Moving on up 'n' out

Lincolnshire is the current location of choice for us in the 'search for our cottage in the country with a massive garden' campaign. Location favourites change according to outside influences and what we see on TV programmes like 'A Place in the Country', 'Relocation x3 ditto' and 'Grand Designs.' We've toyed with Norfolk, because we've been popping up and down the past 3 years whilst Heather has been at university in Norwich and we feel a bit familiar with the place now; Suffolk, because I always get excited about seeing the pigs in fields; Wales because it always looks so green and well spread out; France, because Vera and Lester are there with masses of land and they are making a go of their new life and have survived a year; Dorset, because that is where Hugh F-W is and he is our hero; Cornwall/Somerset/Devon because I spent several happy hols there as a child and have seriously romanticised the area; Liverpool, because it is the only city aside from Norwich that I could tolerate living anywhere near and I think Andy has a secret yearning to go back there and Shropshire, can't remember why, probably a telly influence.

And now, Lincolnshire. It is Lincolnshire that is being entered into the search engine of RightMove and various smallholding website. We go in fits and starts with our searches. When life is ticking along happily, not much searching gets done. When life is being stressful and one's hubby is coming home from work every day asking if we can run away once we've had dinner and washed up, then much searching is done. Lincolnshire, we have discovered, has houses with very large pockets of land attached. Not acres and acres, but then we don't want acres and acres. We feel that any more than 2 acres would be too much for our raison d'etre, that we would be swapping one set of complications for another. No, an acre or two would be AMPLE for me and Andy, four chickens, three cats, a couple of pigs, a few more hens, some ducks and geese, a vegetable garden and a partridge in a pear tree.

And Lincolnshire has a wide variety of houses, both in style and history. You can pick up a pair of cottages for renovation for well under £100,000, with a big garden tacked on the side. We could, theoretically, be mortgage free if we went somewhere like Lincolnshire.

So, when we go to Stratford for a spot of Shakespeare next week, we think we shall take a detour on the way home via Lincolnshire. Heather is coming down to house/chicken/cat/kitten sit for us, so we won't have to rush home. A bit of exploration is called for, to get a feel for the place.

I have actually made a property purchase this week. Yesterday, a house arrived for the solitary bees that frequent our garden. Here it is.

A very modern detached property with fashionable galvanised zinc roof, copious bedrooms, all with a south facing aspect (or they will have once I've hung it on the back wall of the house), the ultimate in chic bee accommodation.

Perhaps we should be like solitary bees. They don't worry about where they are going to live. They have a purpose in life, a job to do, and they get on and do it knowing that a house is bound to turn up for them to sleep in somewhere on their travels. Bees have got life sussed.

So on with the search. On with the plans for jobs and work and what shall we do and how shall we do it and can we afford it and what if it all goes wrong, which it probably won't. And we'll talk ourselves into plans and out of them again and go round in circles, sometimes big, sometimes small. And at some point, the Powers That Be shall say 'We are stopping the world in a moment, just for a few seconds and you must be ready to jump off and move on...ready, steady.....

....GO!