MOVED

The blog here has now finished please add my new blog to your list instead

                              You will find it here at       The Cottage at the End of a Lane.
It would be lovely if you could click the follower button on my new blog , because numbers of followers are much lower than this blog yet I know more people are reading it.
Thank you

Sue

Yesterday was Sunday

I woke early and listened to the Australian Open tennis but it was soon obvious that both Andy Murray and Dan Evans would be heading home on the next plane out - a shame for both. They have Davis Cup versus Canada coming up in a couple of weeks.

We decided to go for a  chilly walk  around the Ipswich waterfront mid-morning, the sun was lovely but it was just so cold we didn't stay out long. (My little camera has developed a big blob on the lens - very annoying)

 Once the docks would have been full of warehouses and boats loading and unloading wood and barley, now the buildings are part of the University of Suffolk and the Marina is full of huge sea-going yachts - a lot of money 'tied up' there.

 I spent the rest of Sunday reading a bit of very light crime fiction, the 4th in a series by  Carola Dunn, set in 1970(?) Cornwall and  described here on the Fantastic Fiction website.
After many years working around the world for an international charity in the late 1960s, Eleanor Trewynn has retired to the relative quiet of a small town in Cornwall. But her quiet life is short-lived when, due to her experience, the Commonwealth Relations Office reaches out to her to assist in a secret conference that is to take place in a small hotel outside the historical village of Tintagel.

Meanwhile, her niece, Detective Sergeant Megan Pencarrow, is investigating the disappearance of a local solicitor when she is assigned to help provide security for the conference. Two African students, refugees from Ian Smith's Rhodesia, arrive for the conference, escorted by Megan's bete noire from Scotland Yard. They are followed by two mysterious and sinister Londoners, whose allegiances and connections to the conference and the missing solicitor are unclear. With a raging storm having trapped everyone in the hotel, the stage is set for murder, and it's up to Eleanor and Megan to uncover the truth before more lives are lost.

Carola Dunn has also written a series of equally silly crime featuring the Hon. Daisy Dalrymple set in the 1920's.

I do hope we get house news this week, we have so much packed that there is really nothing else to do. I've resorted to knitting dishcloths to keep occupied! At least we will have a diversion at the end of the week with a visit of our eldest and grandson from Surrey. They are staying with our son and his wife as we thought we would be in a muddle having just moved or  in the middle of moving. Hmmmm fat chance!

Back Soon
Sue

Keeping Accounts and Suddenly Worrying

Do you keep account of what you spend?
If you are self employed with a business it's something you have to do and if you want to be frugal and look at where you can save then  it really helps.

I can look back at our January spending for several years (well I would be able to if all my old diaries weren't still in a box in the shed! so actually I can only look back at 2015 and 2016)  so I knew that we needed to book the Tucson in for its MOT (done and it passed- good) before the end of the month, and it's tax will be due too. I can see that I bought shoes last January but they are still going strong and we bought a sack of bird peanuts but won't need them this year as we hardly see a bird at all in town - except seagulls. I know from looking back that January is always a good month for spending less on food and it will be even better this month as we eat up all the stuff in the freezer before moving.

And Moving is the real crux of the matter. At the top of my blog it says we are living carefully on savings until pension time. When I wrote that at the top of the blog about a year ago, I didn't know that we were suddenly going to decide to move to a house that was going to take all our savings and the money left from selling the smallholding, leaving us with a two month gap until Colin's pension payout plus a bungalow that won't sell. Not the most sensible thing we've ever done in our lives. If I've done the sums right we'll be OK. If my sums are wrong..........Oh Dear.

Just in case, it's another don't-spend-anything-extra time. I don't need clothes or nick-nacks (never need nick-nacks) or books........definitely not books.Despite it costing a bit more overall I'll just tax the car for 6 months, by the end of July when it's due again we'll have enough money to do a year or we might have to sell it anyway. I've been dithering over buying another floor lamp or tall table lamp but that will wait too.
I've suddenly got very concerned about how much we have to sort out and pay for when we move. Apart from needing to buy and install an LPG cooker, the lady has BT fibre connection - don't know anything about that, or how/if we use the  Wifi box. There is no TV aerial, only a satellite dish so we don't know if the Sky box connection we had at the smallholding will work easily or not........  we seem to be moving without giving a thought about practicalities! I think it's official.............we're mad! (But we have got 3 baby trees here to plant out when we get there - not sure we have our priorities right are you?)

Must say welcome to three more followers. Hello, Hello and Hello!

 11am Friday 13th and we have snow! Big flakes too, but not laying much. But I'm now laid up with what Col had 2 weeks ago. How did that happen? Just very concerned that we went to see our youngest and little Florence yesterday, hope to goodness I didn't pass it on before knowing I had it.

Back Soon
Sue

Moving news

On Monday we went to see the cottage and the lady we are buying from. Her solicitor hadn't told her that our solicitor was away until the 16th so there was no chance of anything happening before then and for some reason she had got things organised for Friday 13th. She wasn't best pleased and I'm sure she thinks we are holding things up, but nothing we can do about it. 
I rang our solicitors secretary as soon as we got home and she assured me that our solicitor rang Mrs F's solicitor before Christmas to tell her about the delay...........honestly who do you believe?

We really went over to the cottage to look at the ride-on mower she's got, it's huge and much bigger than any I've used before.It also has a trailer which is handy for moving wood etc. We need something for cutting the meadow bit although we'll be able to use our small motor mower for round the house. She's going to come up with a price for us to buy it off her.

We got lots more house paperwork in the post yesterday including draft contracts and things to sign. Unfortunately the maps were wrong - missing part of the land we are buying- so everything will have to go back. We rang Mrs F to say we can't exchange until the maps are right and she said that all the information about the small plot of land adjoining the house and garden that they bought in the 1980's was with her solicitor and she specifically pointed out to them that we needed to see the conveyance details for that extra half acre.  Ho Hum!

She said she's now arranged things for the 19th but I think that might be wishful thinking. We feel really sorry for her as she is over 70 and hasn't moved for 30+ years so doesn't realise that things Never go to plan with buying and selling nowadays.

At least we will be able to sort a completion date to suit her removal company as we don't need to move in the day we get the keys. Our removal company date can be flexible too, they are bringing boxes tomorrow so I can get packing.
.

A short book review of a short book........... read it in just a couple of hours.


I picked this up at the library because the cover looked interesting. It's seven short stories linked together by The Girl in the Red Coat and Christmas. Good but not outstanding, glad it was from the library and not purchased.
I've also read this which was  mentioned on someones blog. I'd not read any Georgette Heyer since the 1970's. I'll not be reading any more. Regency Romance is something I can do without!

These are all short stories, 3 newly discovered and the rest originally published in a collection called Pistols For Two.

On the health front........we have seen Col's cancer doctor again and the tablets are doing their job. He told us they will work for about 12-18 months until the Lymphoma comes back too much for the tablets to cope with, which is why the donor stem cell transplant has to be done during the summer. We have a bit of a respite now as Col only needs blood tests and clinic assessments once a month, saving a lot of travelling in the short term ........before we start the huge mileage we'll be totting up going to Addenbrooks.

Back in a day or two
Sue

Plough Monday, Book Review and other stuff

 Did you know that today, being the first Monday after Twelfth Night, was traditionally called Plough Monday. This was the  the start of the agricultural year, the day Ploughman and their horses went back to work after their Christmas and New Year break...... usually their only holiday of the year.
Nowadays fields are not often ploughed every year, just rough cultivated straight after harvest and drilled immediately  after that or even at the same time.When we used to have barley straw small baled for bedding we were often in a race to get the bales done and home before the farmer cultivated! If sugar beet is in a farms crop rotation then the fields will be ploughed that year because the beet harvest compresses the soil .

Mentioned this book below the other day and had a comment from Anonymous asking for a review. It is a new book, published in 2016.
Anne was in her late 20's and working in London when she holidayed on Skye in 1989 and spotted an ad in an Estate Agents window for a primitive cottage for sale on Soay.
She'd not even thought about moving and even less to a tiny island, in fact she didn't even realise it was an island and accessible only by small boat!
Although she went back to London without finding out more, the picture of the cottage nagged away at her until she finally arranged to go and see it.

The book covers the years 1990 to 1998 in detail, her naivety as she moved there and how she was helped by other islanders........there were 17 permanent residents when she arrived. She finds out about the history of Soay and crofting, struggles with refurbishing the cottage and lack of cash. She finds a way to earn money by collecting winkles and buys a boat of her own. Several of the islanders pass away or move away over the years until the  winter of 2000 when she would be left almost on her own.
In her early years on Soay the island was used for army manoeuvres and a she met a civilian photographer Robert Cholawo who always came with the men. She began to rely on him for advice and help and when his marriage broke up they corresponded until she went to stay with him in Devon for the winter of 2001 moving back to the island again in the spring.
The years from their marriage in 2002 to 2016  are covered in just a couple of chapters. Maybe she'll write another book to tell more about how Robert bought and modernised the neighbouring house on Soay and their story up to date. They now have their own hydro electric power and keep goats and grow  a lot of vegetables. Climate change means that winter weather now is much windier and they are unable to leave the island for months at a time so have to stock up with coal, animal feed and everything else they need to last a long time.
A good read  but I was left wanting to know more..
 One thing I discovered while reading was that a couple called Comber rented a cottage on the island in the 1960's and the lady wrote several lovely books under the name of Lilian Beckwith. I'd always wondered how near to biography her books were ( A Loud Halo, The Sea for Breakfast, A Rope in Case etc) and it turns out Not at All! 

On Saturday I actually found something in the sales
Had a trip out to Felixstowe as they are another place with The Works and I was still searching for the 4 in a box game. (have come to conclusion The Works in our area didn't stock these as they had lots of the other wooden games but not that one and had no idea what I was talking about - just like the lady in Ipswich branch but Suzanne at Life at Number 38 has found it for me 'up North', she's a star!)
Anyway Felixstowe also has an Original Factory Shop like Saxmundham and that's where, last year, I got the shred and cellophane for the Christmas Hampers. Luckily they just had a few packs left reduced from £2 to £1 again so 2  purchased plus on the counter they were selling off the final few boxes of 10 Christmas Crackers for £1. I bought one. That's my January Sale shopping done!

We thought we had better get some quotes for removal companies, so we can get boxes and start packing. 3 quotes  varied by nearly £400 - how on earth can one man look round and decide they can do it for £700 and another says it will cost over £1000? I pointed out to the man from the company who moved me in that  he'd charged us £200 extra last March when his was the only company available after other arrangements with firms fell through because of changed dates. I think he looked slightly sheepish and has priced it  less than our move here. The lads were really good in March so we'll probably go with them again - this time they weren't the most expensive.

Welcome to a new follower.........a nice round 450 now.........goodness me. Thank you for all the comments for and against Yellow Sticker shopping.

Back in a jiffy
Sue

From that first visit, once I had set foot on Soay the house no longer became my primary obsession, but merely a means to an end. I had never experienced a place like it in my life. After only 10 minutes on the island I had fallen under its unfathomable, magical and enthralling spell. Unbelievably, I had found my longed-for childhood “middle of nowhere” and apparently, completely by accident.

Read more at: https://inews.co.uk/essentials/lifestyle/island-fling/

From that first visit, once I had set foot on Soay the house no longer became my primary obsession, but merely a means to an end. I had never experienced a place like it in my life. After only 10 minutes on the island I had fallen under its unfathomable, magical and enthralling spell. Unbelievably, I had found my longed-for childhood “middle of nowhere” and apparently, completely by accident

Read more at: https://inews.co.uk/essentials/lifestyle/island-fling/

  

From that first visit, once I had set foot on Soay the house no longer became my primary obsession, but merely a means to an end. I had never experienced a place like it in my life. After only 10 minutes on the island I had fallen under its unfathomable, magical and enthralling spell. Unbelievably, I had found my longed-for childhood “middle of nowhere” and apparently, completely by accident

Read more at: https://inews.co.uk/essentials/lifestyle/island-fling/

Whoops or.............

......................how to embarrass new neighbours without even trying!

The lady who is selling us her house invited us over for tea and cakes and invited some of the close neighbours round so we could meet them. Very nice too.

Conversation goes like this
One couple were telling us how long they had lived in their house, saying they had moved here from Essex and had found everyone very friendly.
Another couple had moved there from London and said how lucky they had been to find nice neighbours as they had friends who had moved into another Suffolk village and hadn't been made welcome at all.
First lady pipes up with "of course Suffolk people always say you have to have lived somewhere for 25 years before you can call yourself a local"
Second lady says " I think it might be even longer than that, some locals can be very ....you know... unfriendly"

Conversation turns to where we have lived before as we'd already said we were in Ipswich but hadn't been there long. So we explained that we'd had a smallholding over near the coast for the last 23 years and before that we had lived in the villages of Bacton and Cotton just a few miles away across the other side of the A140.

"Oh you are local people then?"
Yes - I was born in Stowmarket and Colin in Bacton. Suffolk through and through!

Subject changed quickly!

There is a moral here I think!

Many Thanks for hat comments - I'm still not sure. There were just 4 of us wearing hats or fascinators at son's wedding so it's definitely going out of fashion now.
Apologies for not replying individually to comments, trying to write a post everyday and reading everyones December posts seems to be taking up all my time!

Back Soon
Sue

Still trying not to spend too much

Another viewing on Friday,  "sorry too small".........again....
Another viewing Tuesday morning will probably be the same

We had visitors on Saturday so there was a bit of extra spending for food. But what I bought will also feed us for a couple more days too, so that's OK

We took our friends over to see where the cottage is, just to make it a bit easier for them to find - it's not easily found! I rang to tell the lady who owns it that we would be walking by just to show our friends where the house was and she said she wouldn't be there but we could peer in the windows, which felt much to nosy to actually do.
So we just walked by and got all excited again about getting there as soon as we can.

Sunday was a grey dismal sort of day, we thought about walking to the library but didn't bother to go out at all. I got the tapestry glasses case finished by lining the back of the stitching with a piece of felt, then stitched myself a new scissor-keeper and made one small Christmas card from a free kit that I've had for ages. We also watched Andy Murray  play in the final to become top tennis player at the end of year - brilliant.

Got a bit worried this morning when our youngest said she would call in to see us after taking Florence for an ultra-sound, but it seems all breech babies have a scan to check for hip problems. She's  six weeks now and growing but is still a titch, just about got a small smile.

Hope everyone is surviving the varying weather in other parts of the country........ windy weather that caused so much damage in Somerset, Devon and Dorset, floods and snow up north, we've missed most of it so far.

Welcome to some new followers and thank you for comments

Milk, Fruit and veg plus some other things for meals with visitors and store-cupboard items £17.50
running total now £527 ish and still several days left until the end of the month - bother.

Back shortly
Sue

Sunday to Thursday

Thank you for so many comments about our move back to the country. We can't wait.
 I've done the maths several times to check we can afford it and yes ...........just. Things will be pretty tight until we sell the bungalow. Unfortunately there are several properties for sale in Ipswich for much the same price at the moment and if it doesn't sell quickly we will be living on Fresh Air until Col can get his County Council pension in March. (Someone asked if we could rent it out instead of selling but I think the rental income would only be about £650 - £700 a month, then agency fees to come off so not really enough to live on).
I'm looking on it as a challenge to live on a very low budget for the rest of the year, although Christmas may have to be postponed until we sell!


 On Sunday we popped over to visit our new granddaughter, 5 days old - still haven't seen her awake.

 Florence refused to breast feed once they got home so A is expressing. She's determined to try and avoid the high cost of formula milk. She was also planning to use the re-usable nappies but Florence is too tiny for them so it was lucky I found a few more newborn disposables  at a car boot sale.

Monday - Our son reached the grand old age of 35 today. Doesn't seem five minutes since he was Florence's size, although come to think of it he was never as small and grew into the 6 foot something he is now by the time he was 15.
We went down to the beach hut as the weather promised a decent day with an offshore wind, but they were wrong and by 2pm it was really chilly and started to rain. It was very quiet down there, only dog walkers and joggers. Col sat behind our windbreak while I kept inside out of the wind. I've now brought home the things that will get damp over winter

 We treated ourselves to a whippy ice cream - with flake of course - the last of the season before the kiosk closes.
 Over the weekend I sorted through more books and delivered another box full to be collected to go off to Ziffit.com - another £24 worth. Most of my books they don't want and some of the ones they will accept are ones I want to keep so I haven't emptied many boxes so far.

Tuesday - More book sorting, it's getting quite addictive. I found £27 worth and boxed up. That's a total of nearly £80 of income which is handy amount. Will I regret selling some of them later - probably but not many and anyway we really need the cash.

I did 10 minutes more garden clearing but my back started complaining so I soon stopped, I'm just so out of condition.

Wednesday -
Made the Baby Jacob page in my new scrapbook. I didn't look on-line to get ideas, nor did I rush out to buy any more bits and pieces, just used what I had, this is how it ended up

After lunch we had to take our ID and filled in forms into town for our solicitor.


 Thursday - I went with Col to hospital for his regular weekly blood test and Great Joy his platelets are starting to climb, from very, very, very,VERY low to just very, very,very low. Perhaps that's the start of an improvement. He also had to have a monthly lung thing where they give him an antibiotic by inhalation. He hopes they'll stop it soon as it gives him terrible indigestion.
The weather was cold and miserable today so I decided it was time to start making soup for daily lunches. First soup of the Autumn was Leek and Potato as leeks are one of the Aldi cheap vegetables at the moment. We have salad and something for lunch through spring and summer so by soup season I've always forgotten how delicious and warming it is.
After lunch off to the Estate Agents to take ID  and to find out one or two more details about the cottage.

I have the dentists tomorrow for a filling ..............

Back Soon
Sue

Plan C

Plan A June 2015 - December 2015
Sell the smallholding, buy a small bungalow in town, use the caravan to visit all over the country, decide where to buy, perhaps Wales, and rent out bungalow in town.

Plan B January 2016
After diagnoses of Non Hodgkin Lymphoma, live in small bungalow in town until Colin has recovered then use caravan to travel and decide where to live perhaps Wales. Rent out bungalow in town.

Plan C  Suddenly October 2016
Spot lovely home  for sale in Suffolk countryside, abandon idea of ever living in Wales due to ongoing health problems, the wet weather there and arrival of 2 grandchildren. Make a cash  offer on house - which gets accepted. Put small bungalow on market.
All family cheering that we are not going to Wales.


Yes, after just 7 months in town we are heading back out into 'the sticks'.

We hadn't really planned to move again so quickly but when we spotted a house in Mid Suffolk on t'internet that looked really interesting, we went to look and it was just what we wanted. The sort of place we were looking for in Wales but without the rain and the hills!

So we are going to ignore the fact that Colin might have to have donated stem cells and more months of treatment. We shall ignore the fact that buying the house means we wipe out all savings and we'll have hardly anything to live on until we sell this bungalow and Col gets work pension in March 2017. We will ignore the fact that he may only be in remission for a short while and I could be on my own in the middle of nowhere and we will just go for it.
 When it comes to house buying we've always gone with gut feeling (For instance taking 2 small children to live in a caravan while we restored a very old semi-derelict property in 1983 and moving across Suffolk to the completely run down smallholding in 1992)

The cottage is part very old but part more modern it has 4 bedrooms although the small one will be my craft room/office, plenty of room for the Surrey bit of the family to stay. It has a lovely big living room and conservatory, with a dining room and kitchen. There is already a mini orchard of 1 apple, 1 pear and a plum tree + vegetable beds and a greenhouse. It's down a track off a country lane with just 3 other houses and so very quiet. There is a half acre paddock just crying out to be planted up with trees to make a wood. It's 10-15 minutes from a village we know well with a doctor and small shops. 20 minutes from the Asda on the edge of Ipswich  and slightly less to a Tesco outside of  Stowmarket which is the town that has always felt like our home town. We will be closer to Col's sister, Dad and brother. Closer to my sister and not a lot further from our two Suffolk children. Now that I've done so much driving and gained in confidence it doesn't seem to matter that we may be back and forwards to hospital etc.


It's totally mad but very exciting

Here is a small blurry glimpse

Must say welcome to a whole load of new followers all because of John Gray at Going Gently. He was shamelessly begging for followers to get to 1000 when he will die happy - at least I think that was the promise! so I hopped on his bandwagon and begged to get to 400. Trouble is my blog doesn't quite have the same attractions as John's so I'm not expecting the new followers to actually read my drivel!

Back Soon - probably with more new granddaughter photos which is something that you won't see on John's blog unless he has dark secrets from the past that we don't know about!!

Sue