Fox hunting again - lines are crossed

Before I begin: Pest control is perfectly legal, and that's fine. Foxes are regarded as pests and can therefore be killed, and that's fine too. I am not against the killing of foxes in a quick, humane manner. It has to be done, so just shoot 'em. Full stop.

What I am against is the jolly old British tradition of hunting foxes with packs of hounds, which is quite rightly against the law of this land.
I think it's a cruel, torturous way for a terrified fox to die as it is chased relentlessly through the undergrowth then literally torn limb from limb the moment it makes a mistake. I don't care what the Countryside Alliance thinks and I don't care about what legalisation would do for rural economies, hunting foxes with hounds is wrong.

Deadly serious: me and Dawn yesterday

That said, I uphold another British tradition by protesting quietly under my breath and not actually doing anything about it. I don't lay false trails, I don't protest at meets with a crackly loudhailer turned up to 11 and misspelled placard and I don't drag bugling horsemen off their trusty steeds and beat seven shades out of them, using their blood as warpaint in front of the world's media and gaggles of baton-wielding police officers.
I pretty much just keep it to myself.

I'm telling you this so you don't go thinking that I'm a sandal-wearing, yoghurt-weaving type of tree-hugging, handcuffed-to-railings nutjob - I'm just a regular bloke who can't see any justification whatsoever for hunting foxes with hounds.

So, now I've told you that, go and read my post from November about the first time our local hunt barreled through unannounced and my reaction to it...

...welcome back. The quick update is that we had our suspicions confirmed that there was nothing we could really do about the hunt coming through, so we decided to let them get on with it. Nobody said we couldn't try though either - it was more a case of shrugged shoulders and vaguery.
As promised, the Hunt Master dropped by a few days before the next hunt was due just to give us fair warning, and we (Dawn, too) had a chat and a bit of polite laughter while making it clear that while we don't condone the activity we're prepared to be civil for the sake of peace. This has happened three or four times over the last few months and sometimes we hear or see the hunt running past the end of the front garden or don't catch them at all. They haven't entered the estate through our gates again.

In retrospect - and I was kind of aware I was doing this at the time while deliberately not dwelling on it - I had somehow convinced myself that the hunt was just following pre-laid scent trails and the dogs were getting a good run out. A bit of fresh air. In the back of my mind I knew differently, of course, but it was the only way I could stay calm about it all.

Yesterday's hunt turned everything on its head, though, and for perhaps the first time in my life I have consciously decided to stick up for my principles instead of rolling over and pretending they're not there because it's less hassle. Such was the significance of the occasion that I forgot to get any proper photos, so CCTV screenies will have to do. Sorry about that.

It all started normally, with the Hunt Master forewarning us a few days ago that they might be around on Saturday.
Yesterday afternoon came about, somewhere around half four, and we were both outside when we heard bugling from the woods so we stood at the top of the trail leading away from The Lodge to watch. I have to admit that the sight of a full hunt powering through is one to behold if you put aside any moral objections.

The hunt was pretty scattered, which is seemingly normal, and one huntsman appeared at the bottom of the track and plodded his horse up to stand with us while the rest of his group sorted themselves out.

The arrival of the cavalry
We're stood in the top right corner - you can just see a pair of feet

We did the polite chatter thing again, then a few minutes later two quad bikes came along another track and joined us. Four people were aboard the quads, two older blokes, one younger bloke and an older woman. Every one of them a pig-squealing redneck.
When they motored off down the track and in to the trees, we asked the huntsman what part they played on the hunt. His answer was vague at best and he didn't really commit. Maybe something to do with dogs... maybe not... nice day, isn't it?

Right then a fox came running like hell through the undergrowth, crossing the track right in front of us and crashing off in to the trees.

Caught on our front garden cheapo NatureCam CCTV, this is what a petrified fox looks like when it's running for its life.
It crossed the track in front of us a few seconds later, followed 30 seconds after that by a hound.

And I'm not sorry to say this, but I lost the plot.
There was no time for me to consider my reaction, no time to think about what to say - I lost it in an instant.

All of a sudden I effing hated the man on the horse beside us and I hated everything he represented. Never in my life have I experienced such a sudden surge of... what? Revulsion? I literally started to feel sick and developed a pain right across my stomach. All of a sudden my passive compliance was out the window. In fact I was so angry that I was close to tears - do you get that? You're not sad or scared but you're suddenly so furious that your unconscious reaction is to blub? That's me. I hate it. I'd be a terrible professional boxer.

As always with sudden adrenaline rushes, I don't really remember what I said shouted in his general direction but I strode off down the track at the same time ready to take on every hound with my bare hands before it got past me. Fortunately the main pack was crossing the track further down, but one hound was right on the fox's scent and followed in its wake 30 seconds later only to be faced by a mental version of me, screaming and waving my arms at it. It ran off in a different direction.

I continued shouting and gesticulating wildly at the huntsman while fending off a confrontation-hating Dawn as she tried to calm me down and he quickly left the scene without another word, presumably before I could locate a weapon. I managed to inform his firmly-turned back that I'd had enough of being polite and I'd be closing and locking the gates whenever I know they're out from now on.

Then, in something of a surprise move, Dawn left too.
She wandered straight ahead in to the trees without saying a thing and vanished for 20 minutes. She didn't even look back. It was like a preamble to a bad psychological thriller.

It turned out that whereas my lovely wife was in full agreement with the sentiment of my message, the range of words I chose to use from my otherwise pretty extensive vocabulary was somewhat limited and, often, too 'specialist'. And loud. The delivery was perhaps a little off too. She wasn't terribly pleased with me for that, but that wasn't why she wandered off - she wanted to give me time to settle down while she looked for fox remains in order to justify blasting a blunderbuss at the hunt next time it passed through.
She didn't find any, but she did hear suspicious human noises coming from the undergrowth a short distance away... so we went to investigate.

The noises were at the end of the quad bike tracks in the grass, off the path in a secluded part of the woods behind thick rows of rhododendron. Voices, chopping, snapping branches... manual labour sounds. But there was no way to find out what was going on without being totally obvious about it and putting ourselves at potential risk. Anecdotal accounts that I've heard over the years from people who actually know these things suggest that hunt participants can be just as... er... defensive and unpredictable as their saboteur counterparts.
Then, as luck would have it, we heard the quad bike engines start up so we did what any fully-grown adults would do and ran away to hide in the trees with our hoods up as they drove on by.

Pictured from inside the enclosure looking out, the
only pathway to and from the den was crudely hidden
from view with pulled-over foliage

The area of rhododendron they had been in was kind of horseshoe-shaped, with one way in and one way out, which the people had tried to hide by pulling foliage across the entrance. Beyond the 'barrier' (being careful not to step in any traps) we found five large entrances to what appeared to be a reasonably-sized earth. Four of the fox holes had been dug out but there was no blood, no bodies and no signs of anything violent having taken place.
So we took some photographs then went back home.

Now here's the thing: Which, if any, laws have been broken?

Organised hunts like this aren't allowed to specifically target foxes with hounds, but by digging out an earth while hunting with hounds is going on in the immediate area thanks to a group you're clearly with, isn't the Hunt Master blatantly ignoring the law?

But here's the other thing: I know what they were up to and Dawn knows what they were up to, but everything can be easily explained away by the hunt if it came down to it. They were just out for a run with the hounds. Maybe the quads weren't part of it. Maybe the quad people had guns to shoot anything they found - it's not illegal. Maybe they thought they'd do a little ad-hoc pest control while they were out... all of that easy, indisputable bullshit which hunts no doubt rely on up and down the country all year round as they deliberately circumvent the Fox Hunting Ban.

I don't exactly know the purpose of digging out fox holes
without doing anything else. My thought was that they'd be
back later with terriers. Either way, doing it as part of an
organised hound hunt has to raise some questions, right?

I know that there are bigger things to fret about than what effectively amounts to simple pest control, but they've pushed my buttons and I want to do everything I can to disrupt them now. I want to get the police involved, lay false trails, dig a pit for the quads to fall in to, shoot stuff... but I'm not going to, no matter how angry it has made me.

Nevertheless I'll still unleash my tiny anarchic side next time they pass through - I'll not only be closing the gate but I'll lock it this time, too. Even if the horses don't always come through that way, it'll still mess things up for the quads and other hangers-on.

EDIT (March 19) - The word 'Terriermen' has been mentioned to me. Not being a country boy I had never heard of them. Terriermen. Apparently it's a real word.
That's what they were.

Taking a stand against fox hunting

I remember a conversation with Dawn at the beginning of the year in which we pondered our reaction in the hypothetical situation of a fox hunt storming past our house.

The conclusion was along the lines of 'there's nowt we can do so let them get on with it' but I discovered today that the reality is a little bit different.

When faced with 50+ baying, bloodthirsty hounds and about 20 hip-flask wearing lah-de-dahs on horseback in full regalia (and a bugler), it turns out that I get a bit shouty.

Don't get me wrong - I'm all for pest control and the protection of livestock and what have you, but I'm not a fan of ripping foxes to pieces with hounds. I think it's cruel, barbaric and totally abhorrent. Call me a townie all you want, but it's my blog so sod off.
Presumably hunting with hounds is still illegal (the last I heard it was, anyway, but politicians can be fickle and morally bankrupt so-and-sos) but I'm not naive enough to think it doesn't still go on out here in't country, even though they'll call it something deliberately ambiguous like 'running the trails'.
A pack of dogs accustomed to scoffing warm, twitching fox for lunch doesn't switch to dining on tofu overnight and the horse-straddling harbingers of doom, who feast on the still-beating hearts of their dogs' victims, won't just make do with an apple.

I'm exaggerating, of course.
They're quite partial to a Granny Smith from time to time.

"I say, Gertrude, can you smell commoners? Most unpleasant.
Tell that stupid dog to turn around."

I spotted one such horse rider hanging around by the gates for a few minutes this afternoon while I was working in the Living Room, which I thought was curious. Another joined her and about 10 minutes later I saw a whole flock of them heading down the public road in the direction of the house. I don't know how these things work, but they seemed to be accompanied by a smattering of people in 4x4s, so I nipped out to speak to the one who looked like he was in charge of the ground crew - presumably the Master of Foxhounds.

I made it very clear that the hunt wasn't welcome through our gates and I even closed them in front of him so he could get the point. In retrospect I wish I'd put both ground bolts in on my side, but I had forgotten about them.

Not fancying a confrontation I went back in the house only to see the gates swing open and a yowling tsunami of four-legged death sweep through, followed by at least a dozen Horsemen of the Apocalypse tally-ho-ing past the skip.

Yes, Your Honour. His left foot was definitely on our property for a considerable amount of time, so I shot him

Fast forward 30 seconds and I'm having somewhat spirited words with the fella I'd spoken to at the gates, who was telling me which areas of the property I owned and which ones I didn't. Me! A considerable amount of furious indignant gesticulation was taking place, it must be said.
Some of the whippers-in (I've been Googling my terminology) had gathered around and some were heading off down the track towards our neighbours' house alongside the Hunt Master - which is definitely private property, regardless of what Mr Gobshite was telling me. The dogs were off and howling in the woods somewhere, probably decapitating a squirrel and parading its head on a stick.

Things were beginning to get a little too loud (and eyes were at risk from angry finger-pointing) when the scarlet-clad Hunt Master towered over me astride his noble steed and apologised for the inconvenience. He said they were just "running the trails".

...uh-huh.

£6.75 from Sainsbury's
Yes, of course I checked!

It all calmed down after that and to cut what could end up being a long story short, they went back out through the gates and an old chap with very few teeth knocked at the door a couple of minutes later to offer me a bottle of port by way of an apology. One of the four-wheeled entourage must carry a case or two to appease the downtrodden underclass.
No Stilton, though. Disappointing.

A bit later they came yelping and bugling around the side of the front garden and disappeared in to the woods from there. Nothing I can do about that, I suppose.

Oh, and just as it was beginning to get dark someone came by in a 4x4, parked smack-bang in the middle of the track at the side of The Lodge and disappeared in to the gloomy trees blowing his bugle and, so it sounded, yodeling. That's not a euphemism - he'd lost a dog.

The thing is, I think the hunt was within its rights to come through, assuming those in charge had Crown permission.

They're correct in that they weren't on moy laaaand (although they were technically in our back garden at one point... despite the fact that it looks like the rest of the track), and they were right in that the access track itself - and the gates - is Crown Estate, at least until they get to the totally privately-owned part of our neighbours' property. They said they had permission to go through the land although nobody could provide any written proof and we'd had no forewarning (which isn't a requirement, I know, I'm just saying).

Nevertheless, we have one third of a three-way responsibility for maintaining that part of the track which surely means that we also have a say in who comes and goes?

I don't know. I'm thinking out loud. Maybe. Maybe not.

We've emailed the Crown to clarify the situation but I've got a feeling I know the answer already...

Introducing Stretch. Stretch is a fox who lives near our front garden and on our NatureWatch CCTV camera

EDIT (Wednesday 18th)

I spoke to someone today who regularly walks his dog past The Lodge and we got talking about the hunt, which he'd spotted heading towards the house (he saw me 'having words', too). Apparently shortly after they were here the hounds managed to get hold of a fox towards the bottom of the estate... and there was only one winner.
Well, 50-odd winners, technically.

The Accidental Deer Hunter

The strangest thing has just happened, and I don't really know what to make of it so I thought I'd write some words to see if I came to any conclusions.

I've just kind of accidentally been on a deer hunt in the woods.

I was sitting in the shed writing a fascinating blog post about carpets while Dawn was up at the house making tea (spag bol, if you're interested), when on the CCTV I saw a 4x4 pull up next to the house and the driver approach the front door.

Despite being vaguely aware that burglars tend not to knock these days I pulled my jeans on and sprang in to action, reaching him just as Dawn was opening the door.

Now, with The Lodge being right on the edge of a large area of managed woodland we already know that shooting goes on around and about and that this comes under the general catch-all umbrella term of The Shoot - pheasants, foxes, trespassers... that kind of thing.

Our visitor introduced himself as being part of The Shoot and, very kindly, he was showing a little bit of courtesy by letting us know that he was parking next to our house (not on our land, so strictly-speaking he didn't have to say anything) while he headed off to hunt Muntjac deer.

If you've read our post about the local wildlife you'll remember that we've heard Muntjac in the woods at night - twice now - and we were really quite excited by it.

So it was with mixed feelings that someone was on our doorstep announcing that he wanted to blow ones brains out. And not even for the meat - just for sport. I asked.

A real hunter in action
(don't hate me - it was already dead)

Nevertheless we had a polite chat about stuff, during which time I asked him not to shoot SausageTheCat. I even described him as being black-and-white and cat-looking. I needed to be sure that he was fully aware, you see. I stopped short at showing him a photo on my phone, though. Anyway, he said he'd be careful and that's all we can ask for.

I then, on a complete whim, asked if I could join him. I don't know where the question even came from.

And this is where the puzzlement comes in. I like to think that most of the time I'm a pretty level-headed and realistic person, so despite having lived all my life in towns and built-up areas I'm fully aware that people hunt for various reasons. I'm quite pragmatic about it. But unless said hunting is done humanely and for a reason that I agree with, such as vermin control or for food, I can't say that I'm a big fan of it.

Like hunting foxes with packs of dogs because it's 'fun'. No. Just, no.

Yet I saw an opportunity to see a little bit of real country life, so I asked the question. And he said I was welcome. And I went.

I spent the next 20-25 minutes following a rifle-carrying total stranger through the deep, dark woods, trying not to make noise in an environment that was made entirely out of sticks. We didn't speak much, but he showed me a few deer tracks and he pointed into the trees as I heard the sound of what was, apparently, the disappearing arse end of a roe deer that had been lying under a bush just passing the time of day. Like an Indian tracker he even had a feel of the ground to see if it was still warm although, disappointingly, he decided against tasting its poo to test the freshness.

He then told me that he was going to stand under a tree wearing a green camouflaged veil for the next hour or so and although I was welcome to join him I decided to head back... grateful that he hadn't seen anything that he was able to kill while I was with him.

Nevertheless, at Dawn's earlier request he promised to give us a knock if he did bag anything, so I'm watching the CCTV monitor as I type, waiting to see him dragging a bloody carcass across our garden, wearing its head as a hat. Which would be quite disturbing, I have to say.

So having typed all of this, have I sorted out my feelings about it yet?

No.

And I'm not sure I will either.

Buying property from The Crown Estate

Technically-speaking, our new house was previously owned by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II through The Crown Estate.
I don't think she would have been a frequent visitor, but if you're reading this, Your Majesty, you're welcome to pop over any time you fancy. Just give us a few hours' notice so we can have a panic and stick the kettle on. Bring biscuits and The Royal Hard Hat.

Property being sold by The Crown Estate is comparatively uncommon, and before we started searching for a new house it wasn't a concept we were particularly aware of. Nor, as it turned out, were we clued-up on the issues we'd have to face in buying a property from Lizzie. Google didn't really offer any real-life experiences from ordinary bods like us either, so we were pretty much on our own.

Buy One's house or bally well naff orf

The first thing to realise is that The Crown Estate - which is the UK's largest land owner with more than £8bn in assets - has a duty to raise as much money from its sales as possible.
As a result and, crucially, because the building in question isn't being sold by an actual, living, breathing, individual, there is no mercy*. It's purely a business transaction (in our experience, of course).

During our first dalliance with The Crown, when we made an offer of something like 4.5% under the asking price, we thought we might have to wait a week or so for the offer to go from the regular estate agent at this end, to The Crown via its agent Knight Frank, then to a slightly balding middle-aged paunchy man in a polka dot tie who makes a decision... then back to us.
That was so naive that it's not even funny.
In the end it took north of three whole weeks for an answer. That was three weeks of trying unsuccessfully not to get excited, three weeks of trying not to think of the extension we'd build, three weeks of mainlining Restoration Man on TV and three weeks of not looking at other houses.

Then the estate agent called to say she'd heard that The Crown would have an answer for us the coming Monday - just a few days away.
But the phone rang on Saturday. After months on the market with no nibbles, someone else had only gone and put in an asking price offer.
"What is your best and final offer?" came the question.
Animated swearing ensued. Even SausageTheCat (our cat) ran away.
We ended up offering 3.2% more than the asking price - which was over our maximum limit but still the best we could do - then settled in for the wait. Again. You know when people say buying a new home is a stressful experience? Yes. That. In spades.

A week later we were knocked back. At the exact moment that we pulled in to the car park for Grand Designs Live at Birmingham NEC, the call came. Animated swearing ensued. We even invented some new words. It's fair to say that we felt somewhat hard-done-by.

Now to be fair to The Crown Estate, some months later when the sale of The Lodge was on the brink of falling through (we still don't know why) the message got to us pretty quickly and before it went back on the market.
We immediately offered the asking price again and within a day or two, during which time it was advertised online for some reason, it was turned down - The Crown wanted our previous best and final offer, but in return they wouldn't put it back on the open market. At least Spotty Tie Man had been nudged in to action.
The offer was accepted (joy of joys!) and The Lodge was ours.

But three point two percent. All because of someone who couldn't buy the house in the first place. It's difficult not to be a little bit narked at that, although the therapy is helping a little. The sum it represents would have been a significant portion of the extension too, so that's that on the back burner for a year or two at least.

So that's money and patience dealt with.

On to the property itself.
Had The Lodge been a grand Grade 2* Listed stately home run as a high-earning business, chances are it would be in pretty decent nick and had a bit of cash thrown at it. Maintenance schedules would be tight, the floors would be polished and the gardeners would be clean-shaven.

But it's not.
Having served its life (we think) as a rented dwelling for normal agricultural workers of the day and their families, it hasn't been loved in around a century and a half. It has had some maintenance here and there, sure: a chimney has been rebuilt at some stage; the windows have been replaced with ugly uPVC casements; it's got oil-fired central heating and fibreglass loft insulation... but the only money being waved in its general direction has been for essential stuff only, and even that hasn't really been done properly. Having been a gamekeeper's lodge for however long means that although it has served as a home it has also been a working building at the same time. A tool, if you like.

The result is a tired, damp and dirty building that has plenty of original features and has lots of potential but needs a massive kick up the backside to bring out the character that is just below the surface.
The bonus of this is that The Lodge's problems are mostly cosmetic because the building hasn't been subject to the extravagant, unsuitable fantasies of previous misguided owners and bodgery is an exception rather than a rule.

Finally, something else we weren't prepared for was that dealing with The Crown Estate is a right royal pain in the arse. Pun intended.

It all comes back to the fact that no single individual seller with a vested interest is involved, so there's nobody willing to pull out the stops to speed things up and/or help the buyer (us) out.
Prime example - shortly after our offer was accepted we submitted a list of questions to The Crown via our solicitor: Who is responsible for the eastern wall of the house which also forms a section of the entire boundary wall? Who maintains the dirt road to the west that is also used by our neighbour and estate staff with heavy machinery? Where have the main gates and The Lodge's side gate gone since we first saw the property? Who has access to the land? What's the capital of Peru? Does the Queen ever use rude words?

In total there were about 10 questions we wanted the answers to and, true to form, we had to wait around a fortnight for any kind of response... which was somewhat limited to say the least.

The Queen, yesterday, in her own garden

A couple of questions were answered almost to our satisfaction using as few words as possible, but most were either skillfully skirted around or ignored completely. As our solicitor put it: "They're being as vague and unhelpful as possible and it's basically sold as seen."

We found the same thing when it came to leasing the front garden area too. Spotty Tie Man was just dealing with the house sale, so we had to contact someone else direct and try to get some sense out of him.
In a nutshell, we needed to find out exactly how much annual rent The Crown wanted while at the same time trying to persuade the powers that be to sell (or even gift) the land to us, especially considering that we'd already paid the equivalent of 25 years' rent by paying a sizeable sum over the asking price. It's quite an important issue, at least to me, and even though they're not obliged to offer anything other than what was agreed, I hoped they might be open to offering a bit of a sweetener - or at least dialogue.
And the answer? "The land does not form part of the sale". That was it. No discussion, no negotiation, no avenues to pursue.

As an aside, after speaking to numerous people at The Lodge - neighbours, passers-by, a former occupant - not one has managed to find a good word to say about The Crown Estate. I might call their PR people and casually mention the front garden...

I suppose I had better round this post up now.
If I was going to offer advice to someone looking to buy from The Crown, it would be to expect a brick wall at every turn and be prepared to wait. And wait. And wait. You're not dealing with a person - you're dealing with a business that has you over a barrel. You either buy the property or you don't.

Your Queen doesn't really care either way.


* Like lovely Mrs Thompson on leafy Park Crescent who cares about selling her 1960s semi so much that she shovels out the budgie cage and vacuums the dog before you turn up for your viewing. She wants you to buy it so she might even consider knocking a few grand off the asking price or throwing in some white goods. The Crown as an entity, on the other hand, isn't really fussed what you do so it has all the time in the world to wait for you to sell a kidney on eBay.

The house buying process

The buying process progressed surprisingly quickly for us, if you ignore the four months when we thought we’d lost out on the purchase entirely…

The overall timeline has gone as follows:

• July 2014: Apply for Mortgage in Principle. Accepted.
  
• 19th August 2014: Put current property on the market.
• 29th (ish) August 2014: After a small flurry of offers, and one aborted accepted offer, accept an offer from a cash buyer. (We got our first offer within 24 hours, which was reassuring.)
• August 2014: Instruct conveyancing solicitor – for both selling our current property, and buying (once we’d found somewhere).
• 20th August 2014: Muz found The Lodge for sale online. Evening drive by to have a look at it.
• 23rd August 2014: First viewing of The Lodge (open day). Hate it.
• Next couple of weeks: Muz keeps thinking about The Lodge. Decide we should go back again.
• 13th (ish) September 2014: Second viewing of The Lodge (solo viewing). Love it.
• 14th (ish) September 2014: Put in offer. As the Lodge is being sold by The Crown Estates, settle in to wait for response.
• 2nd October 2014 (Thursday): Get told we’ll have a reply to our offer on Monday.
• 4th October 2014 (Saturday): Somebody else puts an asking price offer in. We put in our best and final offer and settle in to wait again.
• 10th October 2014 (Following Friday): Go to Grand Designs Live. Get to the car park. Get a call to say our offer had been rejected in favour of the other, higher, offer. Walk round Grand Designs Live feeling dejected.

• January 2015: Aborted purchase of a water mill. Deemed structurally unsound.

• 9th February 2015: Call from estate agent to advise purchase of the Lodge by the people who outbid us is looking likely to fall through – are we still interested?
• 10th February 2015: Call from estate agent to confirm the sale has fallen through. We renew our offer.
• 11th February 2015: Our offer is accepted.
• 18th February 2015: Apply for mortgage.
• 18th February 2015: Mortgage providers call, run through some questions, they offer mortgage in principle, fee paid to reserve rate.
• 20th February 2015: Period house survey.
• 22nd February 2015: Removed underlay, sprayed mould.
• 23rd February 2015: Post payslips, bank statements, certified passport copy, proof of address, off to mortgage provider. Cross fingers.
• 1st March 2015: Brushed down salts on fireplace, scraped off bits of flaky Artex on ceiling.
• 2nd March 2015: Mortgage provider call, more details given.
• 2nd March 2015: Text from mortgage provider, mortgage agreed subject to valuation!
• 3rd March 2015: Text from valuation company, valuation arranged for 5th March.
• 5th March 2015:  Valuation survey. Cross fingers.
• 11th March 2015: Mortgage company call to say valuation was fine – mortgage approved.
• 14th/15th March 2015: Stripped wallpaper from living room and the chimney breast of Bedroom 3. Cleaned kitchen. Arranged storage (150 sqft).
• 16th March 2015: First load into storage.
• March 2015: Details received from solicitor re questions asked of seller.
• 18th March 2015: Pop into solicitors to sign purchase paperwork.
• 20th March 2015: Pick up hire van. Take load of furniture to storage.
• 21st March 2015: Take second van load to storage (garage 'furniture'). Return van.
• 24th March 2015: Local Survey results finally arrive with our solicitor. No problems!
• 24th March 2015: Letter sent by solicitor to in-laws to ask to confirm monetary gift in writing (condition of the mortgage).
• 25th March 2015: Letter sent from in-laws to confirm.
• 25th March 2015: House Insurance arranged (buildings insurance is a condition of the mortgage).
• 28th March 2015: Go to the 'Homebuilding and Renovating Show' at the NEC!
• 1st April 2015: Mortgage lender confirms to solicitor that all conditions are met.
• 2nd April 2015: Solicitor proposes completion date of 17th April to our buyer and The Lodge seller. Our estate agent calls to say our buyer is happy and is telling her solicitors.
• 7th April 2015: After the longest bank holiday weekend in our entire lives, during which a lot of gardening, packing and storage runs took place, seller confirms the 17th is acceptable to them as a completion date. Solicitor requests mortgage funds from our lender (our lender of choice happens to take 7 working days to release the money, hence the delay to the completion date...).
• 9th April 2015: Stamp duty and remaining legal fees paid to our solicitor.
• 10th April 2015: Book van for move day.
• 13th April 2015: Pop into solicitors and sign old house transfer form.
• 15th April 2015: Solicitor executes exchange of contracts.
• 16th April 2015: Pick up van at 5pm. Load garden and most of the garage - take to The Lodge.
• 17th April 2015: Completion! Load remaining possessions into van, cursory final clean,  get into van, drop off old house keys to estate agent, pick up The Lodge keys from estate agent. Move!

And so the project began...