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I’m ready for a new adventure
Well, I expect that grabbed your attention and jolted you out of that imminent ‘back to work after the holidays’, feeling’!
Please let me explain myself as I am sure this may come as a surprise to many of you. I’ve been the face of Wild & Woolly for the last 20 years, however, my face is getting a little wrinkly, the hair is definitely grey, and the red lipstick tends to feather at the edges.
My passion for my shop, for knitting and of course, my customers has not waned, however a new adventure is beckoning.
Some months ago, Neil and I bought a humble house in Nelson. Actually, Neil bought it, flying down for a quick look at the end of July. He assured me ‘I would love it’ and as the deadline sale was just 2 days later, I took him at his word, and we bought it. As an aside, Neil has uttered those four words before. In the late 1990’s I found myself, with two very young children living in war torn Sri Lanka. Neil had a job in Colombo and went ahead of the family, to start work. Upon landing he instantly telephoned home to reassure me that ‘I would love it.’ Me and the girls followed on from England some weeks later, looking forward to living on a tropical island in the Indian Ocean. Let’s just say our five years in Paradise were challenging, dodging suicide bomb attacks, dealing with the heat, a bout of dengue fever and giardia (a terrific way to lose weight!) along with homesickness…it wasn’t quite the experience I had signed up for! Only recently has Neil admitted, that when he first landed in Colombo his first thoughts were NOT ‘she’s going to love it,’ rather ‘She’s going to kill me.’
Anyway, back to my house. My house, is hopefully, still standing. You see it’s a ‘do up.’ It desperately needs a new roof, and the chimney is about to fall down. Due to the events of the last few months we haven’t been able to get to Nelson to start the work and I expect when we finally get down there, we won’t be able to get to the door as the front ‘lawn’ will be six feet tall!
My lovely new house was built in the early 1950’s…and hasn’t been updated since. All the original features* are intact, the kitchen is ‘interesting,’ and I would love to keep it, however, even I can see it’s just not going to work. Neil and I are going to do a sympathetic renovation, doing much of the work ourselves, however work may be slow, with frequent rest breaks. Our ‘do up’ is close to a good pub, a river with swimming holes is fifty metres away and the hills, with excellent dog walking tracks are at the bottom of our garden.
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