Wise words

As I was weeding the tiny front garden yesterday after all the excitement of the hedge removal, a neighbour that I haven't met before stopped to chat about the renovation I was doing to Ambleside. He voiced how he'd always wanted to buy an old property and renovate it and just the way he spoke about his dream reminded me that I'm not a women who's lost my dream, I am a women who has been given many other peoples dream and one that was once mine. All the time in my relationships I had longed for my own property to renovate as a project or even a career and now I have it. It's been a little overshadowed by my heartache, quite a lot overshadowed actually. This year and a half has been tough, adjusting to a change in my life that I hadn't wanted and it's still a shock that I left even after all this time. I still feel sometimes that I really ought to be going home now but it's a home I don't want, it's a home that isn't home anymore but neither is this new life. It's an odd limbo land I live in now and sometimes I forget that I have a goal, a purpose. Yesterdays conversation got me back on track and I suddenly felt very lucky in a week where I had been focused on everything that I didn't have. It was just what I needed. I have renovated properties before but never one as run down as this and never solely on my own. I have drawn countless plans for people renovating their properties and always felt envious. The joy that my dream had come true had been numbed by in all my emotional turmoil over leaving and job losses and the annoyance that my life was seemingly worse in comparison had crept in. Everything is perception, controlled by the thoughts in your head and what one man saw as everything he ever dreamt of was everything I'd ever dreaded to me this week. I saw the light. It's my baby, everything I do to Ambleside is my choice and when it's finished I will be so proud of it because I did it on my own. Because of finances it's taking a lot longer than I would like and even though I'm getting frustrated at living in such a mess, I must keep focused that it's all heading in the right direction. I may not be having holidays and meals in lovely restaurants and new clothes right now because all my money goes on Ambleside but I have something other people can only dream about and I should be really really grateful for that.

Changing Ambleside's Face at last

Huge excitement at Ambleside this week as I had the embarrassing front hedge removed. I didn't really have the money but I saw a man post a card through the door promoting his Tree Removing Services so I opened the door and asked him to give me a quote. He started at £150 to chop all the conifer trees that made up the hedge back to their roots, I made a face like that was too much for me and told him I really needed the roots removing and how much would that be? He said £200 to which I said I couldn't afford anywhere near that and I'd have to wait a few weeks and earn the money and I would keep his card to call him when I had it. He said he could do it for a bit less so I told him that I really needed to shake on a fixed price because I didn't want him trying to charge me more on the day or leaving the job half done. He said he could come back the next morning and get all the roots out for £150.
£150 was a doable amount for me really and I reached out my hand and shook his hand. I've learnt a lot about how the process of getting people in to do the job works by trial and error and I'd like to think I'm a lot more street wise than I used to be.A handshake is supposed to seal the deal. Famous last words, I was still nervous that I might be taken for a ride but I took the money out the bank that I had put by for something else (never a good idea but I'll worry about that tomorrow) and the man and his man turned up in a big truck the next morning and did a really good job. I was like an excited little child running from window to window taking pictures of them chainsawing at the hedge. The front of the house looks really run down and after a year of living in the house it had become quite a source of embarrassment to me that the outside world clearly could see that I didn't have the money to improve it. This was a big old shout out to all the curtain twitchers that I was still progressing. Vain I know but there we are. The roots proved as stubborn as I thought they would, having been there for years but the man had a cleaver hydraulic line on his truck that once wrapped around the root pulled them out in no time. Everything was cleared and carted away in the truck within two hours which was worth it's weight in gold to me as it was a job I hadn't a hope of tackling on my own. I spent the rest of the day looking out the window and smiling, especially when the little boys who live either side shared the excitement too. It's caused quite a stir in the neighbourhood and several people have stopped to ask what I'm going to do with it now it's cleared. That's the burning question with a very low if not non-existent budget!