Retrospective Blog 3/3 - Planning Permission

We got planning permission. We got planning permission. We got planning permission.

It doesn't get old.

I have to apologise for not posting up perhaps our most significant news of 2008 until a few weeks into 2009. The reason for the delay is that I've not been able to put down in words the combination of delight, relief, vindication, exhaustion, frustration, trepidation and a few other emotions that the news has brought.

The overwhelming feeling is delight. We've been waiting to build our house for quite a few years now and at last it's happening. The process had gone on so long that we'd stopped buying self build magazines and making mental notes about kitchen designs we liked. Now, suddenly, it's time to put the theory into practise and make it all happen.

There seem to be two schools of thought as to how we should describe the last few years. The soap opera view suggests that we have been stressed and dismal, forced into terrible living conditions and dragged ourselves listlessly from day to day, hopeing for salvation. The Grand Designs view is that planning permission happened just like that in the five minutes before the interesting part of the programme gets going.

The reality is that we've had a fine old time living in our caravan, bringing up two small children and getting on with our lives. A few things have been put on hold (such as big holidays), and there has been a slight sense of limbo, but really the move to Lock Farm has coincided with quite a few other changes that have kept us busy and entertained in equal measure. We have learned the valuable lesson of what exactly we need to be comfortable and happy (it turns out, remarkably little). There have been occasional bad moments usually centred around heating or storage space (the former being slightly unpredictable and the latter highlighting how disorganised we can be). On the whole though, living in a muddy field is good fun.

The planning battle has very much been a learning experience. Most of it has been boring and bureaucratic, with short sharp shocks of disappointment. However we didn't go into this expecting instant gratification, or with a picture in our heads of the exact house we wanted to build without compromise. The result is that though we feel we could have done it better - or at least faster, we're very happy with the final decision. There's a lot to be said about our planning system in this country, a good deal of it being deeply critical. However none of that actually matters when there are tenders to be requested, suppliers to choose and the detailed design to complete.

Did I mention we got planning permission?

Retrospective Blog 2/3 - Bonfires' Night

When I was young, bonfires' night was always a favourite. We'd have a big old blaze of deadwood and odd remnants of furniture. My Dad would carefully work his way through a box of fireworks which childhood memories recall as a long and spectacular display. We'd frantically wave sparklers around until the sparkle burnt out and the glowing metal bent in our flailing hands. At the time our cooker was a coal fired Aga which spread heat through the kitchen floor and into the room. It was pretty much inevitable that we'd have jacket potatoes that had been slow cooked to perfection. The following day would see me raking through the bonfire ashes, trying to coax it back into life and hunting down the spent rocket shells as trophies of the night's fun.

As I grew up, bonfires' night took a bit of a back seat. We moved house, away from the convenient back garden and the Aga which so suited traditional celebrations. Later I went to college and made do with watching Battersea fireworks display from the roofs of our student digs. It wasn't quite the same.

Then, moving up to Liverpool for my first job, bonfires' night got so much better. The evening would start at Keith's Bar before swaying gently with the crowd to Sefton Park for the big display, making slightly inebriated oohs and aahhs. Then on to one of the old park mansions, run as a commune and putting on it's own display - an enormous bonfire of planks and furniture and a comically small fizzle of fireworks that could barely compete with the heat and light of the blaze behind it. As an adult the occasion had suddenly become less about the explosions and more about gathering together with friends to drink, sing and enjoy the company.

Cambridge only reinforced that. When we bought our first house just in time for November's celebrations, eighty friends packed our garden, trying to strike a balance between singeing themselves by the bonfire and freezing up by the house. Almost without exception every one of them had come with packs of fireworks - it took three of us over two hours to work through the rockets and roman candles. At one in the morning a frantic search was carried out for the last remaining sober driver who could help collect a large unwanted cupboard which was just right for keeping the fire burning bright that little bit longer.

Now we're out on the edge of the fens, with young children of our own and bonfires' night has changed again.

Last year we bought a very small pack of fireworks to see how William and Becky would respond to them. Not too surprisingly William very quickly decided he didn't like the unexpected noises and we called a halt before he could get that idea lodged in his head. This year we thought we'd try again - I'm looking forward to them both being old enough to come along to the fantastically well organised Cambridge City display. After a couple of fireworks, William started to ask what kind was going to come next, and by the end he was asking for 'the sparkly one' or 'the green one'. Even Becky joined in, standing on the window ledge inside the caravan and watching me setting off rockets. We used up a pack and a half of fireworks (this year's and the remnants of the previous year which had been languishing on top of a cupboard) and every one was happy. Especially William's proud/pyromaniac dad.