An Escape Plan.
Sometime in the summer of 2006, after a few months of the daily grind of commuting to my new job (sum total of 10 miles, up to an hour each way), wondering where I was going, what we would be doing in a few years time, you know, the usual mid life crisis stuff, I hatched up a PLAN.
I'm not really sure how this came about but for many years I had lusted after a house on the West Falklands called "Shag Cove". Perhaps not the the most appropriate of names (though for some unfathomable reason it appealed to him indoors), nevertheless, no neighbours, no mains power, space for the dogs to run, really in the middle of nowhere and overlooking a beautiful inlet in the Coast Ridge. Colder than a well digger's arse as the saying goes.
Mulling over the possibilities and improbabilities of living in such a remote place with no income I had a moment of folly.
"Brian, how about we cash in our endowments and buy a house in the Falklands?"
"Ok"
Pregnant pause...
"What do you mean 'ok'?"
"I've been waiting for you to suggest this for years".
And they say men don't understand women.
So the plan progressed, the compromise was buying a "settlement house" (ie one with a few neighbours) rather than an "outside house" (ie one with NO neighbours, for miles, many miles, and no roads, or power, or water supply.)
Out of the blue a house came up for sale in the settlement where my family used to live, indeed, some of them still live there. Internet powered diddle dee telegraph operating at full tilt, the news arrived, was debated, weighed, considered, rejected, reconsidered, and leapt upon. £100 of telephone calls later we sent an email offer. 12 hours later it was accepted.
Gulp.
Red tape sundered, we find ourselves in possession of a four bed house on the edge of Doctor's Creek in Fox Bay Village, in need of much care and attention. 8000 miles away. OK - great plan. I like it.
It's here: "Old Doctor's House"
Front of the house, looking south from Doctor's creek:
Back of the house, Looking North towards Doctor's Creek.
Looking out from the "conservatory".
6 comments:
Wow. And double wow.
Looks lovely.
Is property cheap or did you have a lot of endowments?
Is this just a holiday home for weekend breaks?
Kate. Congratulations.
PS You may never want to work again.
I'm there. You need painters?
I am soo jealous.
TH has family vacation property that is 1000 miles north of here and we never visit.
Consider yourself one lucky woman on varying and sundry grounds.
nm
Hey. I spotted this first. And Adrian's a qualified decorator. He thinks it looks great too. We can call en route from our sometime South American trip.
He wants to know if the Land Rover is included in the deal. (He's good at L/R mechanics too).
And presumably it does have all mains services.
Wow. Again.
Property is pretty cheap - but you have to be an Islander or get a special permit to buy a house out there.
Yes - we need painters (there's room for all!), and plumbers, and roofers, and kitchen builders etc etc (that would be us!).
It's going to be a permantent home, with an 18 hour flight either way weekend breaks would be *tricky*. We will move when the time is right ;-)
EVERYONE has a landy out there. We will. I'll look out some old pics and post them on flickr... you've never seen so many landys in one place in your life.
Fox Bay does have electric, water and drains, one of the few places that does. But I'm consiering sending Brian out to cut peat for the fires. ;-)
Great stuff.
He can do plumbing and roofing too (no point having a useless man).
Do you have bottled gas? Or no gas?
We figured you would need a ...long weekend.
Landies in FI are meant to be notoriously rusty. Adrian looks forward to seeing the pix. I've only just got him to read your comment hence tardy response.
Kate
I think you can get bottle gas now - but that's relatively new - 20 years ago it was peat for cooking and eating or nothing else!
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