A lot can happen in seven days

A lot can happen in seven days. We saw a house in late September, liked it and the following Sunday we went for a second time to look at it. Monday, we made an offer that was accepted, but with the caveat that we had to sell our present home. By midday Tuesday it was clear that the buyer we thought we had, was not going to be able to move in time to let us buy the house we had seen. Three days of worry followed, with our agent talking of dropping the price of our house, “to engender interest” (and I thought only lawyers used language like that!).

We walked on Mardon Down on Saturday morning, and as we walked we talked. And as we talked, we realised that there was another option: to stay where we are. It is a big house, and as the children grow and leave home, it can be quite empty. But with luck they will be back.

We talked of why we originally bought the house, of what we can and will do, of the changes that we will make and the decision was made. We looked out over Moretonhampstead, from the stone where Caroline scattered Foggy’s ashes on a cold January Sunday. It is a view of which I never weary, and we turned back to the Land Rover with the feeling of a great weight lifted. The children are delighted: after all, this is home to them and is where they have spent their teenage years.

It is now two weeks since we made the decision. Our builder has been round and we are starting to sketch out the timetable for the work that will need to be done. In the meantime, we have been deciding what furniture to keep, and what to let go. It is almost a new beginning in the house. When we arrived in Moretonhampstead nine years ago, we put our energy into the family. There was a lot we have had to do to the house over the years: wiring, a new roof (we kept a Cornish slate quarry busy), various bits of plumbing, a new boiler, new windows. What we have not really done, other than change the colour, is the interior. This is what we are now going to do over the next twelve months. Watch this space!

Autumn Gardening

It is raining hard, and has been for three hours. We managed a couple of hours after lunch in the garden: mowing the lawn and generally tidying up. When we moved here nine years ago, the garden was overgrown and ill-kempt. Our predecessors would be horrified to read this, and perhaps it is not entirely fair. When they had first arrived, they had done much; but as they had grown older, they lost control of the garden. It was one of the things that attracted us to the house: the opportunity to make our own garden.

We set about clearing it: all but one of the trees came out, and over time we reshaped beds, changed the levels and made a pond. The first autumn after we moved, we lost the one tree we had kept, a large mulberry. Caught in a storm, it split, with half blocking the road and the other half in the garden. We had no alternative but to have it dug out: the trunk was rotten and it was past saving. We planted another mulberry, although that was damaged in a storm two years ago, its crown split.

We are thinking of moving on. Four of the five children have left school; one is in Berlin; two at university and another will start next autumn: just the boy is left at home, and then for only two years. We don’t know exactly when we will move, or where: we have seen a couple of houses not that far away, and know that it is now not so much if but when we move. As I mowed the lawn I wondered if it would be the last time. I love the garden we have made. I can remember where we bought nearly all the plants, and when. Some have done really well; others have struggled. This summer has been so dry that at times we wondered whether we should simply have had a Mediterranean garden. I think that at least one if not two of the trees we have planted have been killed by the drought. The rain we are now having is probably too late, although the resilience of plants never ceases to surprise me.

Caroline spent the afternoon tending her streptocarpuses. They will come with us, as will the olive tree, the acers and the camelias. How we will move everything, I have no idea. I imagine that there are people who move plants, or perhaps it will be us in the Land Rover, with a trailer (so we had better not move too far!). Most of the plants we will leave, for whoever buys this house, in the hope that they will give them as much pleasure as they have given us.

October Blues

This year we have had one of the longest dry periods I can remember. Autumn came in mid-Summer, as the trees started to lose their leaves and the ground is iron-hard. Not much fun for a rugby playing 16 year old. Dry pitches may make for fast rugby in South Africa (or so we were always told when I was younger); over here, you simply get skinned knees and elbows, and tackling is an effort of will! Ed finds it very frustrating.

It has been all change this weekend, and we are now getting the rain (and wind). About time to, but we need a lot more. This afternoon we took ourselves up to the Hennock reservoirs: Tottiford, Kennick and Trenchford. Built between 1861 (Tottiford) and 1907 (Trenchford) to supply water to Newton Abbott and Torquay, the three reservoirs lie on the wooded ridge between the Teign and the Wray valleys. It is easy walking, and there are never that many people about. The woodlands are mainly forestry and there is little wildlife: buzzards and, over the reservoirs, shags. We have see roe deer on the edge of the forestry but little else.

Trenchford was built following an exceptionally dry period in 1901. I am not sure how 2006 has compared to 1901, but in our visits this year, and we go up most months, we have seen the water levels in all three reservoirs drop, and all are now the lowest we have seen in the ten or so years we have been here. Tottiford, the middle one, is empty at its upper end and there is little water the dam end; Trenchford must be 25 feet down from its high water mark.

We had intended to walk the Belstone – Cosdon – White Moor stone circle – Steeperton Tor – Belstone circuit today. We last walked it late last autumn, in fog and driving rain, and had hoped that we would have better weather today. The route gives tremendous views over the wilder parts of the Northern Moor. We have been walking the Southern parts of the Moor recently and both felt that we were due a change of scenery. We should have gone yesterday. Overnight the rain came in from the South West, and we woke to day that was definitely not a day for the High Moor, even in the right clothes. So shaking off the lethargy of a late start, we drove up to the reservoirs. It went on raining and, sitting writing this three hours later, my jeans are still damp. I was told to put on waterproof trousers but knew best!

Perhaps next week.