New Home (by sarah)

So we have finally achieved the third M = Mortgage which I suppose makes us proper grown-ups or something?

It is not what we had envisioned with the move to Gloucestershire but those plans weren't working anyway and this house seems like it was almost made with us in mind. It is everything we need.

There is a summer house a.k.a Alaric's workshop

A little patch of decking that we can have as a Toddler play area

An area for grass with allotements just round the corner

An attic room that is perfect for an art studio and storage or workshop materials etc...

A lush kitchen with a double oven of the type I've been after for an age with a 'breakfast room' off of it which is perfect for a family dinning room - there is a breakfast bar too!

The 'dining room' is going to be the Library and Music room / study. There is an area just right for having a BBQ in etc... just out side the kitchen.

It needs some work but we were more than happy with the structural reports and Alaric is still going on that we are technically now Lay Rectors. We think we are very lucky as the place cost less than my friends one bedroom flat on the edge of London. Having said that we can only afford it due to a) Alaric's new job and b) the generous loan of a hefty deposit from Alaric's family.

We picked the keys up today and rushed round there but the family was still moving out so we went and got some lunch and then went back - they had left us a lovely card saying they hope we'll be as happy as they've been there 🙂

I did some assessing of where we will be putting the washing machine etc... This feels right unlike our previous move which was all done pretty much with out me. I am hoping we can get things back on track - there is belly dancing within walking distance of the house that is affordable - this is important for my pelvis and mobility so Im very pleased with this. I am hoping to some how fit in the ducks and bees don't think goat will happen now though 🙁

We decided to leave our mark on the place - so here is our rainbow swerl rug that me and Jean made whilst living in the Mill during the flooding episode.

Moving and Stuff (by sarah)

So we have to move and we have been trying to sort it out and get a mortgage and what not which is somehow taking up most of the time we had spare.

But we have found a house we want - my only issue with it is it doesn't have enough grass but it is a garden I myself could maintain without having to wait for Alaric to be free etc... It is double glazed and has central heating - two things that with my health and having a baby again are most important - it was so hard trying to make sure Jeany didn't get too cold here.

There are allotments just round the corner for our veg growing and I can do salad and herbs in pots. There is a workshop in the garden for Al and a fantastic attic room with lots of natural light for my art - plenty of storage and room for children toys!

Obviously we may not get the house still - we have made two offers based on the 20% deposite and how much Al's family had sorted etc... which have been rejected - we are going for a finial offer based on what they say they will take as a minimium. Mortgage brokers seem to think there is no problem with us getting the mortgage though we have been referred by all the banks we've tried for more assessement a we're borderline.

There is no off street parking and there is a derelict building with graffiti and weeds oposite but last time we went to view the house it was being cleaned up as a church hall so I'm not too worried. We drove around the area at different times of day and night - and things seemed ok - kids hanging around drinking fizzy drinks and actually playing on the swings and stuff in the park - there were no needles or condoms in the play area or around either and crime figures seem ok. Prices are low in the area because there used to be a mental hosptail apparently.

If we get this house we will be finially be able to have say the swimming pool out 🙂 I can still have fruit trees in pots and may even be able to sneak in a super coop - though I need to check that the birds would actually be happy with that.

An outside tape - to do stuff with!

We are still hoping to be moved by Christmas. We are hopeful.

(if it falls through I have another house in a our price range book marked which I'm hoping wont be sold until after we have things all sorted - just incase!)

Garden design (for geeks) (by alaric)

When I was about 11, I designed a garden. I remember drawing a plan of it on a page of my spiralbound notepad. Sadly, that means the original design is now long gone, but that's irrelevant - the original design assumed a plot of land the exact same shape as a page of my notepad, which is unlikely.

The important thing is that I can remember the concept.

The idea was simple - I think of a garden as a fun place to relax. Be that a pleasant spot to read a book, or a venue for a party. Where, to me, "party" involves a buffet and background music and people mingling and chatting.

Therefore, I wanted to pack in a pleasing variety of spots to read/sit/chat into a limited space. Also, being a geek, I wanted it to be intellectually interesting.

So the answer was obvious - it had to involve a maze. But more than that. Two mazes. Why not have a stream and little ponds that forms a water-maze, and then overlay that with a maze you can walk, with little bridges and stepping stones and the like where it crosses the stream, to add interest? And use a variety of materials for the maze; hedges, walls, balustrades, the stream itself - all can form barriers of varying solidity. I love strings of lights in trees and bushes, so let's run lights around it. And have lights in the stream and its ponds. Lights are pretty at night.

One idea that appealed to me was that, for parties and the like, you could have little boats with candles in circulating around the stream. Of course, if it's an actual natural stream, then all the boats would end up stuck at the grating you'd need to put up to stop them all going downstream - but if it's an artificial one (in effect, a long thin pond that wriggles around the place) you could encourage a continuous current around it by putting pumps around the place, sucking in water then emitting it in a jet, with the jets and inlets all aligned around the circuit to push the water in the same way. Extra points for style: Computer control of the pumps so, at the end of the day, you can cause all the boats to congregate in one place for easy collection...

There would need to be a more open patio / lawn area joining the maze to the house, for when you need to gather everyone together to eat and so on. And it would be nice if the other end of the maze led into some more wild and natural terrain such as woodland, after all that order. But the maze would pack a lot of different little nooks into a relatively small space, creating a garden that seems a lot larger than it really is...

I'd draw up a plan, but of course, the actual implementation totally depends on what the land you have is like, and what bits of random architectural salvage turn up to build the maze out of!

Sheds – stress (by sarah)

Barbara came back from holiday yesturday and I excitedly showed her the shed - but I got this sinking feeling that she doesn't remember the two or three conversations we had about putting a shed in early this year 🙁

I am now awaiting her getting really upset about the fact that it appeared whilst she was on holiday.

Ladybirds (by alaric)

Sitting at my desk working, I found a spider in my hair. So I went and opened the window to put it out.

This is, the big office window's not been opened for a while. As I opened it, lots of stuff rained down on me. And when I looked I realised I was covered in ladybirds.

Seems they're attempting to hibernate in the gap between the window and the frame - except now they're all disturbed. So I shook them off of me, and left them to collect together so I can decide what to do with them.

I took some pictures as they started forming good clusters:

But there's plenty more than that still making their way into the clusters... and I opened the other side of the window as they were crawling into the gap from the inside (and I don't want them inside), which caused a whole load more to shower down.

Wish me luck.