We had 9 viewings! Gareth advertised Min House in the Newcastle Journal, and Ruralscene (www.ruralscene.co.uk) had just listed us, plus we had a viewing from our ad on acountrylife.com. The first on Friday were in with Gareth and said they wanted to come straight over. They rang & I said Ok and was waiting for them to arrive in 45 mins / an hour – and two and a half hours later I was still waiting! They had got lost. It was a very positive viewing and they said they’d like to come back – however I got a call the next day saying that it was too far away from Newcastle. I immediately rang Gareth to check on what basis they were working that out – seeing that it took them 2 1/2 hours to come from Hexham. However it transpired that they wanted to be 15 / 20 miles from Newcastle – and told Gareth that the house etc was perfect and they would have “bought it tomorrow” if it were only closer to Newcastle. Nothing we can do about that I’m afraid – and I guess they would be very lucky to find something in our price bracket that close to a town like Newcastle.
The rest of our viewings were a mixed bunch – some really positive, some difficult to read and one didn’t come in as they didn’t want to be on a road. Some had sold their property – others yet to put theirs on the market (“but we won’t have a problem selling it quickly” …..yawn). So we’ll see. We have another two booked for later this week.
Ian also chose Saturday (the hottest day of the year) to make fencing repairs.
Yesterday Debby chose the second hottest day of the year to come round and shear the sheep. We gave her a bit of a hand – collecting sheep and sweeping up wool – but she did the bulk of the work and we are the proud owners of a neatly sheared flock. Last night all we could hear was the lambs baaing, and I think that they didn’t recognise their mums. I think that the fact that they are now half the size without their fleece and probably smell different has confused them, they were all treated for flystrike. Freckles and Blacknees were complimented by Debby – she said that they were good strong beasts. F &BK were looking round to see what ‘beasts’ she was referring to. We were very careful not to refer to the sheep by their names and to look like proper farmers, although Ian did ask Freckles if she liked her new haircut before he could stop himself.
The caravan is now full of fleece – so it is a good job I am also the proud owner of a spinning wheel with which to spin the fleece. I spent my birthday money on a second hand Ashford Traditional wheel (picture – http://www.yarn.com/popups/wheels/traditional.html) and so far I am delighted with it. We also want to have herdwick rugs in our new house and Ian is going to make me a peg loom to make the rugs – we were inspired by some we saw at Woolfest. (Woolfest has a lot to answer for – it was that that also reinspired my to revisit spinning.)
And thinking of Woolfest and the socks I am knitting, I am very sorry to report that Ians feet are obvioulsy deformed and the first sock that I had lovingly knitted him won’t go over his strange shaped foot. Now how disappointing is that…. I was a bit suspicious as Ian wasn’t embracing the thought of handmade socks with the enthusiasm that I had hoped – however I don’t think that even he could have willed his feet to grow.
Lastly – two fire engines, lights and horns going, went up the fell on Sat night, followed by a police car. We couldn’t quite believe it. We saw them filling up with water so they were putting something out, but we weren’t unduly worried as most of the wood on our side has been burnt away now. It would be nice to think that the land owners were going to be charged for this and that it doesn’t reflect on our council tax.
I let the chicks out today as it is warm and they will be better learning to roam now and not in the rain.
Just one trivial comment after that long blog …. I notice that one of the spinning wheels is called “Lazy Kate” ….. now I don’t think you actually said which model you had bought …. so, I wonder!!!!!