Life on the land ...

... and we're in! ... 

A few hours after publishing my last blog post on Friday 11th December we heard from our solicitor that we had a moving date ... on Monday 14th (my birthday, in case you didn't know), crikey it was all go from then on packing up all the bits we were still using, food, clothing and bedding etc.  

All stop at about 4pm when we had another call from our solicitor to say that there was a problem at the vendor's end and that our Monday move was postponed!  The move could be back on on Wednesday, or Friday or next Monday (21st!!). Will anything go right with this move we wonder.

On Saturday George was already looking for another car.  

He found a possible on Auto-Trader and on Saturday we travelled to Chesterfield in the hire car to take a look.  It wasn't in the condition that it looked on the advert so that was a no no.  A few minutes after starting to head back to Loggerheads our son rang us and said he'd seen a car he thought his Dad might like for sale in Rotherham and as it was only half an hour from where we were we turned around and found the car we've bought.  It's a Volvo C30R Sport 2009 with very low milage for its age.  It will be serviced, MOT'd and valeted ready for us to collect the following Friday. 

On the way back entered 'shortest' route into the satnav and the journey was amazing ... although it may have been the shortest it was definitely not the quickest ... 

It took us through the Derbyshire Dales ...

through forests ...

and rocky outcrops ... where we must have left Derbyshire for a while ...

because here we are entering it again!

Winding roads ...

amazing hills ... and what's that ...

Speedwell Cavern ...

... deep valleys ...

We realised that the road we were travelling would take us through Buxton so a quick phone call to our eldest granddaughter and we popped in for a cuppa and a bit of lunch ... lovely to see them especially when not planned.

On the Sunday we had some family news ... another new fur-baby has arrived ... this time to two of our Scottish granddaughters ...

Welcome to Nugget a Jackie-Bichon (Jack Russel/Bichon Frise)

Isn't she adorable - lots of fun in that little lady!

We waited impatiently over the remainder of the weekend and late afternoon on my birthday a call came through ... the move may very well happen tomorrow ... but don't do anything yet, we'll let you know.

Finally at 10:30am we had the go, go, go ... but ... the vendor was receiving the same information and because of the uncertainty they had only booked a van provisionally so they then had to collect the van and then move out.  And a magnificent effort that was!

At 4pm we could collect the keys and the house was ours at last so with a car full of 'stuff' we took possession in the dark.  

The first load arrives at the house on Wednesday 15th  ...   Our thanks go to our Buxton granddaughter's partner Rob and Zelda for all the humping and dumping of our belongings between our Loggerhead's bungalow and our little home of our own which took all day ... and that's Zelda in the picture above ... she was helping too (not!).

Things are now a little more sorted here are a few pictures of around our new home ...

Our garden is this side of the fence and we have cows on the other side today!

Also from the garden fence this is the start of sunset on Wednesday 16th at 10 minutes to 4

Our first sit-down meal ... a take-away from Audlem's Village Chippy - scampi and chips ... mmmm.

Sunset rise on Thursday 17th at 08:30 at the front of the house ...

and a rainbow at the back an hour later.

Morning sun on the sail-less windmill from the kitchen window on the 19th ...

and frost on the on shed and the field out the back.

and yesterday morning a murmuration of starling came ...

to feast in the field.

What an amazing place we're going to live in on the land and we are happy with it.