Post 2 - The Plan

Disclaimer – we don’t really advocate our somewhat cavalier approach, but given our particular situation it was right for us! The smallholding we bought was not in accordance with 'The Plan'.

'The Plan' was to buy somewhere with a barn ripe for a holiday let conversion (source of income) with a house for us and a bit of land. We found one property which was summarily condemned by the surveyor, viewed some holdings which required rose tinted binoculars more than just vision to see the potential, and then fell in love with this place – a 4-bedroom house, 6 acres of land, an ‘airy’ barn (but not in a good way), some outbuildings and no barn conversion opportunity 😲

“Well, we will have to ‘farm’ instead then” said I, “What should we farm” said he. We scratched our uneducated heads and agreed that cows, sheep and pigs were not a commercial option given the amount of land we would have. Duly stumped, we headed to our local village pub, recently taken over by a couple from Trinidad and tucked into the most amazing goat curry.

“Goats!” said I, “Genius!” said he.

What we knew about goats at this stage could have been written on the back of a postage stamp.

Some months into Dave’s illness and slow recovery I remember someone asked me whether it had made us re-think our lives – I replied, “Well yes of course, but we still have a mortgage to pay!”

It perhaps took us a little longer to figure it out, but in 2015 we did re-think our lives. April 20th, 2016 was our last day at ‘work’ and on April 21st we left Hertfordshire and headed west with at best, the germination of an idea.

Next instalment – the first six months...ooh Cliff Hanger 🤣