Spring 2006

Just a few pictures to give something of a taste of the early days.

The first is of the cottage looking uphill and about SW from the lane. The garden was entirely overgrown with bramble, with many ash saplings beginning to show through. (There is an ash at the bottom of no. 5's garden which is one of the most profilic 'key-ers' we have ever seen - we were briefly deceived in the spring that it was a chestnut about to burst into flower). The groundfloor of the house is pretty well invisible - in fact, getting to the front door was a bit hazardous for the first visit or two.


Next, there is a sight of how the right-of-way along the terrace was blocked outside our furthest window;

and a view along the terrace, with Ian outside No. 6, which we have since bought:


followed by a photo of the Heroine of the Hour after she had cleared the blockage:

The staircase in the house is quite steep; it was also built with a very short well, which didn't start (i.e. open up overhead) until the third riser (compare your own!), so that we were at first unable to get even a four foot bed up. So I had to make up a bed in situ.



We hacked away at the garden over a number of visits. This shot shows partial progress and the 'garage' in its glorious neglect.


As we acquired the house, the front door opened into a small hall/passage beside the stairs. The partition forming this, probably forty or fifty years old, was decidedly informal. We decided very quickly 'it had to go' - the first work we did on the house. The resulting large open space will be our living-kitchen, and the Broseley wood-burning cooker/boiler now sits in a simnai fawr in place of the brown fireplace.



So to two shots of (final) moving day: the first looking along the right-of-way from the road to the (porch) front door, with Brindle caught on camera, as she so often is.



The second was taken from just in front of the garage, looking up the lane, and catching the last of the many hire-vans parked by the Volvo, now arrived at its new home.