365/282 Overgrown.

There's only one picture I need to show you today (well maybe two).. our house about 15 and half years ago when we first caught sight of it.  We had in mind to buy a place with Col's folks so we could have more space and they could grow old with us, after they had helped us raise the family of course!  I spotted the place in the paper, it was in a village five miles from where we then lived, but not somewhere I knew very well.  We couldn't believe our luck that whilst being on the outskirts of a village (perfect for the social side of things for the oldies) it was also not way down a lane in the middle of nowhere..

My Mum lived near us and came in on it too, probably just as well, I may have been driving to and fro to hers for the next ten years otherwise, and she was an integral part of what we were doing.  She and Col's folks were going to have new accomodation in converted barns and stuff and we were going to live in the house.. we all moved into a 4 bedroom bungalow for ten weeks until the house was gutted and made just about liveable .. oh and the two caravans were ready for the elders to settle into!  What great sports they were, settled into it pretty well but Col's Mum did let on in later years that she and my Mum often sat and wondered out loud if we knew what we were doing!

I just loved the garden, it was overgrown and real old fashioned, little pathways and very mature bushes... oh and ivy a foot deep on the walls and trees with roots pushing up inside the floors.   My heart wanted to maintain it all, cut it back and nurture it but we had five kids under 12 and over the years I understood that making things easy to manage is sometimes the most aesthically pleasing option after all... and the rose bushes were so mature the thorns were an inch ong, not great for kids Hide & Seek!

The place probably looked its best in 2008 when Col's folks had their Golden Wedding and we were sporting a new roof and a grit blasted front...not quite so romantic a look but way less bugs from the ivy and the rooms weren't dark from foliage at the windows! But the monkey tree still stands as you know!

Sad when you think of how our lives have changed since then, but the memories of late nights outside with fires in the barbecues and children playing in building sand and wheelbarrows while we made houses for our Mums, it was all worth it and despite what I sometimes say.. I do realise how much we have done since we saw the lost garden and house above in 1997!