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!
