We are two years into our new theoretically ‘downsized’ life in Crown Cottage.
As from today April 15th 2018 we embark on our third year in Winster. I can’t pretend it has all been plain sailing nor can we claim to have anywhere nearly finished the essential decluttering process, but what we can say very positively is that we are very happy with our new life here in Winster.
We had, as you know, ‘issues’ with the planning authorities, and for six months or so lived with the threat of having to replace an internal wall in the sitting room which we discovered had previously been removed without official permission.
The relatively spacious sitting room, opening out into our little south facing garden was one of the main reasons we bought the house, so we were eternally grateful eventually to have matters resolved, and to be able now to enjoy it in its ‘oneness’, especially as spring slowly appears.
We have gained a daughter in law and a granddaughter and thanks to Sam, our lovely daughter in law we have also gained a newly focussed delight in ballet and are loving this new element in our lives. We are also so delighted with Sam and Nick’s baby and our new granddaughter, little Nell.
We have also made a lot of new friends, but never forgetting the old ones. Parwich is only a few minutes’ drive away so we keep in touch, and in fact I still go to Pilates there every week. And now that the swallows are returning John will be taking every opportunity to photograph them there. Swifts rather than swallows seem to favour Winster. Our little garden which started off completely bare of birds is now absolutely full of them which is another joy even in spite of the fact it seems almost to have become the battle ground of choice for local goldfinches. They look so beautiful but are so bad tempered…
On a possibly more mundane level, we have gained a new ‘utility’ room and a downstairs cloakroom, and had some essential repair work done on the glass link connecting the original cottage with the adjacent small stone barns. All messy, noisy and disruptive but worth it in the end.
In fact, life is full of activity and most of it fun, with local events, trips away and friends coming to stay but all at the expense of progress in the areas of tidying, sorting, clearing and decluttering. We keep saying, ‘We’re getting there…’ but it’s hard to disguise the slight question mark at the end of the sentence.
I hope we are. Meanwhile this little missive comes after a long period of silence thanks in part to infuriating glitches with the website. Another case of ‘We’re getting there?’?
