One man went to mow

I should start this entry with a disclaimer.  The events and characters appearing on this page bear no relation to any persons living or dead whatsoever, even if they sound a bit like some people you may know living in Cornwall.

I just had to get that in, in case Mr K is reading this, and the title of this particular blog entry has set a large furrow on his brow. Because today did not go well. And the ride on mower was largely to blame.

It all started when we put the offer on the house. Part of the negotiations included the cooker and the ride on lawn mower, the ultimate Country Living boy’s toy. Regular readers may remember that at Kirton Towers I was largely, some might say solely, responsible for mowing the grass.  I made it abundantly clear on moving to a property with three quarters of an acre sloping down a hill, that this would no longer fall under my jurisdiction. Mr K was happy enough with the arrangement.

Until the sun shone. And the rain fell. And so on, until the last fortnight when the rapid upward advancement of the grass could no longer be ignored. Or at least, not with a clean conscience.

And I knew that the forthcoming chore was troubling him. Would he be able to remember how to work the mower? Would he tumble down into the brambles, never to be seen again?

The forecast for this week was good. The job could not be delayed for much longer…

But then yesterday he had a day of sorting out my company finances, a fine and noble job that could in no way be termed a lawn mowing avoidance task.

And so to today.

I had a day of meetings, arriving home later afternoon in eager anticipation.

The first thing I noticed on pulling up outside the house, is what a lovely day it was. The second, that the grass looked pretty much as I left it this morning…But wait, on closer scrutiny there was a definite track around the outside of the lawn, as if someone had started the job but then rushed away to tackle something more important.

On entering the house, I noticed the lawn mower manual, along with the enigmatic scrawl ‘Clive 3pm Wednesday’.

With the deductive powers of a short, moustachioed Belgian I quickly realised that things had not gone according to plan, that the machinery had revolted at the final hurdle.

Mr K was not amused. (Truth be told, he’s still not amused.)

Suffice to say that after a jolly and optimistic start, things had gone kerplunk that shouldn’t, oil had ended up in places it shouldn’t, smoke had ensued and the job abandoned for a bad deal, followed by consultation with the aforementioned Clive.

Hardly worth getting out of bed for. Particularly gruelling when not enough time had been spent in bed anyhow after a night shift.

So the chore, far from having been tackled and ticked off, persists in its growing need to be attended to, with no closure in sight.

But what I haven’t told Mr K is that I spotted two rabbits grazing on the grass this morning (do rabbits graze?). I figure it can only be a matter of days before the problem’s devoured entirely…

You can take the girl from the valleys

People who’ve known me a long time will appreciate that I become more Welsh around this time of year.

It has a lot to do with the Six Nations.  And St David’s Day. And daffodils, and maybe even those spring lambies.

So it’s quite apt that we should find ourselves embarking on a new life in ‘The Valley’ at this time. There are lots of great things about living at the top of a valley…the views…the South facing garden and the extra hours of daylight that we seem to have gained.

There are of course downsides too…the fact that pretty much everywhere involves an uphill climb to get home. Including two of our three new locals.

But life is starting to take on the steady rhythm of a comfortable routine. We’ve even grown quite comfortable with the walls of boxes (who needs bookshelves anyway) and the little quirks of our new abode (aforementioned front door and guttering items). I can’t say as I mind the bare plaster walls in the bathroom or the deep claret red of the living room carpet.

And we’re even getting a name for ourselves in the village, thanks to Hamlet.

You see, our new life in the valley is all about acronyms. There’s SHAM (something to do with Harrowbarrow Amateur Dramatics) and HAMAS, the Harrowbarrow and Metherell Agricultural Society, not to be confused with the Islamic terrorist movement. And then there’s HAMLET, the Harrowbarrow and Metherell newsletter.

This week the new issue of Hamlet was delivered throughout the village, featuring a welcome for any newcomers.

I bumped into one of my fellow dog walkers this morning and after a brief chat about the weather he announced: “And Hamlet came this week…” After some head scratching I got the reference.

“So you must be Sam,” he concluded, having rightly identified the Dog as the Chocolate Labrador now in residence in the village.

Once again the dog precedes me, but I’ll take comfort in the fact Mr K and I have at last, at least been named as his partners in crime.

Poppy, King Biscuit and the just in case pound

I’ve been muttering excuses to a few people of late, that I’ll be in touch once the dust has settled. Well, I guess it’s in the process of settling.

And so here we are, on the other side.

And we’re well and truly smitten. We’ve landed in our dream home. My heart sings every day as I trot the dog around the ‘circuit’…down the lane into the valley, along the track to a glorious sunrise and the sound of tweeting birds, past the school, up through the village and back to ours.

The dog, he’s not so sure.

But things are starting to take shape for him. Meeting a man by the name of King Biscuit in the local boozer was a good beginning (the self-entitled royalty carries an eye bogling selection of dog treats about his person).

Then this last week we met a lovely black Labrador by the name of Poppy. Ever one to befriend the well-heeled and landed locals, the dog’s latest love-interest lives in the valley, claiming the acres of private fields as her own playground. Needless to say, he’s already been invited around to mark the territory. I can only imagine the confusion that is going to ensue having his new BFF and human cousin go by the same name.

For me, the highlight of the morning circuit is the egg anticipation. Will our neighbour’s hens have lain? Will there be a box in the cubby hole by the gate? After a number of days carrying my gold coin untouched in my coat pocket I was overjoyed to finally spend my ‘just in case’ pound on half a dozen fresh eggs.

And then there’s the welcome pack from the community association and WI. Bursting with flyers for community orchards, am-dram societies, line dancing and flower arranging, it’s a grown up version of Freshers’ Fair. I’m going to have to watch myself or next thing you know I’ll be running a village radio in a hark back to the good ol uni days.

There are hiccups amongst the highs…the front door that won’t lock, the guttering that tails off into the overflowing washing up bowl on the deck, the jammed shut summer house door…but at the moment we’re too busy loving where we live to care.

 

On the move…?!

Well, it’s been an interesting week of will-they-won’t-they-move shenanigans and a weekend of panic packing but we finally exchanged on Kirton Towers on Monday. And after a couple of days of tense negotiation on the part of our conveyancer – and the looming prospect of homelessness – we exchanged at lunchtime yesterday on the new des res.

 Aaaaaand breathe…

So good people, this is it. I barely have time to throw a cup of tea down my throat today amidst the final frenzy of activity, but by this time tomorrow we should be residing in Cornwall.

There will be an email update to all good folk next week with our whereabouts but for now we wish you adieu and look forward to seeing you on the other side (of the border that is)!!

The Tax Man cometh

Hmm, there seems to be a theme emerging here. What tradespeople can I reference in the blog next? 

Well, this latest post is dedicated to the self-employed amongst us who, like my numbers man, Mr K, have been busily compiling accounts and receipts and outgoings to be laid before the Tax Man so that he can determine what grossly unrealistic amount of money he would like to collect at the end of the month. 

Like Christmas before it, Tax Man Month has become an annual feature all of its own in our house, with its very own traits and landmarks. 

For me, it invariably comes hand in hand with taking on too much work. Not so much a conscious decision as some deep-seated natural survival instinct, I find myself in the same boat every year, up to my eyebrows in work and not a paddle in sight. To oft be heard lamenting the darned pressure and inconvenience of earning a decent wage at the very time of year you need it most. 

So if you don’t see / hear from me for a while, you know I’m probably batting off prospective clients with a self-assessment tax form.

I am the Mundic Man

How should one measure the ‘success’ of a blog? This missive was really intended as an outlet for my rants and observations, a blatant unblog of a blog paying little or no heed to the common traits of its medium. 

But over time it’s become somewhere that friends and family can visit to find out what the Kirtons are up to, what the dog’s eaten that he shouldn’t and, most recently, whether we’ve moved house or not. 

To return to my question, I guess I measure the readership of the blog by the amount of texts and Facebook posts I’ve received over the last few weeks asking for our address. I assume this means people have been reading the blog and are feeling a little left out in the cold as to our current whereabouts. 

Well, dear readers, I am currently on a train to London and Mr K and the dog are cosied up in front of the fire, one of whom having just returned from a ski trip. But less specifically (and more useful in satisfying your interest in our on-off-on house move), we are still residents of the fine parish of Whitchurch, Tavistock, Devon. A situation we are very much hoping will change in the coming weeks / months, depending on the vagiaries of the legal and financial systems that plague the house selling-buying process and the whim of our conveyancer and mortgage provider. 

The latest obstacle to be thrown in our path to Cornwall residency and lifelong bliss is a mining by-product by the name of Mundic. Does the cottage we wish to buy have traces of said element in any or all of the various extensions and extras that have been bolted on since its first inception in 1780 something or other? 

Who knows (who cares) but we’re sure as heck going to find out soon thanks to the Mundic man, who’s going to take his drill to the place and create holes in all manner of walls. 

So please, put down your pens, put away your address books and keep your fingers crossed that we leap this latest hurdle. And in return I promise you’ll be the first to know if, and when, we move house.

A Kirton Christmas letter

It’s the time of year when tradition would have one invest a large number of hours in the ‘Christmas letter’.  A bragging rite of passage, the festive message is the opportunity to update near and dear (and those who fall into neither camp but are still on the Christmas Card List) with all the highs and lows of the past year.  ‘Little Tommy now has an MBE and can recite Good King Wenceslas whilst standing on his head’ type of thing.

What better platform for a catch all Kirton catch up than the blog? That’s it dear reader, all you need do is cast your eye over the handy little archives to the right hand side to read the ins and outs, trials and tribulations, sale agreed and back on the market woes of yours truly.

For anyone too lazy or with the memory span of a goldfish, here’s a quick summary:

We kicked off the year with the daft Ducan diet, culminating in the gorgy-cake-frenzy that was Herman.

In February I embarked on a one woman mission to spa every month of the year.

We then lost a few months to Jaegerbombs and below-stairs London cocktail bars, which, unsurprisingly, passed off the record.

In May Mr K and I discovered our inner pensioners with a jolly narrow boating jaunt. That folks was this year’s summer.

Then in June the rains began and the tent made its first appearance, only to withstand 60mph winds before being safely packed away again for the rest of the summer.

June also saw our first foray onto the housing market, swiftly followed by our dream buyers and discovery of our dream barn conversion.  Then a July consumed with property details questionnaires, surveys and solicitors.

Oh and woe, August found us heartbroken and inconsolable as the rungs of the property ladder collapsed beneath us leaving our dreams in tatters and our barn conversion aspirations a thing firmly and finally of the past.

So in September we did what we do best and scarpered, consoling ourselves with a very splendid French holibob.

In October I announced the end of the tomato affair and confessed my gardening disaster.

And finally, in November we tried once again to flog Kirton Towers.

Which brings us up to the present and the current social media embargo imposed by Mr K in which I am not at liberty to disclose the current house selling buying status. Suffice to say that there MAY be a Sale Agreed sign outside of our house.

And on that note all that’s left to do is wish one and all a very Merry Christmas and the very rudest of health and happiness in 2013. We’ll see you the other side, hopefully in Cornwall.