Beginnings

Way back in August, when it wasn't raining every day, Mrs Grumbler and I braved the M25 and headed into the wilds to look at a house.  Not just any house, mind, but a converted Oast house with a fair parcel of grazing and woodland.  As mentioned elsewhere, the ladies of the Grumbler household collect horses, and Ive been known to do things with wood (for the purposes of disambiguation, I'm referring to furniture making, turning and carving rather than what I know full well will come to mind in at least one of my transatlantic friends' minds). The strong association with beer didn't do much to put me off either. So, this place had promise for all involved...

Nestled beside a reasonably busy road which meanders between Kent and East Sussex, the front of the house looks out onto a little courtyard of four converted farm buildings, once part of a farm reputed (I haven't been able to verify) to have been Queen Victoria's stud farm. The oast was built in 1880 and, to be fair, parts of it look like they haven't seen a paintbrush since then.  There are reasons (good ones, thought we wont go in to them here) that the place hasn't seen a lot of love n the past couple of years. Still, if there's one thing that the pair of us have learned after many hours of watching 'Grand Designs' and other assorted property programs, you need to be able to see through the shabby coat if you want to spot the character underneath, so we had a good look round.

Thinking back, I don't think it was love at first sight on my part. I can remember looking around and being alternately excited and horrified by what unfolded. After a couple of hours we drove back to our perfectly nice house, in a road I've lived in and loved for 20 years and, confused and knackered, crashed out.

Did I dream of the place?  Can't tell you, I've no idea. But what I do know is that when we got up the next morning and talked again, we both knew we needed to have another look.  Second time around was very different - I knew I was going to see things that would need work but rather than being put off by them, we were imagining what we could do, and how things could turn out. The truth is, we were hooked. We wanted this house. Badly.

Within a week or two, our place in suburbia was on the market and we were frantically packing, decluttering and painting to make certain that it looked its absolute best for prospective buyers.  From first viewing at the end of September, to having accepted a solid offer, took four days.  Who said buying and selling a house was stressful, I thought, this was a doddle. Funny how wrong you can be - but thats a story for another day.