Merry Christmas and our exciting news

Merry Christmas! I hope you've all had a great time with friends and family celebrating the season.

Our Christmas has been fairly relaxed. Christmas eve was spent with my best friend and her family, then topped off with a quick visit to some of our neighbours/friends (also a young family with children). The kids were full of the Christmas spirit and we loved it.

Yesterday was spent with my mum, sister and her fiancee after unwrapping pressies at home. The excitement of the day before led to one overtired little girl along with subsequent behaviour, the less said the better. Whilst it was great to see family I confess to preferring Christmas day at home.

Now onto our big news... we've bought more land!!!

I'm sure I've probably mentioned the wilderness next door, a field covered in brambles that has been neglected for the last 20 years at least; well now it's OUR wilderness.

Ever since we moved in we have coveted the land, if only because we like our privacy and I've always worried someone would decide to do something with it.

It all started about 4 months ago when I popped into another of our neighbours, Annie, to have a chat. This invariably ends with her offering me glass of wine, me saying I shouldn't and then being over at hers all evening and wondering home merry.

I mentioned how we'd always wanted the land and in true country fashion she knew who owned it; an elderly lady with failing health and even directed me to her house. James and I drafted her a letter asking her to consider us if she ever wanted to sell. A few days later she gave us a ring, we agreed a price and it went to the solicitors. Now they know how to make their cut, so after four months of constant chasing it finally became ours a few weeks ago.

We have a friend, Kev who may be able to help us clear it,  but in the meantime we've made a start with a hedge trimmer, chainsaw and streamer, but it's slow going.

We had a bit of an adventure this weekend with the kids forging through the brambles and found a polytunnel frame!!!! Now as to plans, all I know is that I want a small orchard and more planting space, otherwise it's all up for grabs, so I'll need some ideas. It's about an additional acre and a half and I did a quick map so you can see our original plot in red and the new land in green.

 

We're back online and it snowed!!

We have returned to the modern world today. BT open reach have finally gotten their act together after four engineer visits and a battle with health and safety rules to scale the pole and join two wires together. Kidding aside for the second time in the last year or so our phone line came down and the incompetent idiots at plusnet and BT have finally managed to arrange for it to be fixed. It's good to hear that even though we pay a premium as we live in the country and BT have a monopoly on the line, that the money can be put to good use and pay four engineers to do a half hour job.

As you can tell I'm a bit sore over this. But miserable old git moan over.

On a happy note, a fortnight ago it snowed like I've never seen before and it was magical!

This exciting event happened over a weekend and so we got to enjoy it with the children. Come Monday a tree came down and blocked our lane (and brought the phone line  down) so we both missed work (v. exciting). 

James got the chainsaw out, I moved the wood (next years heating) so we got to have an extra day making the most of the season. Without sounding too corny it was so much fun and I think we enjoyed it more than the kids did. We made snow men, snow angels, had snowball fights, went sledging and had lots of pretty walks. Here are some photos for your enjoyment (visiting here is like sitting next to an old lady on the bus with pictures of her grandchildren). 

I was desperate to post the pics as snow is such a rare event but next time I post we've got some exciting news (no more babies before you get excited!).

Snow is tiring!