Lost On A Golf Course and the Original Plan 'A'

Today we went to 'The Hop Shop' near Sevenoaks. It was down one of those windy country lanes that grows narrower and narrower until you just KNOW you're going to meet something coming the other way, like a double decker bus or a combine harvester. And you'll be forced to take evasive action to avoid getting the driver's side of the car stove in, by flinging yourself into the hedge and getting the passenger side stove in instead, only to a lesser degree.

Luckily, this did not happen.

The Hop Shop is a very nice farm shop, selling everything from home produced beef from the cows that were paddling in the river as we entered the farmyard, to hop bines, herbs, jams and cakes and quaint chicken ornaments for your quaint country kitchen. We purchased a mint plant, a raspberry pie and some lavender shortbreads and after making the noises of people who were pleased to have discovered such a lovely shop hidden in the depths of a piece of Kent countryside as yet unconcreted by the Government's housing programme, we went on our way to Lullingstone Country Park for a picnic and a bracing walk.

The Park has two walks - a 'white walk' circa 2 miles, and a 'black walk' circa 4 miles. 'Let's do the black walk,' I said with misplaced enthusiasm. Off we trotted like two mad dogs (or Englishmen). And all I have to say on this subject is that there was more going up hill in the beating mid-day sun than coming down hill in dappled woodland shade. That a woman let her enormous alsation poop in the picnic area and didn't clean up after it and her alsation then proceeded to try and eat our picnic. That there were hoards of screaming schoolchildren, well, screaming. That a couple of doddery old bats puffed cigarette smoke all over us and that we got lost on a golf course, which added a considerable distance to the black walk as we tried to avoid golfers, balls and treading on greens in our stilettoes whilst we attempted to get ourselves back on track.

Our last experience on a golf course was when we visited Knole Park, also in Sevenoaks. An elderly lady, dressed in an exciting ensemble of tweedy golfing gear called across to us as we walked around the park.
'Please could you wait,' she shouted. 'I'm going to play a shot and I don't want to hit you.'

Although we were nowhere near the tee she was playing from, we dutifully stopped and even stood back a little. We waited as she addressed her ball, took a couple of practise swings, and then we tried not to laugh when she managed to hit the ball all of three feet and wildly off to one side at that.

Anyway, our trip out today was a partial success. Andy even tried one of the lavender shortbreads.
'They're a bit...'lavendery,' he said.

So that's the rest of the packet for me then, I thought.

The Original Plan 'A' reared its head again today, after being put on hold (or possibly forgotten) for several months. The Original Plan 'A' was to buy a piece of land and build our own house. We were very keen on this idea for quite a while, as a way of getting a decent piece of land for chicken/bee/pig/geese keeping and veg and orchard growing. We even subscribed to 'Home Builders and Renovators' magazine for a year which entitled us to free tickets to the Home Builders and Renovators Show in Excel in London and the 'Property Abroad' Exhibition in the hall next door. All I remember about that trip was that the car parking cost us £12.50 for a couple of hours and that we got scared in the 'Property Abroad' exhibition by orange salesmen called Pedro trying to sell us timeshare in small holiday flats in Malaga.

But today we find ourselves once more fired up by the 'self-build' dream. Out came our copy of 'The New Home Plans Book' which is filled with architectural drawings of everything from one bedroom maisonettes to eight bedroom mansions, all with arty names like 'The Dovecote', 'The Windermere' and 'Locksley Corner.' We are planning a trip to 'Scandia Hus' which is a company that specialises in house kits, so you order your desired des res and build it yourself like a giant lego project. We are excited by being able to set out our piece of land how we want it to be, and build our house how we want it to be and I expect there will be many an evening spent over the next few weeks scribbling one giant sheets of paper, saying things like 'You can't put an orchard there, that would be CRAZY,' and 'How many toilets do two people, three cats and four chickens ACTUALLY need?'

There is only one proviso.

'Don't let me plan the garden,' said Andy, 'or it'll end up like the allotment did last year.'

It's a plan...