downshiftme.com is the website of Matt and AJ and the story of our change from city life in Leeds, UK to a simpler country life in Nova Scotia, Canada. Hopefully there will also be something for those who also wish to downshift for a simpler, happier, more natural lifestyle.
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
3 days left in the Leeds house
Shippers come tomorrow and the container on Friday - so last day of packing today - think its going to be a long one - deciding what we can live without for 6 weeks.
Report came in on the Heart House yesterday - lots of work needed including some structural work on some of the joists and beams. It looks terrible all written down but no real surprises though.
Good news is the furnace is wood and oil (we thought it may just be oil) and also the water test came back completely fine. And the brave inspector drove his truck into the garage which held the weight on the floor - so that's good news (and not a test I wanted to do!).
Sorry for the lack of podcast - it has been manic.
Saturday we leave the Leeds house for the last time and drive to Suffolk where my mother lives. Next Thursday we fly to Halifax and stay in various motels, campsites, cabins or wherever we can get the best comfort/value ratio.
Flora and Larry in Toronto who cracked our da downshiftme code to identify the "head house" in Hampton received their present of some pirate treasure and sent us this lovely photo with it. Unfortunately the "treaure" is in fact chocolate rather than gold.. but hey.. we are poor!
Will try to keep this up to date in text at least - but will try to do some audio soon.
Well the house is properly sold now - contracts have been exchanged. Until this point yesterday our buyer could have pulled out of the sale. The system in the UK for selling houses is almost the opposite of the Canadian system where once you make an offer you have committed to purchase.
Of course we have been a victim of both systems as we couldn't commit as a buyer until we had a guaranteed sale.
Now the sale is agreed we have put in an offer on the "heart house" in Nova Scotia.
We will be moving out of Leeds at the end of the month and be homeless in the UK staying with relatives and possibly renting for a week in NS while our sale completes.
We will podcast if we get a chance to tell you what we are up to.
Of course we are also getting married at the weekend too.. so its a bit all go!
> Where is Dartmouth? Next to Halifax as Matt said.
> This week – packing and throwing away, sold microwave, given away stuff to charity shop, given two monitors to a colleague today. Still lots of reductions to make – “freecycle”, more trips to the tip and also charity shops.
> Television - Happiness formula – triangle – work, home, shopping - Social networking - second life - Adam Curry - hello Guildford - “Will the internet make the world a happier or less happy place?” - the internet is a social gadget - internet is a social enabler - brings people together. Communities of interest not communities of location. The internet will help us to be less isolated when we move. Housing - 1960's housing estates had destroyed communities. Wayne Hemmingway has designed houses - AJ likes to see neighbours through binoculars! - he means not too close.
> House sale in UK update – signed contracts but waiting to “exchange”.
> House purchases in Canada update – century properties
> Heating tips from Carolyn
> Carolyn’s farm viewing service at www.acountrylife.com - ideal for people from away wanting to find properties
> Bruce Murray from the Zedcast comments on “heart” century houses.
> Our views on the head Vs. heart debate - we have talked about all the things that Bruce mentions. We can imagine all the problems and pitfalls. We need to improve insulation. Scary heating costs. The first winter will be cold. You will hear our teeth chatter on the podcast. I used the word "Money pit" to describe the house. It will be a project. Our descriptions of head house and heart house do indicate we are aware of what is sensible and what we want. This winter may be a "Baptism of Ice".
> Pleasure + engagement + meaning = happiness.
> Wedding update – next weekend – not sure if we will be able to Podcast. Nicola visiting from Toronto Friday to Monday.
One of your choices is correct – however one is incorrect. If our heart is in the place you guessed, are our feet firmly on the ground?
Our heart is in the valley (they guessed the right house).
If they are, where is our head? If you talk about people’s feet being firmly on the ground, they are sensible – otherwise you talk about people’s head’s being in the clouds – so Mountain.
This may sound obscure, but don’t want it lost in translation.
“Lost in Translation” is a poem by James Merrill (1926-1995), about a summer Merrill spent as a child in a great house in The Hamptons,
It could be somewhere for some Martha Stewart Living between spring and fall
Martha Stewart has a house in the “Hamptons” where she spends her summer. Hampton is a place on North Mountain and points the way to our “head house”.
AJ thinks our code sounds like 3-2-1 - which was based on a Spanish formula not a U.S. one.
Bad things - nothing - apart from AJ's beard splinter Good things - friends - old friends and a lovely meal Friday night
Well it looks like we almost have a new "slot" of Sunday for recording and uploading the podcast - and it will be tomorrow for this week's cast.
Not quite sure what we will talk about yet but we will explain the Da Downshft Code and preparations for moving. Also a word of warning from Bruce Murray of the Zedcast with a cautionary tale about the downsides of century properties in Nova Scotian winters.
Well done to Larry (and Flora) of Toronto for cracking the downshiftme code. On the last podcast we set them a code to identify our "head" house as they were trying to guess which house on MLS it was.
Their first guess was incorrect so instead of giving them the correct answer we set a code which they correctly cracked and I received an email about it this morning.
Right click image and "save file as" to download (24mb) or right click here for 56k version at 14mb.
> House buying - Victim of the Canadian AND the UK system - Going from one to the other is a pain – same to same would not be so bad - Frustrating
> Oak Island - What a treat – we went! Would you believe it after talking on here about it and then reading a book and then having a chance to go! - Lovely having coffee with David Blankenship and his wife on Oak Island – nice people and another treat. - 10X was great – living history – crushed pipe, the big hole, seeing the sea water level – smashing stuff.
- I could have jumped up and down with excitement
- Also read the book by the Fanthorpes about to start a new one by Mark Finnan.
- Treasure hunt is over 200 years old, flood tunnels, defeated technology available on different excavations but now is it too late? Too much damage?
- What is in the hole? Pirate Treasure? Spanish Gold? Proof Francis Bacon wrote Shakespeare’s plays? Or is it the Templar gold or the Holy Grail?
> Frappr update – welcome Suzanne from Minnesota and Becky and Jason from Derby in the UK
> The downshiftme code - especially for Flora and Larry
We are still a bit jet lagged and would not have been able to string words together yesterday, so the podcast should be online later today (Sunday) instead.
We will talk further about househunting and also about our surprise trip to Oak Island too.
Right click image and "save file as" to download or right click here for 56k version.
Podcast 23
> Live from our cabin in Nova Scotia in the rain
> Been house hunting Friday and Saturday - It’s been stressful - AJ is drinking some tea - It has been a very difficult time of decision making - favourite property had been sold - second favourite property was not so nice as the pictures made it seem - Friday’s favourite needs work doing on it (a new roof) and needs money spending on it straight away - Saturday we looked at two disappointing properties plus one very nice one
> Head Vs Heart – one property needs nothing doing on it and has less potential and the one which needs lots doing on it has loads of potential and is beautiful. Heart won. - grand Georgian staircase - bakelite light switches - cast iron vents - it is pushing our budget a bit - other house has a brook, waterfalls and a small bridge, on the side of the mountain
> Last night’s party in Wolfville - very nice people - some thought we were mad
> Cabin is on the lake - 5 cabins plus 2 houses on the lake - people on a pedalo - beautifully equipped - under floor heating in the bathrooms is great - no TV
> Pimp mobile – upgraded to a Monte Carlo - electric seats, cryptic symbols, cruise control, automatic
> Supermarket shopping - one supermarket has vegetarian food
> Bad things - Matt – rain and the person who drove up the boot of the car last night - AJ – rain
> Good things Matt – tofu in the supermarket, people at the party, beautiful countryside, friendly people AJ – our Realtor, Chris, two nice houses, Nova Scotia
Message from Bruce Murray from the zedcast at www.zedcast.com Message from the downshiftme stalker
Slightly stressed by the weighty decisions we are going to have to make.
Seen a house we really like but with the work needed on it, it will stretch our budget and may mean living on gruel and putting other things on hold for a while... decisions.. decisions.
Think we need to sleep on it and see more properties tomorrow.
