She's lived in the house my sister and I grew up in for the last 30 years, but after she and dad divorced, and my sister and I moved out, she was there on her own. It's not a huge house, but it does have a front and back garden and 3 bedrooms - too much for one person (with bad knees), and mum was finding it hard to cope with keeping the place up. So, she said, why didn't she find herself a nice one bedroom flat, maybe a new build so there would be no chance of things breaking or needing attention for a while, and we could move in to the house.
"I'll warn you though, it'll need a bit of work."
For the last 7 or 8 years, Bernie and my house has been the hub of the family. Christmas happens at ours, birthdays and Sunday lunches. So it's been a good few years since I've actually been to mum's house... and "a bit of work" really didn't seem like such a big deal.
And then we went round there and discovered the front garden like this:
The back garden like this:
And most of the rooms like this:
Just a bit of work then.
And so The Plan for 2010 was born. Bernie and I would go part time in our jobs, we'd be able to work on the house together, I'd have some time to make my jewellery and build my tiny felted empire, we'd plant the front garden with vegetables, work out how to make the house as sustainable and self sufficient as possible, and live a bit of the good life while we're still young and our joints don't ache (too much).
0 comments:
Post a Comment