And here we are again

Five years ago, I was amazed to see it had been five years since the previous post. I managed a second post, then life got in the way again.

And it was a good life. Happy, healthy and fulfilling.

Until it wasn't.
Last November, the scans associated with gall bladder issues revealed a mass on the pancreas. At that moment life changed forever.

In some ways we were lucky. The early detection and treatment bought us some time. The chemo seemed to be helping at first, but little by little it started to do more harm than good and we agreed he would stop treatment and move to just palliative care back in May.

The last two months were hard, but we spent them together. Constantly together. He finally slipped gently away in the early hours of 7 July. My wonderful, annoying, larger than life, enthusiastic, loving, kind, adventurous and gentle husband - the man who brought joy back to my life - was gone.

And once again I have to ask myself the question. What now?

The demolition stage

Work has now started on the big kitchen.

We decided to go away for a few days around my birthday, largely to avoid being jollied into arranging a party as I have never had much enthusiasm for those. And – as you do – the last thing we did before going away was to demolish the much-hated arch that used to divide the room in two.

It put up a surprisingly good fight, but we won in the end.
Just that single act seemed to make the room double in size, and greatly increased the natural light reaching the previously dingy work areas.

While we were away, the window was enlarged to make a doorway to the outside and most of the old, damp plaster was removed. We came home to a freezing-cold house, a pile of rubble and a layer of dust about an inch thick.

Today the electrics and plumbing are going in and more holes are being made in the two-foot thick stone walls. Yesterday’s sunshine has metamorphosed into damp, bone-chilling Welsh fog, so I am huddling by the woodburner with my laptop, trying to work while ignoring all the drilling and banging in the next room and the arctic gale blowing in under the door. Internet access has been reduced to ten-minute bursts between power outages.

And when the noise stops, I shall emerge to clean up another inch-thick layer of dust and ascertain whether we yet have a working cooker. Tomorrow there will be another carload of plasterboard to take to the tip.

Am I downhearted?

No. Not in the least. I have been waiting ten years for this, and it will be worth every last bag of dust and crap I sweep up.

The end result may not quite live up to the megalomanic, magazine-worthy image that I held in my head for so many years, but that’s OK too. The budget has been significantly reduced for a start. Slashed, in fact. So no Welsh slate floor or handmade freestanding kitchen units. The finished room will be light and cheerful though, and it will look clean when I clean it. And, most importantly, the big table can now go right in the heart of the room, in the place where it has never fitted, but has always belonged.

You wait ten years for a new kitchen....

... and then two come along at once!

The tale of my house renovations is one of stop, start, stop, start. I realise that it is nearly 3 years since I proudly unveiled the work that my brother-in-law had done for me in the granny flat. It was a cool, calm breath of fresh air in the otherwise cluttered chaos of my house.

Unfortunately I ran out of money and work downstairs came to a standstill. Then when I had the funds, Tim was busy working on other projects and never came back, as builders are wont to do. So the back kitchen has remained in this state ever since.

Enter Robert.

He does this sort of stuff standing on his head. But he managed to remain very quiet and tactful about the general state of dilapidation, and besides there were other projects to keep him busy. Of which more in another post.

Just before Christmas, however, he asked whether I would like him to put the washbasin back on the wall in the downstairs loo. (Doesn’t everyone keep a washbasin on the floor?). And it sort of snowballed from there.

We excavated the flat-pack kitchen units from my Room of Doom, I bought some new doors, he called his carpenter and plasterer, and work started.

The plan was simply to get the annexe finished, then regroup to plan what to do with the rest of the house.

Well that was the plan.

On the Friday morning two weeks ago, I asked Robert whether he would replace the nasty, stained sink in the main kitchen with the stainless steel one I had bought five years ago. (Sigh).

No problem.

Unfortunately it didn’t fit. The discrepancy was only a millimetre or so, but the hole in the worktop was simply too big. So we considered whether to buy new worktop to replace the old one, which was looking distinctly tatty in any case. But the old cabinets were falling apart too. Why not rip those out while we were at it. And take down the horrible 1970s archway that I have hated since the moment I first walked into the house and that makes the room so dark. And pull up the ugly parquet flooring that was laid so badly.

Heck. Why not just redo the entire kitchen?

Well, apart from the fact that I had nothing to replace it with, why not?

Not a problem either, apparently. Two hours searching on EBay later, Robert had found someone near Bristol who was having a new kitchen fitted and selling their (pristine, as far as I could see) old one.

Saturday lunchtime we set off with the car and trailer, and arrived at our destination about 4 pm. Only to find the homeowners sitting in their lovely old kitchen, surrounded by cardboard boxes, with all the kitchen units still firmly attached to their respective walls!

“When were you thinking of collecting it?”, asked the gentleman of the house, fondly imagining that we had just come to check it out.

“Now.” said Robert, taking out his toolkit.

And so we did. Three hours later, all the kitchen units plus large cooker were quite miraculously packed on our 7’ x 4’ trailer and off home we set. It was like the opening credits to The Beverly Hillbillies!

Sunday morning we unpacked it all into the lean-to for closer inspection: for £500 and a road trip to Bristol, we appear to have acquired a large solid beech kitchen and a beautiful racing green cooking range with the cleanest oven I have ever seen. It is difficult to believe it was ever used. Result!

OK, so there is a bit of work still to go, but compared to the previous rate of progress this is lightening speed. And as soon as the electrics for the back kitchen are signed off, we can move into there and start work on the main house. I really can’t wait to attack that archway with a crowbar!

Living in the Real World

It is perhaps an exaggeration to say that the Internet saved my life. But back in the darkest days of my grief, I’m not so sure that it didn’t save my sanity.

Through the Internet I have made some wonderful friends. Some live just a few miles away, others I probably will never meet in person. And all stops in-between. The common feature is that they have all given totally non-judgmental support when I needed it.

It is also where Robert and I found one another. I think it came as a surprise to both of us that we did, or at least so quickly, but it would be rather churlish to complain about that!

And it is a constant feature in my work. For research, for moving files around, for working on servers half a country away. I fondly remember the days when assignments turned up in brown envelopes through the door and research necessitated a bus trip to Manchester Central Library. When deadlines were measured in weeks, not days. That sort of timescale would be unimaginable now.

Lately I have found myself drawing away from it though. My life seems more and more to be firmly rooted in the Real World. I am doing less paid work, and we are working more on house renovations. Not having animals in the field means we can lock the doors and simply leave home behind for a few days without having to organise people to dole out feed and water and put the poultry to bed at night.

Over Christmas I went on a complete Internet fast. Simply turned it off. Pulled the plug and hid my laptop out of sight for nearly a fortnight.

It was an unexpected pleasure. More time for reading, hand-sewing and knitting. More time to sit in front of the woodburner with a garden plan and seed catalogues in hand. More time to simply chat and laugh and plan and eat and share a bottle of wine. What could be better?

In all this cutting down, however, one thing I have really missed has been this blog, and having a place to record the passing of the days.

2012 was an incredible year for me.

Not just getting married. But relearning how to be truly happy. How to share my life again.

There were difficult parts too. Robert had to go into hospital for a small surgery under general anaesthetic. I was almost paralysed with terror. Hospital for me was still a place where people go to die, not to get better. It is an irrational fear, I know, and on this occasion was unfounded, I am happy to report.

There has also been some bad, bad stuff with his ex. It is still ongoing, but there is an end in sight now, and working through it all has been very good for us as a couple.

And I lost my precious friend Moose in the Autumn.
His back legs had become very wobbly, but he was happy pottering around at home. He still enjoyed his food and barking at the postman. Then one day he had a sort-of-stroke. It left him with severe vertigo and he was unable to stand up. All he could do was look at me with such confusion in his eyes. It was heart-breaking to see, and the time had come to say goodbye.
I still miss him every day that passes.

But mostly the year has been fast-moving and fun, full of passion and movement and change. I regret not having recorded it all on these pages. So the beginning of a new year seems like a good time to kick-start this blog again. I seem to remember writing something very similar at this time last year, but perhaps I may be able to make more time for it in 2013.

Alpha and Omega

Supper this evening consisted of the very last home-grown bacon joint alongside the first of this year's new potatoes, broad beans and parsley.

The old with the new.
A fitting transition.
There is always new, isn't there? New life. New growth. New experiences.
All good.

And there are no photos because it has all gone!

Perfect day

It's a funny thing, getting married after being widowed.
However happy you are, there is always a little voice in your head telling you that things shouldn't be so good. You always need to be careful about hurting someone else's feelings. It doesn't matter that you have thought about your loss for every one of the previous 1370 days or 32,856 hours or roughly 1,971,360 minutes, it still seems wrong to be happy at having good news to pass on to someone who may feel sad as a result.

In the end, R's family decided that they couldn't come to our wedding. I understand their feelings, but I so wish that it had been different. They gave their blessing, but didn't feel they could give their presence. I missed them very much. There were quite a few other people whom I thought about inviting, but they had been primarily 'his' friends, so it just didn't seem right. This may have just been my problem - I appreciate this.

But all those caveats aside, it truly was one of the happiest days of my life.
It was cold, but the sun shone on us. We planned a relaxed, informal event full of fun and music, and that is exactly what we had. A smallish private ceremony was followed by a ceilidh in a tent in the garden at home, with additional music from our favourite local bluegrass duo and other friends.

It was wonderful, joyful and full of people who care about us and wish us well for the future. And I guess that is all that matters.

The silence of the lambs

Yesterday I sold my little flock of sheep.
There are still three of the ram lambs here in the village, on a friend's land, but the rest of them have all gone. Including the ewe with her baby that was just born a few days ago.

They had to go. For the last couple of years I hadn't managed them very well. There were too many sheep on my small field, and the grass wasn't being rested. I missed the opportunity to send last year's lambs off to the abattoir before Christmas, which meant that they hung around all winter, eating me out of house and home. My hay bill this year was phenomenal.

So when lambing time came around this year I didn't have enough grass. And when Robert and I decided to have our wedding reception here, it didn't really sink in until the last minute that I would have to take the sheep off what grass there was so that it could clean up for the marquee. Apparently the hirers of such equipment don't take terribly kindly to erecting their pristine white tents in a field full of sheep poo!

As a result, the last month or so has been very stressful, calling in favours from friends to help me move the sheep and asking for access to any bit of grazing in the area going spare. And then I lost a lamb for the first time ever. It probably wouldn't have made it whatever we did, but seeing the little soul just fading away before my eyes after initially seeming to rally was just heartbreaking.

I had come to terms with the fact that I wouldn't be able to keep the sheep when we move into town, but after a week or more of sleepless nights, trying to work out what to do with them, I finally came to the conclusion that they would have to be sold. Sooner rather than later, but I wasn't keen on sending them to market as the whole flock would probably simply be bought for slaughter which somehow seems wrong for lambs that are so young. I know that most of mine have ended up in the freezer, but at least they normally had the best part of a year in which to run around with the sun on their backs. Not an entirely consistent moral position, I know, but it's not all about logic, is it?

A few days ago, a chance conversation with the man doing some groundworks at a friend's house found me a buyer, and the deal was done quickly. For once in their awkward little lives, the sheep all loaded quickly and easily into his trailer, some cash changed hands and that was it. Off they went to look cute and cut the grass and clear some woodland around his caravan site. They will enjoy that, I'm sure.

It is a relief that they have gone, but it is quiet here now. Very quiet. There are no more farm animals on my little patch of land. I'm looking forward to not having to get up and feed them, or worry about worm burdens or shearing.
But it is very quiet.

Moving

This goal is much harder than the first one.
There are so many memories bound up in this house. Many of my good friends are here. I love my ever-so-slightly eccentric lifestyle up here on this hilltop. I enjoy the freedom that living in the back of beyond brings, and having the space to grow a huge garden and keep animals has been wonderful.

But there are a lot of negatives.
The house is too big. It always was, but R and I had plans to use one half as a holiday let. That isn't going to happen now. There is also still so much to do with respect to the renovations, and I don't think that I could ever recoup the money it would cost, not if I did it to the standard that I would like.
And with land and animals come responsibilities. It is difficult to go away, even for 24 hours, without making copious arrangements. Land and property needs to be maintained - yesterday two of the corrugated roofing sheets blew off my barn in the storm, soaking a lot of the hay I have stored for the sheep. This really isn't a Good Thing, and I'm not sure I have the energy to do it for much longer.

Robert has done the smallholding "thing" for many years too, and has happily moved on from it. He is currently renovating an old house about 20 miles from here and we intend to move there when it is finished. The house is in a small market town on the Welsh/English border. It is sweet, lovely and oh so tiny. We are going to have to distill the contents of two largish houses into one little bijou property.

Strangely enough, it is not this aspect that worries me. Stuff is, at the end of the day, just stuff, and I think it will be an interesting project to decide exactly what is important to me and what is not.
I will miss the outdoor space though. The garden is minuscule at the new place, little more than a courtyard. There is an outside possibility of buying a small, adjoining plot of land which would make a very nice veg garden. I am keeping my fingers and everything else crossed about that.

But on the positive side, we will have the time and freedom - and the money - to travel. It is something I have missed over the last 10 years here. There are friends all over the world we have never visited and would love to go and see. That just wouldn't happen if we were keeping livestock seriously.
It will also be nice to live somewhere at a lower altitude where it doesn't rain constantly. Or snow at the drop of a hat. Or have so much wind that it takes your breath away. The tiny garden at the new house is also a little suntrap. I'm sure I remember quite liking sun...

I know it is the right thing to do for us, but equally it is going to be a huge wrench to leave here. I just wish it would be possible to keep this place so that I could visit it whenever I wanted, but that is just stupid. It would deteriorate further if I did, and that wouldn't make me happy either.

Anyway I have at least 6 months of decluttering and divesting to do before I even have to worry about it!

A clean slate

It must be said, there aren't many benefits to catching a festive Christmas cold that leaves one coughing almost 24/7 for a week or more. But the resulting insomnia does carve out rather a lot of free thinking time

So, after devising menus and shopping lists for the next few weeks, mentally rearranging all the furniture and planning the 2012 veg garden rotation, thoughts eventually turned to New Year's resolutions. I have never had much truck with the "I will keep my desk tidy this year" type as they seem to court failure, and I can find plenty of other things to beat myself up about. But goals are different. Something to work towards, rather than necessitating large-scale behaviour modification. There are lots of things that could go on the list, but I managed to distil it down to three (in order):

1. Get married
2. Move house
3. Run a half marathon

That's probably enough to be going on with for one year!

Hang on a minute. Did she say “Get married”?
In the words of my No. 2 niece when she heard the news, “She can’t do that, I haven’t met him yet!”

I guess a little of the back story is needed here.
Way back last year, when my friend Cheryl put me up for sale on EBay (well, actually she plied me with wine and filled in a profile for a dating site, but a bit of poetic license is permitted), I little imagined that this is where I would be right now. In fact I found the whole idea very scary. But my guardian angel must have been looking after me; after weeding out a number of wholly unsuitable respondents, a couple of meetings with very pleasant, but not at all right gentlemen, I met Robert.

We had a couple of false starts, largely due to my inability to arrive anywhere at the right time, but finally met up – in the carpark to my local animal feed store, which I like to think was a good omen! After that it seemed to take no time at all before we were almost totally in synch with one another. We are very different people, but find we see eye to eye on most issues, particularly the important ones.

And then, a couple of weeks before Christmas, he proposed. I am sure there probably are good reasons why we should wait, but I sure as heck can’t think of any. If there is one thing that the last few years have taught me it is that life really is too short. I talked it through with R’s family. It wasn’t the easiest conversation I have ever had, but they all freely gave their blessing, which was very important to me.

So, I find myself at the start of a new year with a wedding to plan.
Life certainly has become interesting.

(And I’m happy to report that no. 2 niece has now met him, and does approve!)