We had no plans, save playing a board game with the Smalls, but had the pleasantly squishy experience of a caravan full of impromptu guests last night, which was the best and most perfect way to see in the New Year, surrounded by the friends and neighbours who have helped us so much in the past six months.
After so much merry making, we decided to have a slow day spent being together, doing what small jobs were needed and resting.
It has given me space to walk the land, and dream a little more, plan a little more, see a little more.
We know where the house is going to be sited. It isn't exactly where we would have liked, but councils don't like little houses being built on a visable hilltop, even if there is no one else to see it, and there is the practicality of being a pensioner, climbing a hill with bags of shopping. So, the house is to be nestled into the side of the hill, not so far from the track.
With this certainty we've been able to start marking out other things. A pond, a line of stock fencing, a barn and a woodland. It feels good to have a solid plan after many months of switching things about. I feel we've been flexible enough and now, armed with a little more knowledge of where the sun sets and rises in the darkest months, we are able to stick to a plan.
So, weather permitting, foundations will be put in for the house in March, and the frame will follow from that. We may have a shell in time for my middle boys birthday. Just six short months away.
For now I am enjoying the feeling of new. New hopes, dreams and plans.
