Build up to the barn

Reading back, this blog, like my brain, is very scrambled. Indeed, it is a befuddled blog. Time to unfuddle. This post will give a barn background, the next a brain background.
In May 2006 we were living in Buckinghamshire in a converted barn (we like barns) but were contemplating moving to a very old cottage in its own grounds with outbuildings for pottery studios and a garden ripe for pottering. It had been on the market for some months with one or two unsuccessful attempts at completion, but we thought it was perfect and felt like it had been waiting for us. There was another interested couple; we both had properties on the market so it became a race. In the meantime Mum and Dad came down to the Chelsea Flower Show and we met them for dinner. Having shown them the details of Sun Cottage they asked why we were going to pay almost half a million when we could renovate Boosh Barn for a fraction of that but, although Fif was keen, I didn't think I was ready to move back home. A couple of days later Mum and Dad flew to Italy and we, with our house in the hands of the estate agent, flew to Dubai. We'd been there a few days when we heard that we'd lost the Sun Cottage race then, a couple of days later, we got the terrible news that Mum had died in Italy. Dad couldn't leave the home they'd created together - well, just look at the pictures and you'll see why - but couldn't live there alone so, without hesitation, we said we'd move up to be with him. We moved back to Cheshire in September, having (not without trauma) sold our house and having agreed with our respective companies that we'd work remotely, making regular weekly office trips back South. This worked well for a couple of weeks, then came the brain..........