Hope

On Saturday we viewed two more possible projects. One, a 60s Vicarage was interesting but is not for us. For a start it's too expensive, even at the guide price, and as it's being auctioned it'll probably go for loads of money. It's also is rather remininscent of RAF accomodation - very utilitarian, and okay if you like the MOD look!

The other house is more of a wreck but has bags of character and loads of potential. It's up for sale in the same auction next month, but with a guide price that we can live with as long as the renovation costs aren't too great. So we've now got a few weeks to do some detailed estimates of what we think it'll cost to renovate.

Funnily enough, the second place is just round the corner from the building plot, so the location is great. And the more Cathy and & I think about it the more keen we are, even to the extent of thinking it could be a lot better than the new-build.

As for the 30s house - we also revisited it after the other two to see how it compared. What I haven't mentioned before is that it is on the A38. The noise of traffic is something that can't be ignored so we won't be persuing it any further.

On a totally different tack - it's strange to think of what happened 5 years ago today - I can remember one of colleagues telling us that his wife phoned saying that a small aircraft had hit one of the towers - our 'net access in the office crashed but somehow I managed to keep a very slow link to BBC news and everyone huddled round my PC to watch the patchy news as it came in. Seems all very surreal now.

Frustration

If you think I've been remiss in updating news it's cos there hasn't been any! Not really.

The saga of buying a field with an old bungalow in it is proving extremely frustrating with the owners not seeming to want to progress things. Yet they have told us they want to sell and we've offered them a big wad of cash. We're still hoping this is the place where we'll get a chance to self-build...

In the meantime, and extremely conscious that we've just spent 9 months in the Loft, we've started casting our net wider. For a while now we've been looking for renovation projects, but they have proven almost as elusive as building plots. However, it seems that everyone has come back from holiday and a glut of possible projects has turned up.

We've viewed one already, a '30s house that is more of a museum than a dwelling but would be a great place to update. It also has a good sized garden so it could be extended without compromising the outside space. As it being sold conventionally (no nasty sealed bid or exciting auction!) we can hopefully take our time deciding if this is the one for us. We only spotted the other possibilities yesterday, and most are up for auction in October, so we'll be arranging to see them soon.

To add to the frustration with the building plot, these other possibilities are all in the balance whilst we pester the land owners to see if this is definitely on or off. Will they give us a conclusive answer? I hope it doesn't get to the point where we have to ditch the plot without them giving us a conclusive 'no', but on past form I think it just might.