It's been a while....

So its a been a pretty epic break between posts.  Apologies to all of you who have told me to update. Finally - here we are. I could bore you to tears with all the things we've been up to, so a picture update is probably best.

There's a lot of work gone in to making our wobbly farmhouse look the same!

I love that this old one has our washing in it!

Ha! and we still think this looks a bit messy!

                     The 'before' shots of the house are a bit unrecognisable... But you get the idea....

Sitting room

Lovely fireplace

Perhaps a little white for a toddler...

We loved this anyway....

But found and restored these floorboards underneath..

Dining room now (can't find dining room 'before' but it was mainly full of mould and iy

The Kitchen and old heating system...

I scrubbed every tile with brick acid and floated away on the fumes.

This used to be luxury...

Gary has fully restored the bread ovens with working flues.  All we need is a pizza paddle

We've mainly spent the last year and a half since I last wrote a blog moaning to anyone who would listen about what a drama its all been. And we have a slightly different outlook on things now.
But, we're not quitters.  For a long bleak while we considered selling up and retuning to Penge, or Slough or no where.  But we've not yet had the opportunity to live the life we came here to live and that's our driving force now.  And if that means not quitting but hurling ourselves into bankcrupcy and divorce then at least we can say we're not quitters.

We still live with the in laws. The old barn is still an old barn.
I've grown rather partial to a gravy dinner and I've learnt to accept there just will be biscuits.
Two years with them now and we're still alive; I expect this is only really due to the amount of tea we now drink.
Gary and I made made a new year resolution to drink more wine. I'm not sure if it is them, or kids or this crazy project that has made us feel middle aged, or maybe we just are.
Anyway - they have finally sold their bungalow and the build starts today.
Lets turn 6 music up LOUD! and push bedtime to 9.45...whoop.


We need the space as Arthur has turned into a whirlwind of a 3 year old and its best if he whirls around in a bigger room and so to allow his new baby sister Edie to have the smaller one.  Gary wants to turn the top into a boys play den - but I'm worried this might involve Games Workshop (as he has always lingered a bit too long over their shop windows.  Arthur can't wait to sleep upstairs as he thinks Grandads massive telly is staying.

So, the house.  As you can see - we have living rooms, and heating and bathrooms and a kitchen. And the caravan feels like a cutesie little holiday sometime ago.  By the time it left (we gave it away to the first person pepared to drag it down the road) the water was pouring out of the bathroom and it was only days until one of us would be literally sliding out of it, lathered in radox.

And Mrs Mills' Yurts?  May Hill Glamping?  More than a slight delay... but we are moving forward now and aiming for Easter. What's not done in the house can wait.   Our sexy polished concrete urban en suite looks like a prison loo but it doesn't matter.  The glass brick divider to give the bathroom some privacy is shelved and I'll just have to keep shouting at Gary that life is unglamourous enough as it is - so the loo is out of bounds!

The glamping site has been primped and squashed and rolled and raked. We've bought the yurts and we are heading for April.

Still a little way off the outdoor hot tub and fire pit... but its coming!

Last summer we planted an edible hedge - with Blackthorn for Sloe, Rosehip,  Crab Apple, Sweet chestnuts and Juniper.  Its not exactly been a bumper harvest but you will have a Sloe gin cocktail on arrival at the Yurts and at least two of you lucky glampers will get some rosehip jelly in their picnic baskets!  Jam production was a little more successfull and they'll definatly be a jar of Blaisdon Plum jam in the breakfast hampers.  I had to keep sorting through the jars Linda was saving me though - didn't think the Chicken Tonight jars would quite rock it.  (Chicken tonight you say?! surely not for such a domestic goddess, hummmm)

The veg patch gave us a better yield so we'll need some help to eat all the fresh salad.  And although the blueberry bush might of only burped up 12 rather shrivelled blueberries - I'm sure they made this cheesecake taste all the more home cooked!

So I'll keep you posted.  These pictures have made me excited by Spring, but I'm sure it will be even busier than last year - and we've got a lot to do still before we can really start doing what Dursley Cross is supposed to do for us.