My midnight wobble

Last night I had a bit of a wobble. I've not been sleeping well for the last week or so, the whole lack of planning permission for an extension is starting to bother me. We applied for planning a year ago and after a rejection and changing the plans and another rejection our planning consultant suggested an appeal. Our appeal letter said it would take 6-8 weeks. It's now been over 6 months with no communication from the planning inspectorate. I rang again last week and my answer was basically that they don't do appeals in chronological order. They said their average time is now less than last year which was 13 weeks. I'm feeling really dejected that we've waited over 26 weeks and they tell me they may look at our appeal in March. We just want to start insulating and damp proofing so we can make the house comfortable for us and the kids. From what I can gather from the planning inspectorate they do appeals where they can get the maximum number done most quickly, we are rural so we just don't seem to fit in to the easy to visit category.

Back to the wobble. You know when you can't switch your brain off? Then it starts to re-visit the same issues again and again. Problems are always magnified. I started to panic. I'm thinking 'what have we done? will we ever get what we want? how long will we have to wait?' I have found the whole planning process to be really stressful and find I go through periods of being accepting of the time it takes and times where I've had enough and just want someone to pull their finger out and make a decision. Any decision... no really, any decision so that I can move on with my life.

My final 3am decision? Let's sell the house, closely followed by 'what other mental person will buy it?'

When I woke up it didn't feel so bad but I still feel a bit down about it all. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate that we have so much more than some people and I am grateful. I just need to move forward with our house to make it comfortable for our family.

After a long talk with my understanding husband we've decided to get a new planning consultant and start a fresh application with someone who knows the local council and who wants to work with us to achieve our goals. As we've been bitten once before by a planning consultant who doesn't know what they're doing it's so hard to choose another. There are just no reviews out there to help you choose and no one I know has any recommendations. My next step is to ask a few people we've shortlisted for details of recent planning applications they've submitted so we can see their work and ask for a recent testimonial. I don't think that's unreasonable when you're paying for a service?

We also lost another chicken last weekend which I think is what started my low mood. We've lost quite a few this year to various diseases and predators and I'm just too soft and miss every one of my girls when they go. One of my other girls stopped eating yesterday so I'm in full on panic mode. I went and got some advice from out local poultry breeder to see if she had any answers. I've got a pick me up for her and I've been giving her her favourite treats to entice her to eat, so fingers crossed it'll be good news.