Mission accomplished

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Mission accomplished

I’m in the car park of a lovely canal side pub just South of Birmingham (they make great homemade pies) after a wonderful candlelit dinner.

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My date for the evening has been absolutely charming, the conversation flowed, we had a good laugh, reminisced over good times and discussed plans for the future. Thank you G for a lovely evening. She’s grown up so much since we started travelling, she was only 3 when we set off and now approaching 6 years old is wonderful dinner companion.

G and I are on our way back from Wales with our mission accomplished (the rest of our party ploughed all the way on to London). We’ve found the property we want to buy, our offer has been accepted and it appears that our time frames are acceptable - aiming to get in by Christmas. 

After Pembrokeshire we’d headed North hugging the coastline, Aberaeron, Aberystwyth, Snowdonia. We saw some properties, one or two beautiful ones, but only one that could really support us financially. This lead us to filter out our saved properties even further. When one of our remaining favourites went under offer we decided to stop faffing around and head straight to see our long term favourite on the Llyn peninsula. 

We arrived a little early and in quite some style the car was being fixed after a radiator leak, so we rumbled our way down the private track in the bus, turned into the property and realised other prospective buyers were mid viewing, so we nonchalantly and elegantly span round and parked a little further up.

While we waited for our viewing we wandered down to the beach and were promptly bombarded by an unbelievably intense shower, in 5 seconds we were drenched to the bone. At this point we were ready to walk away from the viewing entirely, but as we walked back up the track we passed the estate agent and viewers coming the other way, so had an undisturbed look at the outside of the house. Just then the the sun came out and we were able to admire the picture perfect welsh cottage nestled in its green gardens… maybe it might be worth a look after all.

Some places just feel good. This cottage has definitely seen good times, you can just feel it. Not that a good/happy feeling place is essential since that can always change, but if we have the choice may as well find somewhere with good vibes.

Most importantly the grounds and outbuildings have huge potential. The house itself while old and shabby has been well looked after and decorated, so we could just move in. The grounds run to several acres and while they’ve been left fallow for some time there’s a mixture of outbuildings, walled garden, orchard, woodland and paddocks it’s a blank canvass. 

The surrounds of the cottage also tick our boxes. 

  • The sea is walking distance away including a small stretch of sandy beach mixed in with the more common shingle. There may even be some surfing when the wind is right.
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  • The well maintained coastal path reminiscent of trails available in Chamonix follow the shore line.
  • A village with a couple of shops for community on the doorstep.
  • Rugged hills/mountains all around for hiking and climbing.
  • Not too isolated with Caernarfon and Bangor within easy reach and Manchester airport only about and hour and a half away.
  • And the biggest bonus: it has super fast broadband.

We could have put an offer on our first viewing, but in the end we played it safe and arranged a second which just confirmed our first impression. We placed our offer, they countered and we agreed, the property is off the market!!

With our mission accomplished, we decided that we might as well head to France earlier than planned. Our Airbnb tenants had asked to extend their stay until the end of October and possibly longer (funny how that happens) so we might as well go and explore somewhere warmer (hopefully) for a while.

Before leaving the area Ali arranged a third visit at the house to meet the current owner. She was lovely, she'd moved into the house when pregnant with her oldest daughter and while it's a huge wrench to leave the time is right for her to downsize. She showed us some photos of her kids growing and bizarrely it reminded me of growing up in France. Everything about this just feels right, but there's still a long way to go, so wish us luck with our chain!