Grand Resigns

In my head, it was better than this. It’s still early days so the actual manifestation of how exactly it would be better is still unclear to me so perhaps it’s more accurate to say in my head it was different to this.

The idea to buy an almost derelict farm cottage in the countryside and over time refurbish and eventually extend it contained so much romantic potential for us that when we happened upon this place, it’s allure proved too much to resist.

To be so perfectly smitten is to ignore so much that is fundamentally flawed or inherently impractical, a leap of faith is what is required, a reliance upon one’s own work ethic and vision to transform a place, that in all good conscience you wouldn’t put chickens, into something suitable for a young family, three boys under ten and another en route.

We’ve all seen the shows on television where a couple come across a ruined castle or some such logistical nightmare, proclaim themselves to have fallen in love with it and promptly risk every shilling they have, their relationship and most pointedly their mental and physical health to restore it to it’s former glory.

No forethought is given to the likes of throwing yourself at the mercy of unscrupulous builders, fastidious planners, uncooperative bankers, bewildered family. Because like the real act of falling in love, such things transcend mere worldly or practical considerations. We’re building a legacy here people, get with the programme.

That’s typically how it plays out in the mind of the protagonists at any rate. Drama is usually introduced into the show with the host’s repeated summations of the budgetary situation in relation to the amount of work actually complete and his dark and dire musings on how this misguided adventure of a couple of air headed tree huggers might end up. By the end of act three the participants usually have our sympathy but then in the final act everything comes together, a little too smoothly for my liking.

I have often felt emotionally conned looking at these shows, my pity has been successfully drummed up only to be made look completely misplaced as the final moments give us a camera panning around a sumptuous, luxurious finished product that seemingly appeared with an effortless “ta da” a la David Copperfield.

But that’s the Hollywood ending for you , or a version of it at any rate. If we had signed up for such a show I doubt if our footage would ever see the airwaves. There’s your typical unprepared, dysfunctional, delusional subject and then a few notches down the pole, there would be us.

Our place is about an acre and a half composed of several old farm buildings, a hayshed and a very distressed cottage, the rest being made up of what we still like to call “paddocks” despite their being as close in appearance to a paddock as Baghdad High Street.

The refurbishment of the cottage which we have just completed can be viewed as these types of projects in microcosm - twice as difficult, twice as long, twice as expensive and half as satisfying as anticipated. This phenomenon can be neatly encapsulated into what is known as the Self Build quadratic equation 2d + 2l + 2e = S/2.

All the time that you imagined was going to be available for growing vegetables, making garden furniture and long lazy walks is now consumed by septic issues, locating frozen pipes, unclogging gutters and the daily calculation of exactly how far into February your laughable stockpile of turf will get you. (“Are you sure you won’t take another trailer load? Not at all, sure we’ll have loads“)

Endeavouring to go off grid you see, that’s another important aspect of the package you’ve signed up for. Little point in trying this lifestyle at all if you’re still in hock to faceless corporations who on a whim and in the face of global turmoil could withdraw your ability to keep yourself warm. I’d rather screw that up myself cheers, local turmoil only here thank you very much.

The reality rarely ascends to the dizzy heights of the fantasy, even on a gorgeous January day such as this - low winter sun creeping nonchalantly across the yard liberating it from thick silver ground frost, not a breath of wind, dry, deathly quiet, the beast of a black cast iron stove humming determinedly in the corner sending grey smoke vertically into a translucent blue sky.

What it is we hope for is hard to establish. I think that we take all the physical aspects for granted - it will be picturesque, it will be rustic but we look to a setting such as this to imbue us with a calm, a peace of mind and a contentment that it can’t provide. I have dozens of books stored in a shed that I’m anxious to read - I wanted the cottage to grant me the time to read them. I bestowed magical powers on the place and it has unceremoniously rejected the mantle.

The feeling we crave can only evolve as life moves forward, when kids become more self sufficient, when free time is more plentiful. Perhaps it’s fitting in the midst of all this post Celtic Tiger revisionism to find that it can’t be bought, it just happens - and it can happen just as easily in a two bedroom apartment behind a supermarket as a rustic farmhouse in the rolling hills.