From sensible suburban living to "The Good Life" stopping at various places including Rising Damp and Escape to the Country. Hopefully avoiding DIY SOS and Cowboy Builders

Wednesday 13 March 2013

An Introduction

This is Sunnyside, and from the 28th March it will be home to myself, my long-suffering wife, Linda, and our three grown-up boys.

Last Summer, whilst on holiday in France, we had no intention of moving house away from the comfort of our 1990's detached house on a modern housing estate, at least not until our retirement plans of getting a "little place with some land" came to fruition in 10+ years time.

On arriving home, we accidentally saw the property pages of the local paper, and noted a local house which we already knew was up for sale. We went and looked at it, but deemed it ultimately unsuitable. But the seed was sown, and dissatisfaction grew from it. The thought process went from one of "wait for retirement, save like mad and retire somewhere the houses are cheaper (like Wales)" to "borrow now and look closer to home and family".

Thus we happened (eventually) upon Sunnyside, and immediately discounted it, only to return to it later and be won over by the garden, though not the house. Here we are some 5 months down the line with a mortgage commitment we never expected, but with a rural property with it's own 1 acre garden waiting for us.

If I (we) can drag ourselves to the PC over the coming months (and hopefully years) this blog will be our story of setting ourselves up to be as self-sufficient as possible, and to at least have a house with as little a carbon footprint as possible. I myself cannot claim to be 'sustainable' with a daily 100 mile round trip commute, but that won't be forever, and eventually we will settle down & do it right.

For the meantime, I suspect that there may be more than a few speedbumps in the road ahead.

1 comment:

  1. Well done, mate.

    A strong step in the right direction, I'm sure.

    Andy.

    ReplyDelete