The Wild West ---- Wonne im Bauch

'Wonne im Bauch' ---- Only my own word creation from childhood ---- it means more than butterflies in my belly....

Here we are, here we go. I am fully geared up to face that house in Wales. I have been to the hairdressers and donated 30 cm of my hair for cancer charity. It is obviously a bit of a shock for my environment but the dog still welcomed me as usual, so it can't be too bad.

When I was  a naughty child, and I was certainly a naughty one, my mother always took me to the hairdressers when she could not manage me anymore, pretending that the cutting of the hair had a good influence and a lot of mischief was eliminated then. At least for a wee while. It grew all back, the mischief - as did the hair. Today, I feel not less mischieveous but I feel a lot lighter, haha, around my head that is. Hopefully, this light-headedness is going to disappear because I need all of my abilities to be sure in my intuition.

I'll take my hat of confidence, my trusty solid boots and my raincoat. My camera and Barbara's ever so good advices:

 Go with a positive attitude first. Look at it with heart.
Then go back later and look with head,

having had a large coffee/gin/other in between

Those were the lines I had put together on Thursday and then a couple of unforeseen actions had to be taken quickly before leaving, hence I was not able to publish them on my blog then.

But here we are back from a very exciting, almost enchanting weekend in Bristol and Wales. Wee granddaughter has grown a lot and is now thrown into bubbly city life as her mum got a new job, well deserved and we are all proud of her!

After another nearly sleepless night, we were off to beautiful Ceredigion. I never have been on the road to Cardiff or further West and even Port Talbot had some kind of beauty to reveal to me as it was a dry and sunny journey. Every mile we got closer, I got more excited.

Eventually, there we were. Past Cardigan, up North on the coast. Every bend of the coast is stunning and we made mental bookmarks where we wanted to look before heading back to Bristol. New Quay for sure. Newcastle Emlyn. Aberaeron. Aberystwyth. 

The house feels good. Sound and grand. Much 'younger' than our farmhouse, as it is Edwardian, built in 1907. Many of the same period feelings than EG's family home in Cheshire. I am still trying to figure out how it can be improved to our (spoiled) standard. 
But we both continue reminding us that the farmhouse was not looking 'good' when we first came. In fact, it was almost inhabitable. This one is not! One can move in straight away and won't lack of anything, everything is functioning, in place and operational. No structural mend will have to be done. When we moved in here, we had a leaking roof, no central heating, no kitchen or hot water, no bathroom, just one toilet in the 'laiterie' (=dairy). One oil oven warmed one room and that was it. Did it matter? Certainly a bit in the beginning and we were both happy when we could go back to the jobs, into our warm offices or cars.
Some compromises will have to be done as not all of our belongings will fit or find space but so what? All in all, we seem to be able to imagine ourselves there.

Having had well Barbara's advice in my head, we went to explore around and stayed over night in beautiful Aberaeron. And went back next day, to remember how the house really feels and to check if we could confirm our first impressions. That was a great advice, Barbara, thank you so much!

Next step will be to make an offer. We shall see. At the end of the day, it is all as it must be. If the offer is not accepted, we will continue searching. We are in no rush, which is very comfortable and we still love so much our old farm...And the whole nightmare of removal to another country will be early enough to be faced. 

Whatever will be the outcome, that area of Great Britain, the Wild West, is definetely worth for visiting :-)

Here are some impressions - whilst we had rainy weather and pictures are a bit dull.

Aberaeron

Aberystwyth

Welsh for beginners

Can you hear the sound of the waves?

A graveyard next to the sea, mostly seafarer's graves

New Quay

Until next time....