Honey I shrunk the stuff

We now have mostly empty cupboards. And only the one preserving pan. And a plan to fit everything that's left into the bungalow. What could possibly go wrong??? I'm not completely convinced that the dining chairs will fit although we're intending to dismantle and flat-pack the table. And will the piano fit past the door into the living room? Will we have a late change of heart this evening when the I-buy-furniture man comes round and add the dining table and chairs into the mix rather than storing it? We move a week tomorrow - so this weekend is for packing. I will update you on the new house design once we've moved.

It's official...

And after a hard day throwing out stuff here and cleaning the bungalow, we're collapsed with a G&T made with a lemon freshly harvested from our own tree. And my office is finished, phew - I really do deserve the G&T!

Fitting a quart into a pint pot

Everyone who came to look at our current house claimed they were 'downsizing' - and when we laughed, given that it's a huge huge house, they all said it was impossible to downsize which was why they were still looking at a large house. As we've sold to buyers currently living in their touring caravan after a previous purchase fell through, they were keen to move very soon and definitely before it got cold! So we now have two weeks to work out what will fit into the bungalow, what can safely be stored in the stable block and what needs to go into store elsewhere. And while it's not QUITE true to say that the bungalow is the size of our current garage, it's genuinely not very much bigger. Plan is that we'll stay in the bungalow until we're ready to knock it down and start the new house, then either rent locally or put a mobile home on site for the duration. So, led by Alan 'Sling it all' Sparrow, we are ruthlessly going through house contents and throwing or giving away excess stuff. As every room here at Digby House has large cupboards that are currently full, that's a lot of stuff. We may post a list... Then there's all the garden stuff - what plants do I need to take cuttings from? I've made a small 'parking' bed in the corner of the paddock to pop stuff into until we have a garden again, and all the pots are filling up. What it looks like now... ...and what we envisage when we see that space...

Normal service about to be resumed...

We apologise to regular readers for the lack of updates in the last three weeks. I know there ARE regular readers because I got an email from one of them berating me for the lack of updates. Excuses include: gliding comp; main work project imminently going live; holiday in a place where there was no phone, let alone any internet. But there is lots of progress to report and here is a very brief taster of the two key achievements. 1) We have just about sorted out a concept design and have submitted a planning pre-app 2) We have exchanged contracts on the sale of our current house and so move into the bungalow in 2 weeks' time (yes, that's the week my major project goes live...) As you can see from 2), it doesn't look as if things will be any less hectic over the next couple of weeks. Watch this space!