Happy Christmas!

Diary

Posted: Saturday 26 December, 2009

by Rosemary at 11:40am in Anything goes 1 comment Comments closed

Dan and I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! We've had a lovely time with the family - but now the house is back in order and we'll be starting the serious planning for our relocation to Carnoustie in the summer.

If you haven't read on the forums, we've bought a new property just outside Carnoustie, on the Angus coast. We'll be about 10 miles north of Dundee and 5 miles south of Arbroath.

The house was built around 1860, we've been told, and needs a bit of upgrading. We need to improve the insulation and install central heating. The bathroom is very small, so we're going to move it into the smallest bedroom and the existing bathroom will become my office. The wall between the kitchen and utility room will come down to make a larger kitchen; there's a back porch that will be the scullery.

The outbuildings are great. The best thing about the move is that Dan's mum and dad are coming with us. They are going to apply for planning permission to convert the smallest outbuilding into a one bedroom house. It's already been christened "The Bothy".

There is a second stone built outbuilding with garage, workshop, two looseboxes, byre and cart shed. The fourth side of the square is made by an opensided Dutch barn. In the quadrangle is a greenhouse, potting shed, small walled garden and grass area.

Two of my favourite features are the herringbone brick path through the pergola built from sleepers and the sunken garden, surrounded by an arboreal ivy.

For land, there is a 5 acre field with field shelter - this will have the "Paddock Paradise"; a two acre field, and four smaller paddocks. The land is good and level; it's well fenced and has lovely shelterbelts planted, including fruit trees and some beautiful specimen trees.

If there is a down side, it's the proximity to the Army range at Barry Buddon, but we'll soon get used to the gunfire. It's not that different to Alloa on a Saturday night (joke!!).

We're planning to let Longcarse, so if you know anyone looking to rent somewhere like this, do contact us!

I've bought a notebook, so that's a start! Now, I'm going for a cup of tea and a pen - I feel a list coming on.