Just realised I've forgotten to mark the 3rd anniversary of this blog.
I started it early April 2013 as a diary of our self-sufficient life on a 5 acre Suffolk Smallholding.
We had lived there since 1992 and for most of that time Col worked as a bridge inspector/supervisor for the County Council and I stayed home, milked goats, watched sheep, fed chickens, collected eggs, looked after the campsite and grew and sold fruit and veg. We had already cut down on animals before 2013 because of bureaucracy and lack of time. The most goats we had at one time after spring kidding was 8 and one year after lambing we had 14 sheep! In March 2012 we decided we could earn enough from the smallholding and campsite and Col left full time work. We added a shower to the campsite and increased our growing-to-sell so that with a few days a month council work and a day a week odd-jobbing we lived quite comfortably for a year and a half.
Then came Cols heart problems which made us cut down the workload and decide a move might be a good idea, followed by the Non Hodgkins diagnosis - when to live nearer the hospital became essential.
So here we are in town and the blog is completely different to when I started, luckily blog friends and relatives are still reading - thank you everyone.
People keep asking us if we miss the smallholding - well
yes..............and no. We've not really had a chance to miss it
properly yet and I certainly don't miss all the wood hauling, ash
clearing, kindling chopping and fire-lighting/tending that I had to do,
mostly by myself, all through this last winter. And I definitely don't
miss the DUST! if you've not heated your house entirely with wood and
coal you really don't know the meaning of the word!
I quite like the anonymity of town and the proximity of shops and all the other things we need. It's good to be able to walk everywhere and I can go out walking early morning without getting strange looks - which is what happened when I walked on the roads near the smallholding at 7am!
Anyway, enough looking backwards.
My sister and brother-in-law are finally moving back into Suffolk next Tuesday - May 3rd . They've had even more hassles in their chain than we did (their first date was mid March!) and if they hadn't exchanged by this weekend the owners of the house they are buying were going to take it off the market, thank heavens it all got sorted in time. I had completely forgotten that my sister could knit, she's not done much for a while, but she brought over a couple of little jumpers she'd made for our eldest's "bump" and has already started something for our youngest's. Then I remembered amongst my craft stuff I had a tube of buttons for babies. I bought them years ago from a car boot sale thinking they would do for card making but the Post Office introduced the 'letter thickness thing', so they have been in a drawer ever since. Some are shaped like flowers, teddies or ducks and others have little pictures on, now my sister is all set for cardigan making and I'll find some wool for her from charity shops too -should keep her busy - after they've unpacked and planted up their garden!
I'm just awaiting delivery of a wardrobe and hoping they'll be able to get it in the house and Col is up at hospital having a couple of bags of rejuvenating blood. We should be out for a meal with all our children and their OH's on Sunday.
Back after the weekend
Hope you all have a good one.
Sue
