Retaining Walls, Art Class & a Warm Welcome to Bert

The day started badly with both of the reports that we had arranged for the new house arriving in the post. The first estimates the woodworm treatment at over £2000 and the second took our breath away - over £50,000 for the retaining wall to be removed and rebuilt - with a recommendation that the work be done urgently.... hmmm... The idea of moving was to improve our quality of life. I'm not sure that spending that amount of money and overseeing such intensive building works fits into that idea. Mark and I have some serious talking to do but I fear that we will have to withdraw our offer unless we can negotiate. It is not looking good. On a brighter note, I had contact with someone who has a four bedroom bungalow that they will let us rent so at least the immediate issue of somewhere to live is almost resolved.

Had Art Class today which was lovely. The children have moved on to using acrylics and are reproducing sections of some photographs of the village that they took last year. They are painting them onto large canvasses that we bought with a grant from the village hall. The idea is to put them all together to produce one image of the village. Hope it works. They have two more sessions to do and we are hoping that they will have completed them in time to display them at the end of the last session. It is wonderful to see children as young as 6 really concentrating on the task in hand and seeing their interpretations of the images. Some are amazing! My helpers bought far too many cakes for snack time so in an effort to help out, I demolished too many of them and am now feeling a bit sicky!

Welcome to Bert

Little Bert, the Satin Hamster has finally gotten over his shyness and posed for a photograph! He was James' birthday present and spends most of his waking hours practicing gymnastics in his cage! He is soooo noisy! He is also very, very cute and loves to play in his hamster ball in the kitchen.

Volcanic Ash and Other Hinderances

Well. It's been a while. So much has occurred I scarcely know where to start. We still haven't sold the
house or had any offers yet. Is this normal after 5 viewings? I suspect the fact that we are selling off part of the land is putting people off but we will plod on until mid June before we think about plan B. 
The house looks great on the Agents web site.

http://www.fodenandharrisproperty.com/property_detail.aspx?strID=FNP00664&intTID=1&intContentID=2

News on the house in Alston is that it finally has an Under Offer sign on it. I find this really exciting, 
confirmation that we really are leaving to start a new life. The surveyors report begs to differ somewhat
so we will have to see! Have ordered various reports to be done and will wait and see the outcome... 
It would be a shame not to get the house we want but we have to be sensible and there are rather a lot of urgent recommendations....


Had a lovely weekend during Easter without the children. I love them dearly but it is nice to have a break. We went to Woking and spent the whole weekend walking, talking and eating. We did fit in a trip to 
the theatre to see Agatha Christies 'Witness for the Prosecution'. I'm not normally into murder 
mysteries but thought that the show was fantastic. I will definitely see another production of an AgathaChristie story if I get a chance.


Still waiting for confirmation about the children's new school. Hopefully this will arrive in the next few weeks. I think that they are starting to look forward to the move now. May 14th should bring some 
news regarding the planning permission for the attached land. Fingers crossed it will be fine as we can then get on with finalizing the sale of the land. I think that once this happens, everything else will startto happen. Maybe.


I would have liked to have visited Alston again soon but we had already committed to going to 
Germany for Mark's 50th birthday. Due to Mother Nature stamping her feet in Iceland, a short trip of 4 days turned into a 10 day holiday. It was great though. Beautiful weather, fabulous food and some verykind people made the whole stay one that we will never forget. Bit of a stretch on the old budget 
though, so no trips to Alston unless absolutely necessary. An incredible time was had by all of us and Mark did start to wonder if it was a sign that we couldn't come home..... especially as his old home is 
up for sale... perhaps if the move to Alston fails then I will let him convince me to move to Germany :)

A picture that Mark took of the lake in the beautiful town of Wassenberg....the town with the most 

delicious cakes ever..