We finally completed on the sale of Grange Barn on December 5th and what a week it was building up to it.
Our buyers had a last minute wobble and pulled out of their mortgage deal - this meant we had to wait for funds to clear as they borrowed from family, this pushed our completion date back from 30th November to 5th Dec.
Richard wasn't able to have much time off work and so the bulk of the move was left to me (And my dad who worked like a Trojan!)
We had so much stuff to get rid of that a charity came and collected furniture and we hired a skip!!!
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| This is the Barn almost empty! |
We had to relocate our Koi carp - (Richards fish babies :-/ )
this involved as many (large) receptacles we could lay our hands on, plastic dustbins,tesco boxes etc. We drained the pond to an acceptable "catching" level; this initially proved quite easy but then the fish were so big they were either wedged in diagonally or bent in half. We had to rethink and in the end took just a few at a time!
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| The Angel Koi in a plastic dustbin! |
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| Dad & Richard preparing for the catch! |
By the Wednesday lunchtime I was so exhausted that any emotion & feelings I might have had for grange barn had evaporated. We had also spent two nights in the caravan on the drive as our furniture was now in storage in 5 locations over 3 counties!!
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| Our moving card from Dinah & Richard We couldn't move onto the plot as the mortgage still hadn't come through and by now it was -5 degrees and although we had the oil filled radiator which meant the caravan was toasty the thought of showering and pipes freezing .. need I say more?!!! So we put the van onto my parents drive! We have totalled 10 nights so far in freezing temperatures in the caravan & finally conceded to move in with my parents (a whole new blog on that story!!) So in the meantime progress on the build............. None! Well we do have chickens on the plot (our two remaining ones Camilla & Brown hen) |
and a toilet...
Oh and a post box and sign as we have obviously had to re route our post - Maple Barn doesn't technically exist until the title deeds of the land are owned but we are so very hopeful that this will be sooner rather than later as the Mortgage situation has been a nightmare - The current climate means that lenders are quite risk averse and we have to provide actual costings for everything even as far as what flooring, what taps etc etc. Complete headache!
In the meantime we are keeping positive about it ALL! and continue to plan, Richard is aching to get going with the ground works but until the valuers and underwriters are satisfied we just have to wait..
.. in the meantime we have had some casualties of the cold, sadly 2 very large Koi have died (they had NOT been drinking carling black label - that is merely for scale with my size 5 boot!!!)
So thats about all I can summon the energy to write - with Christmas looming and the stresses of the build too I'm just about resisting the urge to run off to Mexico!!!
See ya soon......x
