thing to educate your own children, but involunatry education of other people's children is a whole other kettle of fish that I wish I had come nowhere near. I must remember to say nothing in front of children, ever again, before I accidentally mention STD's, alternatives to the Missionary position and the truth about Father Christmas to more of the little wretches.

I officially owe lots of money to the men in suits..

So, I have a mortgage. It's official and to prove it the bank has just nicked nearly £600 out of my bank account as an 'arrangement fee'. Translation - money in return for them lending me money which will be repayed threefold over the years. I might set up a bank - I'm mystified as to how they all have lost money in the last couple of years as I have never been so conscious as I am at the moment of how they make money off you at every single bloody opportunity.

Anyway, enough whinging. Spring is after all officially here. The geese have arrived back from their winter holidays, parents and three children in noisy and ebullient form. They are currently practising their formation flying over the house then landing in the field and discussing in their loudest voices who did the best.

The crocuses (crocii?) are in such full bloom that they have fallen over under the weight of their own blossoms and there are bright green leaves unfurling on the dog roses.

It's odd to not be gardening but there seems little point as I should be in the new house in the next six weeks. There is plenty of garden space there but no actual garden - a lot of lawn and a few bedraggled shrubs. I'm not sure how much actual top soil there is either - this is Wales where you often discover granite mere cms under the soil. I'm planning on taking as much of my current garden with me as possible but will first have to find somewhere to plant everything at the new house.

I spend a lot of time at the moment imagining myself living there to get used to the idea and to wean myself off the current hovel. I think it is working. I nearly drove to the new house after my meeting today I was so convinced I already lived there. I was going to go for a walk round the reservoir and everything.

The estate agent board has a 'sold subject to..' sign on it and I have a mortgage - it must be real. Up until now I have been convinced that the whole thing was an elaborate hoax and that something would go wrong and I wouldn't get the house. From this point on if the whole thing falls through it will be very expensive as I will have paid for the survey, have incurred solicitors charges and the banks arrangement fee. Fingers crossed nothing goes wrong. How odd that by May I might be living in my own house though. For four years I have been agonising over the house search, despairing of ever finding anything and wondering if I should just give up and stay where I am. Now, in the space of just a few weeks, my whole world has been shifted like a kaleidescope and there is suddenly a new view ahead of me of what my life will look like.

HOLY CAMOLE & GADZOOKS!!!!

Things got a little frenetic last week so I haven't had a chance to catch you up on the drama of the search for a new hovel. As some of you may know I had put an offer in on a bijou residence in the middle of nowhere, just to the left of the back of beyond and I had been waiting to hear if I was to be the lucky owner.

The news was not good. A new buyer had appeared on the scene with a higher offer. Not much higher, but higher. However they needed a mortgage the size of a small country's national income. I chewed my nails, I counted up my shekels and I decided to play hardball. I refused to up my offer. I said I was the better bet, the nicer person and had shinier hair. I pointed out that the Loyal Hound was sought after by thousands and what an honour it would be to have him move in. I also pointed out that I had my mortgage lined up, I wasn't in a chain and I WASN'T UPPING MY OFFER.

A deathly silence followed. I panicked. Had I made a horrible mistake? Should I spend the weekend building a small mint and printing off some extra money? How important was food in the general scheme of things? Could I budget on not eating for a year and up my offer that way? OK, obviously I'm never stopping eating (even if perhaps I should). I held my ground (sobbing and wailing all the while mind you) and I went back to waiting by the phone.

So, after a week of sitting on tenterhooks (not a position to be recommended and should definitely be looked at by Health & Safety), the phone rang yesterday evening. It was a miserable grey day with rain driving horizontally across the windscreen as I drove home. Ironically it was one of those days when I wondered why I live in Wales when I'm sure I could have made a life for myself and the Loyal Hound in Jamaica. However, I digress. The phone rings. Naturally I can't find it to start with as it is buried under old receipts, cheque books, mascaras I don't use and bits of lint at the bottom of my bag. Despite this obstacle course I find it in the nick of time.

Who should it be but Smelly Sheet man. Shockingly, he has finally made a decision and his decision is (drum roll please) - FOR ME!!!!

Holy Camole, Gadzooks and Jiggery Pokery. Suddenly there is a very real chance that I will have a house of my own. After four years of looking the shock of actually getting something may be too much for me. I can't imagine it. Before I start dancing a jig I give myself a stern talking to. There is much that can go wrong between now and being given the keys and I won't get my hopes up in case I jinx the whole darn thing.

By the time I got back onto my mountain side the excitement had worn off and been replaced by fear. Crippling horrible fear. What if I didn't like it enough? What if I couldn't fix it up the way I had so merrily planned? What was I doing taking on a mortgage in the middle of a recession (god forbid, depression). What if I was attacked by yetis living in the surrounding forest? Aaargh. I am now living on an emotional rollercoaster of joy and terror at the possibilities that my life suddenly holds.

Dare I say the word 'Thaw'

Although my world is still white I am silently dancing with glee because there just may be a thaw in the air. For the first time today, my footprints in the snow have turned transluscent, giving a glimpse of the ground beneath. In fact, the whole texture of the snow has changed. The top is a frozen crust that rattles when you walk through it but beneath this icy top the snow is wet and rotten.

You wouldn't know this to look out across the valley. The world is monochromatic still. White with black hedges and woods scratched across the glare and not a hint of green to be seen yet. But I have hope.

Yesterday, before the two hour blizzard that blotted out the world once more, I managed to get my car off the mountain. This involved getting friends with a tank like four wheel drive to cautiously edge their way down my track, before leading me on a towrope back out. There were a couple of hairy moments. One where i slid down a gully with no steering control or brakes, straight towards an outcrop of granite, and a couple of times where my wheels spun uselessly on the snow as I went nowhere. However, we succeeded. An hour later my car was parked safely in the village. So now, though I still have to walk in and out, I can at least then drive myself wherever I want to go, whenever I want and for as long as I want!

The long walk back up the hill does not encourage road trips just for the hell of it but it is a taste of freedom and not soon enough for me. This means that my work trips can now be safely rescheduled so tomorrow it is off to Dorset and back again on Wednesday night. If the thaw does come then I might even be able to drive all the way to the hovel by then. If instead we have another foot of snow as they are forecasting then I will be knocking on doors in the valley to beg a bed for the night. I don't fancy walking a mile up the mountain carrying my suitcase after a five hour drive. I'm a lightweight like that!

They have to be kidding?

So, I went to see a house today. To be honest it was WAY out of my price range. I mean a hundred thousand pounds out, but I thought 'what the heck? It's been on the market for over a year, why not?' and off I pootled to check it out.

The estate agents (foul untrustworthy fiends) had painted a picture of a 4 bedroom farmhouse with kitchen, sitting room, dining room and utility room, a couple of acres, stables, outbuildings etc etc. Everything I wanted in my dream world (well, a swimming pool, Library and walk in dressing room wouldn't go amiss either). It looked sort of interesting on the site and over the last year of property searching I have looked at this house over and over again and persuaded myself that perhaps the reason I can't find a house is because this one is perfect and naturally therefore out of my budget. But in these hard pressed times perhaps they would take an offer, a ridiculously low laughable offer. I am an optimist. I booked a viewing.

It was blizzarding as I drove through the lanes, following the directions from the foul, untrustworthy fiends. Naturally these were ludicrous and took me 5 miles out of my way on the most circuitous route possible. Finally I find the house. First problem? You can't turn into the drive. Instead you have to drive past it and reverse in with a lovely three foot drop off on one side of the car. Not encouraging.

The yard was a tip. The 'stables' were a ramshackle corrugated shed, with a second shed randomly placed behind it and then bizarrely a small garden shed with a balcony looking, not at the view, but at the road. Turning my attention to the outside of the house, I see that the doors are painted in seventies brown and the window frames in a shade of yellow that should be illegal. That definitely did not show up on the website but it's all fixable so I refuse to run away and instead, knock on the door.

The man who showed me round said they had lived there for 18 years and had not had to do anything to the house. This might be because it was too messy to see that stuff needed doing to it. I mean in all honesty, it was a tip (I'm always amazed at people who don't tidy up AT ALL when they are trying to sell their house). What I could see was not particularly exciting. The utility room is, well, utilitarian. The downstairs loo had a charming blue loo and sink with contrasting cream loo seat (mmm, nice!). It turns out that if you want to flush the loo you have to run the cold tap on the sink. Really, for hundreds of thousands of pounds, you can get charming personal touches like this.

The kitchen isn't nice or horrible, it's just a kitchen and it turns out to be one of the lightest room in the house. I could see my hands and see that there was only 1 metre of worksurface. However there is a narrow room next door that could be knocked into the kitchen with money I don't have so I refuse to let this get me down. Next we go through a biggish room that is the sitting room but is also the corridor so they have only been able to fit one chair and a short sofa into it. The room is bitterly cold and with no doors on the openings leading out of it, I can't see that getting any better. We turn into the old part of the house and move into what I am told is the 'Dining Room'. The ceilings so low the loyal hound might risk concussion and the walls are painted the colour of an aubergine. It's so dark I trip over a chair. Fumbling towards the doorway on the other side of the room I find myself in a lobby at the foot of stairs so steep I may need crampons to climb them. It turns out that the Master Bedroom is on the other side of the stairs, but on the ground floor. It is also dark and icily cold due to the fact that all the floors are tiled. Now I know that a lick of paint can work wonders but this is all starting to get ridiculous. I feel like a mole, a mole facing the eiger.

I climb the stairs wishing for safety ropes and choose door number two. This is apparently bedroom 3. I'm not sure I'd call a room so small that you can't open the door fully into it a bedroom but there you go. Opposite is a tiny bathroom and then there are two more bedrooms, not small but definitely not big. I take a deep breath and go back down the stairs, beaning myself on the meter box that hangs precariously over them as I go.

Emerging back into the cold wind whipping over the hill I stared across the valley and wondered exactly what I would get for the hundreds of thosands of pounds that I don't have. Concussion? Hypothermia? An inability to see in real daylight?

I know that we all put our hopes and our hard earned cash into our property. It is the ultimate nest egg but this is ridiculous. If that house had been half the price I'm not sure I would consider it and they want twice what it could possibly be worth. They have to be kidding. I'm sticking with the hovel. At least I can see inside it without a flashlight at midday.