The story so far…
Its been over a year since two city dwelling chancers exited London and landed in the rural idyll of Somerset. Well to be exact, there was that stint near Swindon whilst we counted our riches in a rented farmhouse having sold a three bed terrace in Peckham (yay!), and then blanched at house prices in The Countryside and the ticking clock as our contract ran out (gulp). Something had to be done.
Surely the small-farmhouses-with-acres-and-acres-of-land-to-turn-into-a-rewilding-cum-crafts-hub-cum-smallholding were ten a penny right? Surely we’re the only city slickers with a dream of escaping to the country to frolic barefoot in a white dress, the bemeadowed land surrounding our bijou shack (with high speed internet) abloom with flowers and small woodland creatures stopping by to nuzzle our ankles?
To keep it short, we looked at three thousand properties and decided that our foolish dreams were mere dust in the wind, we had no idea what we were talking about, and we needed somewhere to live, sharpish. After having an offer rejected on a house in Gloucestershire that had bats in the roof and an extremely hostile estate agent we plumped for the only slightly less absurd option of an 6 bed ex-pub with a 32-seat cinema and a library in. In a town.
It’s funny how life turns out isn’t it? Still, Axbridge, it emerged, is more like the size of a village whilst retaining town status - a hangover from its previous rank as ‘kind of a big deal’, from before the river was diverted away from its vicinity and boats could visit to trade textiles. Nowadays it is a quaint settlement with a pleasing mix of ‘old Axbridge’ generations and incomers from the likes of Bristol and London.
Having scraped together all our cash, and borrowing a bit more, and deciding that eating was overrated anyway, we put an offer in. We bought the house. We also had the distinct feeling that the only reason we actually managed to successfully get the place was because the owners happened to think we were good eggs. But what to do with our broken dreams of shacklife (with land attached)? We looked at what our predecessors had done with a Georgian pub-turned-holiday let and did what people since time immemorial had done when they were a bit stumped. We’d nick their plan…