We often hear that moving home, alongside getting married, having kids or somebody close to you dying, is a very stressful time.
Well, we’ve just moved and downsized the house. Added to this, I have also sold my observatory. This should have added to my stress, but so far, our decision has already completely changed our lives. The funds this has released has enabled me to leave work early, (“retire”) and, once the work has been done to get the house up to scratch, we should just about have enough left (time will tell! Ulp!) to pay the bills for the next few years until I can start to claim my pension. I don’t earn much from selling my books, but when the colder days set in, and most of the house jobs are done, I will be sitting down and writing more astronomy books, as my previous editions have gone down so well.
We thought it was peaceful in our old garden until we moved here to Raunds. It’s amazing just sitting in our new garden hearing very little traffic, plus surrounded by bird noise, especially the multitude of swifts at this time of year, squealing and chasing one another and the red kites calling regularly as they patrol the area.
Of course being free from the commitments of work, leaves us in a fantastic position to take up lots of opportunities that we couldn’t before. A quick impromptu trip down the The Mall in London to view the RAF100 Flypast, or helping out my mate Andy Green with his Stardome Planetarium, when he needs me.
All sorts of other new and exciting opportunities seem to be coming at me from all sides at the moment. So our decision so far seems to have been proven to be the right one. I may regret saying that at some point, but we’ll ride with that one for now.
Yes, it’s been hard work preparing to move and living in the current mess, while the house gets sorted out, is also a bit of a challenge.
This week the kitchen gets ripped out, two stud walls are coming out and the new kitchen being fitted the week after, before the decorator comes in to make good.
This weekend I grappled with an enormous ivy which was covering the bottom edge of the garden. Yesterday I won the first battle. This morning I won the war, taking out the thick root and reclaiming another 5 feet of garden. I have the sore hands, muscles, cuts and bruises to prove it, let’s call them my battle scars, shall we? But its a bit of ground definitely worth fighting for. This will be used for the site of my new observatory (a shed this time). This is planned to be installed at the beginning of August, the base for it is being laid late next week.
So it’s all go. So has it all been very stressful?
More like exciting and so very rewarding as we can see the rapid progress that is being made to make the house ours.
And to think, we only moved into the house 10 days ago and have made so much progress, both inside and out.
The pictures below show the before and after views of the vine.
Now where the heck are we going to get rid of all those cuttings?
