Impossible?...yes, on reflection!

Well over at Lucky Snapping Anne has asked us to reflect on something which seemed like an impossible task.. Just over here!

I was a little late getting my views posted for week 1 of February and you may have missed it, I'm not sure, but it is here, I promise.. oh, yes, well.. it's here..! 

And now here I am on Thursday wondering about 'the impossible' .. but worrying that I am starting to be late with my posts all the time... ahh being late!...can you see the thoughts growing?....that's me.... always almost late.... and consequently that makes 'being on time'.. impossible!    Maybe it was because I was over two weeks late being born, it continued then when I had all my brood, Ross was two weeks late and the others all a good few days.  The concept of having a baby early did not come into it.

It's not that I am very late, in fact sometimes I am even running on time, or perhaps a little comfortably early.. but that means there is an extra few minutes to ... dry my hair, nip back indoors to collect something, do the dishes before I leave.. or most probably just lie in bed the extra few moments which will start off the lateness before the chance of a rogue moment of earliness is even allowed to peek..

When Col & I married we drove in our car to the Registry Office, we got there after our friends.. and that's not really fashionable at that kind of wedding. The children have grown to expect it, they have a kind of 'Mum's timing' thing going on, take the time I said and add ten minutes, so you see, it's not that late, not hours, just fashionably not on time!  ;-)

Going back to 'impossible' I have given this a little thought. I don't think I think of things happening that had 'impossible' feelings at the outset, I guess I wouldn't even embark on something if I felt like that about it... oh, but when it's done, when I am sitting here pondering back over things, so so many things we have done look NOW like they must have seemed impossible.

In 1997 we were parents to five children under 12, the baby (Kate) was three months old and we had been quietly thinking of moving house. Col was working on civils dive work which had become very weather sensitive and every job had to be a success, he was looking to do something else...we needed somewhere he could have workshops and have some scope..

Col's folks were interested in buying somewhere with us, a place of their own but alongside us, to be good for us at that time and good for them later when maybe they would need us.  We had looked at one place, a farm with farmshop on quite a busy road, it was okay, food for thought, but it was digested and spat out as not the one!  

A few weeks later I saw the details of a old ivy covered farmhouse with lots of outbuildings and 9 acres of land.  We went out to drive past it, we had only been through the village a few times before, but we were pleased to see it was at the start of a lane just on the edge of the village, so it was good for a wander to the shop, but not too far for the kids that they couldn't go on their own.  It was only five miles from where we were and we ... well I.. fell in love. I think Col saw the potential too of course, probably from a getting away from the crowds point of view (the place we lived in at the time was getting a bit built up)... so we showed some friends and our folks.. 

Gran's annexe will go here!

The front garden with it's very mature rose bushes and monkey puzzle tree was just fabulous, many a child could be reared there ... little did I know that the front path would be dug up for new water and power supplies, that the roses would be taken up as they were so mature the thorns were like wooden spears, not child friendly at all!  Only that monkey puzzle really survived the practical ideas Col had to make the place easy to maintain, gone were my secluded Victorian pathways and overgrown hedges.. but I'm cool..

The house was.. a disaster.. wallpaper peeling off the walls, asbestos panels to remove, a fire damaged floor, no plumbing or heating in the main house and that was just the obvious stuff!

But we quite fancied it.. there were two barns, one for his folks... and.. hey wait a minute.. if we move I will still spend a lot of time toing and froing to my own Mum.. lets get her to come too!! So she did! To be fair she had a nice bungalow in our old village and would probably have been fine there for a few more years, but it was going to be easier if she came along....

.. so they came along.. us 7, Col's M&D and my Mum. We sold our houses and rented a 4-bed bungalow for three months while we did a gut and make-liveable job on the 'big house' as Col's Mum named it.  Ahhh and here's the rub.. Mum and his folks got caravans and lived in them in the field alongside the barn for up to two years before they moved into their places...summer 2000 Mum moved into her annexe and we were finally all sorted, ...well it's still a work in progress but aren't most homes. 

Where the workshop joined the barn (his folk's house!)

The story goes that Jean and my Mum used to sit in the caravans over in the field, looking back at the delapidated farm buildings, big digger trucks, old farm detritis and so much work that needed doing and they would ask each other just what we had done..!! 

I think they thought it was an impossble task.. but like us they must have not really thought so because they came on the journey too.. takes quite a person to live in a caravan for almost two years when you are in your 70's, especially by choice! 



Caravans just on the right in the field!

But those days of kids playing in building sand and Kate (with two bottles, one in her mouth and one in her pocket) crawling across the wooden planks to Jean's caravan are all the things memories are made of.. just like the impossible tasks!

I must just add here one of Colin's favourite quotes ..

'If at first you don't succeed.. get bigger kit!'

We were storing this big swingshovel at the time and got to use it for the demolition work.. only trouble was it had some faults, it had an inclination to swing to the left, so you had to be careful you didn't wipe out a building when just trying to make 'improvements' !!!