Well, we sure have been busy. There has been substantial progress Phase 1 of our project. We finally finished Roger’s bungalow, down to the silicone sealant around the shower tray. And for the last three weeks, we have been moving two households between three houses by means of the Land Rover and a 3m long trailer. We had a deadline to meet as well, as the new tenants are moving into the house in Harrow today.

Finishing ‘the bung’ took so much longer than we had hoped. We missed all the deadlines that we ever tried to put on it. But finally, by the end of February, the last lick of paint was on and it was ready for Roger to move into.

Loading the trailer in the rain

And he has. Several trips with the Tardis and trailer moved all the furniture he needs, and 80 years of possessions and memories packed away in boxes. He is now having a happy time settling in and sorting out.

Meanwhile, Alex and Hilde have so far taken 5 trips up and down the M40 to go and fetch their own lifetime of belongings. Several boxes had already made it to Westacre, but much more had to be fetched, including all our furniture. We worked non stop for two weeks packing, carrying, loading and unloading. For the heaviest items we had help from our friend Matt, and we couldn’t have done it without him.

Less than two weeks ago, we heard that tenants had been found for us, and that they wanted to move in today, 16th March. This made our time scale a litter tighter than we had hoped. As well as all the packing and moving, we spent a day giving our empty house a once-over with fresh paint. It has been professionally cleaned and looks sparkling. Hopefully our tenants will like living there.

Today, Alex and Hilde are having a little break, and are nesting at Westacre. Alex is setting up the new telephone system, and Hilde feels the need to clean things. But we will also have time to just sit around doing not much, and for dinner with friends this evening.

Next on the list is making our bedsit in the big living room, but we’re optimistic about how much space there is. We hope to make it into four separate areas: a bedroom, a living room, a kitchen and a little office corner.

We finally are the occupiers as well as the owners of Westacre. It’s been a long haul. Now the real adventure can begin.