A New Life in Suffolk

As the title of this blog says,where does the time go? I hadn't realized that it has been over a week since I last wrote. Apologies to anyone out there who has been waiting in anticipation for the next chapter in my life!
So what has been happening since I last blogged?
THe better half's daughter,partner & 3 grandchildren came up for the day. It was lovely to see them & although I am not a great lover of kids, they are very sweet girls & were well behaved. It was a shame it poured with rain while they were here as they couldn't run around outside, but managed to keep themselves amused mostly by chasing the cats! This was not appreciated by the cats but they tolerated it! I have to say that the 4 year old came up with a novel use for a bidet. On looking round the house & coming to the bathroom, she announced when seeing the bidet "and thats where you bath the cats!" So now you know.
I have not mentioned the wildlife in our garden for a while. Well they are all still here, the pheasant with his mate,the mole(or moles) who have yet to be seen but thanks to the molehills make their presence known, & the ducks from next door's fishing lakes. One in particular has become quite a regular. He obviously has a damaged wing so cannot fly, but waddles round from the front of the house on to the lawn near the back door. I have given him the odd bit of bread so now every day he appears mid morning in the same place & waits for his bit of bread. Woe betide me if I am late coming out! He quacks away at me the moment I appear & doesn't stop until he is fed. We are hanging lots of fat balls for the birds & these are proving very popular. We have all sorts come down & feed & I have noticed how different birds feed in different ways. The blue tits & great tits like to feed individually on the balls, taking turns to come down & feed, whereas the long tailed tits will cluster up to 5 or 6 to a ball no problem. The robins just fight with everyone & the blackbirds & sparrows hang around on the ground waiting for bits to fall off. It does make for fascinating watching, though I don't think I am quite up to being a twitcher.
H has turned up & started on renovating the garage. He is doing a fantastic job & is getting on really well with the help of the better half (who is now christened 'the boy'.) He went home for the weekend but will be back Monday morning to finish the job. Then I can move all my workroom stuff out there & free up some room in the house. I want to be out before the building work starts as dust & rubble don't really mix with fine silks. My 1st lot of costumes are finished & I am now working on Sound of Music frocks. I make the national dress outfits that the girls wear so this is quite a regular job since they grow up & then have to be recast. So it is another trip down to London next week. When I went down last time I thoroughly enjoyed the journey. I thought that being back in London would make me feel homesick. On the contrary, it felt claustraphobic & dirty & smelly & I couldn't wait to leave, so I am obviously a country girl at heart.
We are still getting quotes in & I obviously under estimated the cost of everything. The money is running out fast & I might have to raid next years tax money. It is all slightly frustrating as the time is ticking by & nothing is happening yet. The better half assures me that it will all take off shortly & we will soon be living in a building site. We have made a start on the garden though.
Last weekend J&C popped in to see us. She had done our garden design & wanted to get it to us before they went on holiday. Well it is fantastic & affordable. She has designed it so that it can be an ongoing project & I don't feel I have to try and do it all at once.
So yesterday was such a lovely day that I decided to start to tackle the area immediately behind the house, this will be the area our B&B guests can use. The swimming pool was there so it is just an empty space with some paving now. J has designed a gravel garden which is not too difficult to do & can be planted up gradually. It is also a good reason to take a day off & visit Beth Chatto's garden for inspiration.
Next weekend we have two lots of guests coming, and with H staying all week I have a serious amount of catering to do. My problem is I am running out of ideas of what to cook & feel that my food is becoming boring. The better half assures me it isn't & is always very appreciative of what I cook so I will trust him & carry on as before.
I think I will close now as I am at last getting sleepy. I should explain that I am writing this at 4 in the morning.
Another by product of this project is that there is so much going round in my head that I can't sleep, so have to get up & do things while the better half sleeps soundly upstairs!
Goodnight.

All the trees in the garden have survived. In fact the better half hasn't even started it up yet. It has been far to wet & windy for tree pruning.
Well all the things I said I was waiting for last time have happened, the roof is off the garage (it was asbestos, so disposed of safely)the highways man has been & sees no problems,we have had the quote from the builder, & a contractor has been to quote for digging the hole for the new septic tank & creating a car park. All very exciting & expensive. We have also had a kitchen design man in. This I am especially excited about. He is a really lovely guy & has come up with a great layout. I feel very privileged to have a bespoke kitchen, such a treat.
My aunt had an enjoyable stay & we managed to get her upstairs to see the layout. She is amazing,91 with perfect hearing & 20/20 vision. They left Monday pm & then we had to get the tarpaulins on the garage roof . I am not good up ladders & it was quite windy but we did it thanks to the better half being so good at these things. When the roof guys came back with the official receipt they were amazed that we had covered it & said many roofers weren't as quick as us. I could see a new career beckoning if it were not for my fear of heights!
In our previous life in London we both belonged to a gym. So when we moved I had no plan to join up here thinking there wouldn't be one near us. What a joy it was to see one on the edge of Bungay. so I have joined but not the better half as he is so busy & active outside. Yesterday was my induction, I was dreading it as I haven't been for three months but I really enjoyed it & shall try & go 3 times a week.
I suppose the most exciting thing that has happened this week is that we have a web page, though it is only a holding page at the moment. My cousin's son K is a graphics & web designer. So last week I rang him just to let him know that we were starting to think about advertising & marketing. Well before I know it we have purchased a domain name & then it turns out that he was coming up our way at the weekend to buy a puppy so could pop in & see the place to get a feel for it. So they turned up on Saturday, had some coffee, & he took away literature & photos. His kids were very good & patient as I don't think I would have wanted to detour for a couple of hours to talk to some old people about Dad's work if I was on my way to collect a puppy.
Anyway, Sunday evening with my Aunt & family here I get a text from K to say check my emails as he has done a preliminary design for cards & a web page. It is all looking fantastic & I am very impressed with him as it is all a different language to me.
Today I am paying a flying visit to London to do fittings. Going down lunchtime, fitting at teatime & straight back.
I am quite looking froward to 2hrs on the train to read my book & relax as I have always loved train travel.
So the rest of the week will be finishing the frocks & then if the weather is okay, H will come up & start sorting the garage out.
Suppose I had better go & find some smart clothes for London!

There is no getting away from it now. With the holiday season well & truly over we have to get down to the business of setting up this business.
I have also agreed to do some work. In my former job I made costumes for West end theatre & films. Several of the shows are long running musicals which get recast. So when a new costume is needed it makes sense to use the original maker. So when I was asked to do 3 frocks I couldn't really say no as I have made them for a long time. I have to say I am not over excited about doing them but the money will come in very useful. This week I have had to knuckle down & start which is hard as the garden beckons & I have so much I want to do outside.
All the work to be done inside is sort of on hold as we are waiting for quotes from the builder, a visit from the highways man about our drive & a man to come & look at our garage roof which we suspect is asbestos.
I'm not good at waiting & want everything done now, so maybe the frocks are a good distraction.
Today we both went & got our hair cut. We both seem to have chosen well as neither of us look like skinned rabbits & the better half is especially please as it only cost him £6!
We have a lot of friends & family coming up over the next few weeks to visit. It will be good practice for me, my cooked breakfasts are definately improving. The first is my Aunt this weekend. Her son's wife is bringing her up . She will be 91 in a month or so & is amazingly spritely for her age. However she is not good with stairs ,but as we have a downstairs ensuite it means she can stay over.It will be lovely to have her up here.
Then we have the better half's daughter with fella & 3 grandchidren but only for the day. Then his brother & wife, & so it goes on. I feel very flattered that they all want to see us but suspect it is as much to see the house as us!
A word about internet shopping. It is a very dangerous thing. Last night we ordered sheets for the bed, 3 small pedal bins for the guest bathrooms & a chainsaw for the better half. What a strange selection & will any of the trees in my garden now be safe?

I'm back & ready to go!
We have had the most fantastic Christmas & New Year.I won't go into to too many details but suffice to say all went very well. Our house guests had a good time & we all ate, drank & were merry. Everyone mucked in & helped with preparation,clearing up & washing up. H was as good as his word & put our new front door on, complete with all locks & hinges. It was slightly strange on the Thursday morning to eat breakfast with the front door wide open(to set or dry or something!)I should explain that the dining room is open plan to the hallway.
J&C did a complete survey of the garden & C says she will do us a plan of our dream garden. I said could she also do one that we could afford. I'm sure it will be lovely & can't wait to see it.
The other J (female) has taken loads of photos of the house & garden which she has sent on a CD.I have yet to look at them but hopefully will put some up on the blog. Still haven't sorted that out, but it is a New Year's resolution.
Talking of which we had a lovely New Year, the better half's sister & her fella came up. it was quite quiet but we went to Southwold on New Year's eve afternoon & walked down the pier. then came back & cooked a nice supper & drank a very large amount of alcohol & went to bed slightly squiffy at 2am.
We also went down the pier at Southwold on Boxing day, this is becoming a habit, but it is so beautiful there & only a 15 min drive from us.
Between Xmas & New year the better half's son & his girlfriend came for an overnight stay. It was lovely to have them here but they had problems finding us. I have sent instructions to all my other friends who have found us no problem, but they insisted that the SatNav would get them here.
Well they ended up in a field & had no map with them, so we had to give instructions to their mobile(which kept getting cut off due to lack of signal) & they eventually made it about an hour late. The youth of today, they so rely on technology! There has to be something said for good old-fashioned maps.
On the Sunday before New Year we decided to take down the swimming pool. Had I mentioned we have a pool?
Well it is an above ground one, plastic held up by scaff poles & in the wrong place outside the dining room window. Anyway, the better half had pumped out most of the water & there was just a few inches left to scoop out with buckets. Oh the glamour, wrapped up warm & in my wellies bucketing out water, & then mopping out the last few drops & all the leaves from the surrounding oaks. I should mention that while doing this the Better half discovered that the pump in the septic tank had packed up & it was filling up fast! But he is so clever & found an old pond pump & connected that instead, so crisis of overflowing sewage averted! This country life has it's moments.
The pool is now down & stored away safely in one of the stables. It gives me a chance to see the space more clearly & think about the type of garden I want there. it will have to be something quite simple to begin with as if we open in April I only have a few months. I should explain that I plan to do the garden landscaping & planting myself to try & keep costs down. It should also help with keeping fit.
Now the holidays are over & we have to get down to business. The last month has seemed like one long holiday as neither of us are going out to work, but we have to remember that getting this place up & running as a B&B is a job.
Today we decided to take down the old coal bunker which the previous owners had left full of old rubble. That was a job & a half but we did it, keeping the hardcore for the new car park & bagging the rubbish to go to the tip(which we have yet to find!) What we did find was an old grave stone. I was completely spooked as I thought the initials said FH(mine) but actually they said EH with the date 1894. Apparantly this house used to be an old Methodist chapel but nobody said anything about burials. And we have to have the pit for the new septic tank dug right where we found it!
On that note I think I will close.