It’s Week 5 in the forever home and whoah what an intense and rather lot has happened in such a short period of time. 5 week is 35 days and we have truly maxed out everyone of them.

Week One - August 7th

Friday 7th August, was D Day and it was totally a D-Day it was my actual 50th birthday . Now thats good timing isn’t it. (Husband got big brownie points for this impeccable timing , candidly he worked so hard to make it happen).

We had the rented house in Edinburgh until September 7th incase of any unexpected issues or challenges and we had decided that we would get removal company to assist us. This was out last house move ever- thats what you do with a forever home. So we booked the for the following Monday. Now one of the conditions of our lockdown sale was we had bought house AND ALL its contents and until this actual day we didn’t know what that might include.

We headed over to 80 miles to Crieff from Edinburgh and to start the new life in the farm. Heading off to the agents to collect the keys was a buzz for both of us. It truly was one of complete unknown, we tried to recollect the whole 20 minutes we had in the house before we bought it and we kept coming up with the - erm not sure, what colour was that, what was in the kitchen? What do you think they left?

Not looking for drama but…..

I was expecting bit of an experience collecting the keys , like a handover ceremony. Masks on we entered the agents and there was an element of bemusement on our arrival- “Your here for what?” . “Really okay let me check”. And then we got handed a dirty set of three keys (yep three) and told …”there you go”.. Oh is that it? I was slightly peeved, no-instructions, no alarm codes, no direction just there yo go and bye!

Feeling a tad dejected, we soon cheered up with giddiness as we drove up through the Glen from Crieff to our new home. I exaggerate not, its breathtaking. Glen Quaich is classed as one the most picturesque drives in Scotland- so its not juts my biased opinion.

Husband and I soaked up every second of that 15 minute drive…and so we should as the adventures did nothing but come thick and fast after that.

We got to the house, we opened the door, I did a rubbish video as I was too excited to get in and mooch and explore. Woah, there was a lot of stuff left. That first recollection was, have they actually left? Every room had stuff in it. Some useful - this was very very minimal and some just will not our taste is the best way to describe it. The colours through the house were not what we remembered and one instance was Husband saying “I cant sleep in the that room until its painted! “ - gosh we are really that dramatic!

So the first week involved :

• First night sleeping on the floor in the sitting room, as we thought the bed had mites. It didn’t!

• Discovering brown water

• Looking for our water tanks

• Looking for our septic tank

• Finding a garage full of “stuff”

• Booking a decorator (day two he arrived day 7 done two rooms!)

• Exploring the local nearest town Aberfeldy (11 miles away)

• Moving fully and leaving Edinburgh after the floor sleep and one last night at the rented house.

• Discovering our bed woulds’t fit upstairs (it did on week 2 as Husband made it work!)

• Chopping a sofa up from the third floor as it wouldn’t come down, Husband sledgehammering his leg!

• Finding the other sofa had mice in it

• Bought a new sofa and had it delivered in week one (thanks to bargain corner Ikea Edinburgh)

• Living for 14 days with NO WIFI at all

• Driving to the bottom of the road 4 miles- to get a signal and make calls!

• LOVING EVERY MINUTE OF THE ADVENTURE and the choice we had made

• Booked the plumber, decorator, aga man, to come out to the house as nothing was working!

Week Two

The decorator started and completed the Main bedroom and the guest suite . We had our first guest stay over actually on day 3! and also client stay over on day 8! So we had to get organised. The house was cleared of everything we didn’t want and even now we have an overflowing garage of stuff to go to charity.

Our list of actions grew each day and a very consistent message was being sent- has anything been maintained?

The windows were ordered for the kitchen as they didn’t open at all, so no ventilation in there wasn’t a good thing- a couple of cooking instances of excessive smoke and also no way to extract it . We chose a traditional sash window black exterior and white interior which we do throughout the hose one by one, room by room.

The Aga got fixed- woohoo and this was a revelation for me . I was all for it being sold and moved on. The guy who came to fix it was the guy who fitted it in 1998 and it hadn’t been serviced since! The budget is shot as everything we are encountering needs fixing, restoring to its full glory and also being cared for. Aga being one. The system wasn’t worked as it was blocked, the oil and the main part that triggers the oil to the Aga was broken too. I l love the Aga, how it cooks, how it warms the heart of the the home and now the kitchen is painted feels like my space now top (week 3 was kitchen so jumping ahead).

Having guests also introduced us to our existing guests a colony of bats in the roof. Now a colony is a lot of bats about 200! Im not scared of bats yet they do make me feel a tad uncomfortable when they invade the personal space, and they have twice so far- we now have a hotline to the Bat Society! The benefits are small although they eat 3,000 midges a night per bat so ultimately we like them now! We are actively going to exclude them, the proper way , yet we have to do that timely and its a budget cost we hadn’t budgeted for! (A theme here).

Day 8 Guest, was going bed an we heard a squeal and he shouted rather wobbly- “er i think you might have a problem!:” Sure enough a bat was flying around on the middle floor. Husband sorted it and caught him and let him go safely. This happened again, it seems that they use the house April- July normally (late this year September) as a maternity roost, have their babies and then bugger off to another joint for winter! So, we have till April to sort out our roof to allow the bast to find a new permanent roost. Right now they have gone on their jollies and we have a quiet house.

Things that happen daily:

• Swallow flyby- everyday we get a gaggle (no idea what a collective of swallows is called) and they swoop inches from the house, lost and lots of them in the wind and around the house and the garden. Its amazing

• We have morning coffee with highland cows that reside int he filed beside , the wooly mammoth of Scotland. There are three and they make us smile everyday.

• We have an area for feeding the birds- inherited- and we have been constant in feeding them , and boy do they eat a lot of seeds. We have a resident woodpecker, and many different varieties of birds that visit everyday

• We wake up and pinch ourselves- this is where we live. Wow.

• Our hot boxes- sorry conservatories get so hot, unbearable and I look forward to being able to afford the extension and make them do what we want

• We move furniture everyday!

Week Three

Painting done in the bedrooms, and kitchen. Set up for the larder to be built. Work , work and more work. Got to pay for this building to be done and all the things being fixed in it. It’s our home. Artwork is up. Guests stayed on day 11 and Day 15-18.

Plus we had our whole family here - see the photos gallery a joy to finally get a family photo too. (our last one was our wedding 11 years ago!)

Our family consists of 5 children (adults 18-29) their parters and 3 grand-babies and we had the opportunity to finally celebrate birthdays etc from the Lockdown stopping us before. The kids loved the house and see the joy it will bring us, all of us. The barns, the loft (ex garage) and the Garden studio (bothy) all being worked on to be rentals and also additional opportunity for us. I decided i wanted to do interior design and were better to start than our own home.

House things we discovered and had done:

• We had all the floors cleaned, sofa and carpets which made us feel a bit better. We had planned for this and this was only time they could come

• We lit the fires and we smoked ourselves out! Discovering the chimneys are blocked. We have two fireplaces in the sitting room and both not working. Booked chimney sweeps

• Larder was built

• Library planned and organised to be built

• Boiler condemned and no heating - new plumber organised and wrong boiler brought so back to drawing board and also discover our water heater is not working properly either!

Week Four

We found our septic tank, still not found the water tanks!

The bloody drains collapsed, our toilets out of use and sewage is gong….well not sure! - No budget for this, so any interior purchasing now on hold and renovations to the other buildings as we have to keep paying for work we weren’t expecting. New Drains installed, drive dug up, and meeting of two wonderfully exceptional ;people that will be helping us for a long time it would seem. George the Septic Tank man and Steve the drain man.

Also we have now discovered that if we cant find local workmen that everyone else stays at the house as we are pretty remote. Gets me used to having guests for the future I suppose.

• The septic tank was found, and emptied- again another treat discovery of one more uncared for area of the house.

• Drains redone and rebuilt properly

• Still not found the water tanks!

• Chimney sweeps came and we had a coal dust all over the cleaned sofa and sitting room! Joy. 5 bird nests and again the the chimneys hadn’t been cleaned or sued and had massive back up. now fully working fireplaces- and its a joy as we have no heating and real fires make a lovely room

Week Five

We found water tanks- yes!

The boiler is getting fitted and we will have hot water too! Enough for more than one hot tap- bonus! Now of course can’t run smoothly and we now as I write have no water! The water tanks have been running off an overflow and tis run out. Husband and the amazing plumber have discovered the issues, so we have to wit for a day or so to have the water tanks fill up.

Now understanding we don’t have mains water or sewage. Our water tanks are about 1/2 mile away in a neighbouring field, they haven’t been maintained (no shit!) and are in bad repair- so our sofa budget is now going on the new water tanks.

BONUS - “See the rainbow in the clouds” -Maya Angalou

We live here

Its brings deep joy and happiness, contentment and peace.

We achieved our dream of a forever home- its ours.

To all these mini challenges, our house will have the best electric (thanks to future son in law), new plumbing, new heating, new drains, new sewage, and new water filtration and new water tanks. This may be an inconvenience yet it’s building the future, the long term. A sofa and furniture can wait! Plus its only week 5! Think we’ve done good so far!