Take the High Road

Where to start?

Well, the plan has come together, rather sooner than I had anticipated! I have been offered a job in Scotland, and I start on the 9th June. I've just come back from a few days up there trying to find somewhere to live, and have dropped on a beautiful farm cottage on an estate - that's an estate as in lairds and Monarch of the Glen, not as in housing estate :-)

The place is unfurnished, and so I'm running around like a loony trying to gather as much as I can, while still trying to make sure it will all fit in the car for the drive up. I get the keys on the Friday, and start work on the Monday, so I've just the weekend to try and get a fridge freezer, washing machine and bed located, purchased and delivered!!! There's no broadband at the moment, I'm about to tackle BT this afternoon to get the phone line up and running, then once I know the number I can run about checking out broadband deals. So after the 5th there will be something of a hiatus, hopefully brief.I've contacted North Ayrshire Council (whose forms for council tax don't work on their website....grrr) and the electricity supplier, so I just need to sort out the communications, TV license (oh and actually buy a telly) some insurance and then start changing my address with people. There's no gas, the property has solid fuel heating which should be interesting as it's operated off a massive and very elderly Stanley cooking range. Imagine a sort of retro Aga and you're not far off.

The views, by the way, are out of this world:



Amusingly enough, I get a better mobile phone signal here than in Staffordshire. I won't be taking my kiln for the moment sadly, so my little plan for an Etsy shop selling ceramic bits and bobs is on hold for now. However there's enough space in the cottage to have a sort of studio, where I can paint, draw, do textile-y things and of course, knit. :-) If the price of fuel and electricity keeps going the way it is, I'll be needing all that wool to keep me warm...