Moving on Down

I have been prevented from posting by a lack of Wifi at the new home but we have now achieved something like 4 meg yesterday. It will be a month or more before we can get the fibre in for fast internet. I am not missing it at the moment - too much to do. But we are in finally and we could not be happier - despite a brace of irritating flue bugs, incessant rain, a leaking roof, leaking conservatory - the list goes on. But none of it matters !

I have taken a week off work ...and we have space ! Huge skies, hundreds of trees, old trees, young trees, invasive ugly trees, beautiful trees - some hidden special trees - one sacred tree (for later). I never saw this place before I moved in - Jane saw it for only an hour and she never ventured into the wood. It has *everything* we need. It is a home, potentially a beautiful garden. It is a nature reserve. It is just interesting - I could not be more pleased. I knew it would be beautiful - Jane was panicked that I would not like it - I could see the potential of the place though without standing on it.

Moving took up 3 days. We packed up on the Wednesday a week ago and the few bits and pieces we had in Manchester were trundled off to spend 36 hours in Birmingham at a depot. We camped for our last night in Hale and said goodbye to the neighbors Jo and Bernard . It felt a little sad to leave the house we moved into in 2005. That was a whole different life before I was a partner and before we launched ourselves into Dubai. The children were 4 and 2 ! They are now more like 6 foot 4 and 6 foot 2.

The drive down to Leominster took about 3 hours including a stop at Harry Tuffins, the independent supermarket in Craven Arms. I remember going to the place with Jane's Mum - I think it has either gone downhill or Dubai has spoiled me. I stocked up on some bird feeders and seed and applied for a loyalty card I am unlikely to use. The place seemed sad.

As we wound our way down through the fingers of the Shropshire hills our small street bound house in Hale completed. We were homeless. I won't bore you with expat mortgages and paneling for minor building societies but a new set of solicitors then had to kick in on the purchase and the money had an extra leg to move to make its way to our seller. Looking at your phone on 1 pip for confirmation of a house purchase is not good for your cortisone levels. The delay caused us to stop in Leominster to look for the first time at our local market town. Absolutely delightful. Stress levels down - this is where we have to shop locally ! Not a chore !

We have a friend who says she can sniff out a Waitrose town - Leominster is not a Waitrose town (no Booths either - we are a bit too far South for that). It has a Co-Op, an Aldi and a Morrisons. It is all a nonsense though - take it from me that a Sainsbury or Tesco in one town will stock an entirely different range from somewhere else. The Co-Op and Morrisons in Leominster carry about 10 local ciders each - 40 different breads - I can judge by a wine aisle - organic Multipulciano ? So no Waitrose but no need as the Morrisons stocks jumbo green olives (I will be growing my own olives though this far South in my Italian smallholding fantasy world).

So a delightful hour waiting for completion monies to wend their way from solicitor to solicitor as we checked out the independent. shops. My mattress having deflated on our first night of camping we checked our the Survive and Thrive outdoor shop. We bought a new foam and air camping mattress and were engaged in a strident conversation about how all of Hereford is "out" (I think she meant Brexit not sexually), the danger from local ticks in your ears or on your private parts and finally we were invited to a medieval reenactment spectacular.

Moving on Jane sniffed out another independent shop selling Emma Bridgewater by the lorry load and Farrow and Ball was rolling out of the door of another emporium. Mr Mosely the upmarket butcher stocked game in season, his own pork pies, organic and free range meat - his display made you want to part with twenty pound notes with abandon. There's a local greengrocer. All punctuated with 20 antique shops - some specialist - one selling only clocks and barometers. And then there it was - the bellweather - an independent bookshop. I took a loyalty card from there and took the non-amazon pledge. I know that there is a farmers market every couple of weeks.

In Hale - which is a hyper wealthy area of Manchester - where the executives, football players, BBC, big Pharma and self made millionaire types rub shoulders and all live (we lived in a small terrace on the very edge) - they have lost their bookshop, the post office where the boys went every week with Jane for Friday sweets, Mr Fish the fish shop guy who would sell you a grouse or a sea bass or samphire - other small independents are barely hanging on by their finger nails. Hale High street has pretty much gone in my view. Replaced with a Tesco Metro and Sainsbury locals and a Costa. I get that its what people want - but it does make life soulless. We could have been anywhere.

I sound like a snob. I am not. I just like shopping in small independent shops at the weekend where I can. It makes a community in some ways.

I do like a rich life full of choice. The choice left in Hale on what was once a beautiful little "village" street is mostly hairdressers, estate agents, chain supermarkets, coffee shops and wine bars and restaurants. Even where there is real money to be spent the real lifestyle independents just get closed out in place of "leisure". You have 10 places to get your nails done in Hale - you cannot buy a book or a fresh fish anymore or post a parcel to your son on his year off. So really time to move ! They even have a model shop in Leominster selling balsa wood, aircraft kits and paint and a cheese shop - man heaven. I think it is about taste and values. How you spend your hard earned money and with who. Or how you spend your hard earned time ? I won't judge - I have seen the thing that led us to Hale dismantled. In fairness the schools are excellent. Hale high street still has a small independent wine shop and a good butchers - but the corners have been knocked of the mornings stroll down to the high street.

So the money comes through while we are having a coffee in the old market square of Leominster - no Starbucks or Costa in sight and off we sprint in our rented Skoda.

An 8 minute drive and then we turn into what can best be described as a hamlet. Our new home is a big sandstone barn with a slate roof set in a ring of cottages with a big manor house in the background. A kind of hamlet. A neighbor entrusted with the key was waiting - our seller (who left a note) was very sad to leave after 30 years.

So there's the neighbor, with the key - and then an odd moment when we are told that she has some instructions for us and then moves to unlock the door - pauses - and then hands us the key. Or rather hands Jane the key. I had felt for the briefest of moments like I was about to be let into an Air B and B and told how the gas works etc. But it felt sad as I guess the neighbor had just lost her neighbor - we were not just there for the week. Maybe I overthink things but it resonated with me. The note left by our seller with a lovely primrose explained that she was too upset to be there - she had lived in the Manor house - converted the Barn - we know that her husband had passed on - and now she was downsizing - I can only imagine. 30 years is a long time. We have lived in the same house in Dubai for 10 years and that really is an age when you remember all the holidays and each Xmas. 30 Xmases would take me back to going up to College in the 80's.

And then we were in and showed where the boiler was, how the Aga turned off and up and down and how the gas fire turned on. It felt like being left with our first child as the door shut. I can remember the feeling walking into our first house together in Balham. We all have these moments - this one probably my last (I hope) - but these moments are few and very far between - a decade or more unless you are a serial property improver type.

They are good moments aren't they. In a few minutes you sense the watershed of places. You tip into a new stream and face a new sky. A mundane moment - a key - some details. A few bags carried in. Smiles and hugs. Seeing every room - not rushing over it. For us then the big walk around the garden and wood.

I had to camp again that night but thanks to my independent outdoor camping shop my hip was fine and I slept the deep sleep of the deeply smug. I expect the mattress would be half price on Amazon but I have set a rule to use local shops as much as possible - certainly for things like meat when we get going. At least I am pausing before the click. I'd like to think that Leominster will look the same in ten years and can withstand the tide.

All I can really say is that we were overwhelmed by the place. If set out to carve out a small corner of his beautiful county then we seem to have landed on our feet. It has everything we need - I can already see us here hopefully for a good 20/25 years.

So much to explore - to begin to catalogue - and plans to make