Tuesday 20 January 2015

In a fortnight where there was a little too much upsetting news for my liking (ageing parents...), the one thing that has kept me cheerful is our holiday cottage, that I mentioned in my last post.

As I've mentioned on this blog before, B. lives in a house that he built himself, in the same grounds as his father who lives in a big farmhouse behind B's house. This farmhouse has several barns and outbuildings, in various states of disrepair. One of them in particular always looked like a perfect candidate for converting into a holiday cottage. I used to joke about it, then my jokes became a bit more serious and one day B. agreed that it might be fun.

The renovation started 5 years ago and B. worked on it in his spare time, the holiday cottage competing for attention with skiing, tractors and motorbikes! We never really knew when it would be finished, often it would be 'next Easter' and that Easter would come and go and still we wouldn't be done. But there wasn't any real rush.

Cat helping out

After B. built pretty much everything himself single-handedly (my contribution being the occasional sweeping of the floor or, more likely, tidying up the kitchen in his own house or running another load of laundry so he could concentrate on this building), we are now at the point of furnishing, as you can tell from the last couple of photos. It's not quite finished yet - we are now having heated discussions about pieces of furniture and every day the post arrives with several parcels containing glassware, duvet covers, bath mats and everything else you need to run a home. Last weekend the sofas and the white goods arrived, and it's looking more and more that we can take paying guests from Easter - yes, this Easter!

There is still a lot to do, but I've started thinking about creating a website and marketing the holiday let in order to make it profitable. It is a steep learning curve but I'm very much looking forward to having people there, enjoying a holiday in a cottage that we think is very cosy!

A few details: it's a 2 bedroom cottage which sleeps 4. Downstairs is all open plan with a kitchen with woodburner cooker and induction hob on one side, and living room with woodburner on the other side. The back doors open onto a patio/seating area that is completely private and overlooks a large field with hedges.
Upstairs are two bedrooms, one main bedroom with double bed and one smaller bedroom with two single beds. Bathroom with bath/shower over bath/basin/toilet/bidet. Bedding/towels/logs/electricity included. The cottage is situated about 2 miles outside Pulham St. Mary, which has a village shop and a community centre with a cafe, open 6 days a week. The next village along, Pulham Market, has two pubs. The market town Diss is a 20 minutes drive away, Norwich half an hour, Cambridge is 80 minutes and the coast about 40 minutes. There are lots of public footpaths near the cottage and of course when you come back, you can warm up by the woodburner or have a barbecue on the patio!

The website should be up and running very soon, but in the meantime you can start to follow us on Twitter (@oldhorsestable) for updates... (and some more photos of furnishing in progress are here https://www.flickr.com/photos/38243956@N00/sets/72157627375567336)

Maybe see you there sometime?

Sunday 2 March

Camera lens still broken, not heard anything yet. In desperation I charged my little old compact camera, which was on its last legs when I got the DSLR, to take on my bike ride today. I lost count of the number of times I held the LCD viewer close to my eye...
Photos didn't turn out as bad I expected. Weather was nice so I decided on my usual along the river (Yare) trip and took photos of every church I saw along the way, to show how many churches Norfolk's got (more than people, I sometimes think!) 8 churches in 24 miles.
A little collage here:

And fingers crossed my camera's back for the next bike ride, which isn't for another three weeks as B's off on skiing trip in France and we aren't going up to the ski club for a couple of weeks.

Tuesday 9 July

Yes, I went AWOL for a little while. Just didn't feel like blog writing. Too much going on in 'real life' to sit down and write a decent post. But I'm back with some sunny and above all, pink photos!

Normally on a Tuesday I'd try and do my Ten Happy Things, but as I had such a happy day on Sunday, this blog post is going to be about that - I figure a whole day of happiness counts as Ten Things!

Last Sunday was the 10th ladies' tractor road run in Norfolk, and my fourth time of taking part. Normally in the run-up to the event I have several practice sessions, including one with L. who drives our Fendt tractor. But life's been so busy lately that I'd only managed one and that was on the farm itself, and L. and I didn't manage to go out together either. Fortunately her tractor is easy to drive, a bit like an oversized car really, so she was okay, and on the day itself we drive down to the airfield for the start which is always a good way of boosting your confidence.
On Saturday evening 14yo and I spent a couple of hours adding pinkness to the very masculine tractor - what does he make of it...?! We left the balloons off till we got to the airfield, as they tend to pop quite easily. Afterwards we had a nice BBQ and I finished my pink crochet bunting, and we had an early night. I woke up with nervous energy and all the disasters that could possibly happen going through my head. It didn't help that we overslept and that L. wasn't sure if she could make it. But she turned up at 8.30am and by 9.30am we were packed up and ready to set off:

We're having a bit of a heatwave in the UK right now and it was a very hot day. Sun hats, sun cream, bottles of drink all at the ready... On the way to the airfield we met a convoy of other tractors who'd all set out from one location so we joined them and it almost felt like we were doing a road run already! We arrived with plenty of time to spare and by the time I'd reversed the tractor into position I felt on top of the world - I remembered how to drive this tractor and I could do it!

We spent an hour or so admiring other tractors and catching up with other pink ladies. This outfit was my favourite one, I think she sewed it herself.

And at 11.30am we were off. As we were about 3/4 towards the end of the convoy, we had to wait about 20 minutes before we could go but it was worth it. The route has been the same each year I've taken part and people along the route now know to expect us. They sit on their driveways with tables, chairs, picnics, drinks, balloons, banners and flags. It's such an amazing sight, you just can't help but smile all the way through.

Harleston was the usual emotional rollercoaster. You think you're not going to cry - I mean, it's my fourth year, surely by now I'm used to it? But no, as soon as you see the first pavement lined with people and they start clapping and cheering, your bottom lip starts wobbling. It's hard to explain what makes you cry, but I had tears running down my cheeks from start to end.

B. was marshalling again and it's lovely that to know I'll see him along the route. He also has my camera with him so he can take a few pictures of me:

You can just about see the bunting here - every year I make some new decorations which can be used over and over again.

The lunch time stop was much needed, but was very hot with very little shade. On the tractor I was fine, as you have a bit of a breeze, but sitting down in the sun was just uncomfortable. L. started saying she wanted to go home! (I wouldn't let her).

After lunch we did the offroading part which I find uncomfortable - all the other tractors have their wheels in the ruts, but because I have narrow front wheels, I can't do that. I'm always glad when we're back on tarmac, although this year wasn't too bad as it's been quite dry the last few weeks.

Pulham St. Mary was amazing this year. The Pennoyer Centre had laid on vintage pink teas with proceeds going to Cancer Research, and there were so many people cheering us on, I almost cried again.

Before we knew it, we were back at the airfield:

I switched off the engine and told Annie, who organised the whole event and was handing out our medals, that I'd enjoyed every second of it.

Time for the group photo - a sea of pink:

160 pink ladies, each with their own reason for taking part. Annie always says thank you to us for taking part, as without us there wouldn't be a road run. Without Annie, there wouldn't be a road run either.

Just want to finish with what I put on Facebook on Sunday night. I'm already looking forward to next year.

"loved, loved, LOVED every second of the pink ladies road run today - the sunshine, the people along the route having picnics and waving, the crowds in Harleston, the tears in Harleston, my surprise visitors at the picnic, the breeze on your face as you're driving, the Norfolk summer landscape, meeting another Dutch pink lady, feeling I've never driven the tractor so well, raising money for a good cause, and above all, gratitude."

Wednesday 26 June

I have written my first ever guest blog post!
Hop on over to In Norfolk to read all about my cycling adventures in Norfolk.

Thank you to Lucy for giving me the chance to post on her blog!