New Year’s Eve Ponderings

For Christmas this year, I received a part-share in an electric gate mechanism. I can’t wear it, and it doesn’t make me look or smell nice, but it certainly was a very expensive gift, and so I should be very grateful for it.
Which I am.

The last day of Twenty Sixteen has arrived, and it’s rather grey and miserable outside. The sun did try to shine a few times, but it has now given up, and gone to bed for the rest of the year. I don’t think it’ll be long before I join it – my nose won’t stop running and I keep sneezing my head off.

Reflecting on the year, as is customary, I can’t help but feel pleased with what we have achieved, and excited about the future.
Our home, the Funny Little Bungalow, may be higgledy-piggledy and far from perfect, but I can see where we are headed. And when we get there, it will be all the sweeter.
Right now, our friends cautiously enquire how things are going, and they are genuinely interested. But it is just a handful who would share our enthusiasm for such a project – most people would recoil in terror if they had to live as we do.
I’m very aware of this fact. When I emailed out a Christmas photo to some of our pals, the responses were varied – some encouraging, some despairing, and others made no bones about the fact that they think we are bonkers.
There are times when I feel that myself. Like, for example, when we returned home after being away for Christmas, to a house that felt colder inside than it did out, and in which we could see our breath.
That wasn’t fun. The heating timer packed up ages ago, and there seems little point in replacing it. But Big Seymour lit a fire, the miraculous old boiler was manually activated, and after a couple of hours, the Four Little Seymours began to thaw out.
Going away for Christmas was the perfect thing for us to do this year. Our friends took pity on us, and we spent a blissful four days away, where the building site was so distant that we didn’t even think about it. And, having seen how nice it is to reside in a warm, plush home, we are even more fired up to get on with transforming the Funny Little Bungalow into a thing of beauty, from which we need not escape.

As for Twenty Seventeen – apart from sounding so alien and futuristic I can hardly bear to type its name, I am hopeful. I don’t expect we will be finished this time next year. Optimism is one thing, but stupidity is another – this is a massive project. But I am sure that Big Seymour will do his best to move us forward.
Things always seem more daunting when the weather is grey and the days are short, but if we can remain optimistic at this point, then we’re doing O.K.
There is a lot to look forward to. I can’t wait for my bulbs to come up, and for the ground to dry out. Boy Seymour has a birthday looming, and we’ve got a big party to attend. The things I am worried about in Twenty Seventeen aren’t necessarily building-related (apart from the state of the rickety old scaffolding that Big Seymour needs to replace before he falls off it). I hope Mini Seymour starts to make more sense of her Phonics, because right now she hasn’t a clue. I worry that Little Seymour Number One will continue to struggle with her Maths at school. Boy Seymour’s legs are still decidedly dodgy, and I hope we can get closer to finding what’s causing that. And will Little Seymour Number Two ever remember her times tables?
These are the things that make up life, and as long as we have our health, and some form of shelter (!), then we mustn’t grumble.

I do dream, though, about a time when we may be able to invite our friends to stay for Christmas. I shall have festive tableware, and fleecy Christmas linen in all the many bedrooms. I’ll cook up a storm in my enormous, easy-to-use kitchen, and there will be heating on at all hours of the day.
But I can wait. Patience is, after all, a virtue.
And my New Year’s Resolution is just that; to be patient and not to worry about the small stuff. Holes in the roof? They’re only little. Condensation inside the windows? It’s not a river. Mud on the floor? It’s good for the skin. And mould can actually be quite pretty, if you look closely.
It’ll all be sorted eventually.

One thing I do plan to do, though, if you fabulous people don’t mind, is to carry on with my blog. When I started it in September Twenty Fifteen, I didn’t have the courage to share it. But now, being a little older and wiser, I’ve lost more of my inhibitions. I’ve been so grateful for all of your interest in our situation, and as well as this being a record for the Four Little Seymours to reminisce over, I now feel I have a small group of people out there who are coming along for the ride.
Thank you! Please feel free to share our journey with anyone you like, and you’re always welcome for a cuppa at The Funny Little Bungalow.
If you can get past the scaffolding. And the trench. And the electrified gates, that is.
🙂