Photo's on my Phone 5th of September to 10th of December

 This is a deeply depressing blog post, but it does have a happy ending, I felt I couldn't write about my misery until there was positive news. It's been a long time since my last post as for the past 3 months we have lived in limbo. Every day the same, a constant sense of despair, pointlessness, feeling that we had no future, nothing to do, but stalk the rental sites desperately trying to find a needle in a haystack.

We took the dogs to the beach a lot, the wind and the rain and emptiness fitted our mood.

We searched for a house in Lynton or Lynmouth or even one of the out laying villages, but there was nothing. All the rental houses had been sold for second homes and Airbnb after the pandemic, we've been here for 12 years, moved several times and never had a problem finding somewhere local.

So resigned our selves to the fact we would have to leave our home and community and look further afield.

 

We won second prize for the best allotment for an allotment we have to give up.

We walked on the beach some more, all the time grieving the fact that these things would not be ours anymore.

However leaving was made slightly easier as Daisy had already gone, she and Sam found a beautiful house down a quiet lane in Hele, just outside Ilfracombe.

The flat upstairs was so quiet it felt like part of me was missing.

I drew my "Now house", its A3 drawn in fine line pens, so you can see all the pen strokes, normally I would tidy them up, but to leave it messy fitted my mood.

Sandra and I walked our dogs everyday and as all good friends she listened to my misery.

I finally decided to go to the Drs and was prescribed antidepressants, they made a huge difference, it meant that I didn't burst into tears every time someone asked if we'd found somewhere. They didn't solve the problems, but gave me the impetus to do something proactive. 

So rather than stalking the rental sites finding nothing we wanted, we finally started applying to look at houses.

There weren't many that were suitable, most wouldn't take pets or didn't have a garden or were a top floor flat or most of insulting of all were the short lets of holiday rentals, owners looking to make a bit of money over the winter. We carried on packing and stalking the sites. I soon discovered that agents only show the houses to a few people, so you need to be on the phone as soon as something suitable comes up.

I drew my "Never home", because that's how likely I felt we would find something. In the whole 3 months we only found 3 houses that we would want to live in, we applied for all 3 and were turned down for 2 of them.

BUT we were offered the 3rd one, I still can't believe it's going to be ours, it's a 3 bedroom house with a garden, garage and balcony over looking the sea. 

Even though its perfect it has 2 faults, the first is it isn't in Lynton and the second is it doesn't have a woodturner/open fire.

Its in Combe Martin which is 10 mins drive from Daisy, not too far from Lynton so we can still spend time with our friends.

I can see my house from the beach.

And the beach from my balcony. It means we can walk the dogs on the beach everyday and swim and sun bathe in the summer.

We move in 9 days I still can't believe it's going to be ours, I'm still not sleeping, still feeling anxious, but the emptiness has been replaced with plans for the garden and trying to work out where all the books are going.

The moment I stand on the balcony and look at the sea will be the moment I can relax.

Photo's on my Phone 23rd August 2024 to 4th of September

What do you do when your life is collapsing around you?

Go on holiday and forget it all for a few days!

So we went back to Suffolk to see our families and cuddle my boy and his husband.

We also spent time with both of our parents, Phil's nephew, sister & brother & my aunt, 

We were only gone 72 hours, but in that time we drove 16 hours, slept for 14 hours.

Visited 3 pubs (including The Jolly Sailor at Orford as seen in the photo above)

Visited 2 beaches, Walberswick  above where a stone/tooth/finger incident occurred.

Plus 5 hours in casualty, there was an incident with a stone, Siri's mouth and Phil's finger. Siri ended up with a chipped canine that sliced Phil's finger badly enough to need stitches. 

Moral of the story is always make sure Siri is sitting in front of you and waiting before you throw anything.

We both waited patiently outside for 5 hours while Phil waited patiently inside, only to be told they couldn't stitch his finger because it was an animal injury.

Beach number 2 was Shingle Street (our old home). You can almost see our old house in the trees across the marshes

And then we drove home, luckily the 18 mile traffic jam was on the other side of the M25.

On Sunday it was Bert's 7th birthday, his 2 uncles gave him an iguana and great Grandad gave him a remote controlled model boat.

The iguana ate fish & chips with us on Ilfracombe harbour beach and the model boat in the words of Bert is the best present in the world.

Now I'm back to the depressing job of packing our lives in boxes, while we desperately try and find somewhere to live.

No drawings last week except for a couple of badly drawn quick sketches, however I will be at the Lyn Valley Market at Lynton Town Hall on Saturday. 

Please come and say Hi, but please no sympathy unless you want a flood of tears.

Photo's on my Phone 7th August 2024 to 22nd of August

 The sun still shone (for a while).

 

We went on a family trip to Landacre. All the grown ups laid on the river bank and enjoyed the sun, except for Mummy who played in the river with the boys.

I didn't take any photo's, the ones above are of another family trip back in 2015, with our grown children (before the small boy's existed) and our beloved previous GSD Loki, I miss them all so much....

Anyway I did a very bad sketch, which I had to colour in when I came home as I didn't want it to ruin my sketch book. The only bit that remotely looks like the Landacre are the bridge arches.

The next day the sun went away and the rain arrived.

So we took the boys to soft play, which is the best rainy day invention. This was our view for 2 hours, the boys came back once or twice to demand drinks & food, we enjoyed every minute of it.

I finished my second colouring. It's an A4+ print, hand coloured with water colour pen. I've included the pen so you can see the size and depth of detail.

Last Thursday we received an official looking e-mail from our landlords solicitor, we've worried about eviction for a long time, the e-mail didn't say we were being evicted, but it made us fear what was coming next. We took the dogs up to Countisbury to try and blow some of the worries away. The colours were amazing in the early evening sun. We met a herd of Exmoor ponies and stood still with the dogs while the ponies passed us on both side. The dogs were amazing just stood still with us and watched, both Siri and Ron had a slight wobble, but didn't bark so the ponies ignored them. We were both so proud of our dog boy's, seems like all our constant training is paying off.

On Monday both us and Dais were served a section 21 no fault eviction notice. We both have 2 months to find a new home, before our landlord starts court proceedings.

At the point in time when this photo was taken both Maggie and Siri had no idea that Queenie and Grandpa were scared and angry and trying to hide their tears. I wish I could say they were still oblivious to what was happening. Mummy is doing her best to protect the boys, but it's too big a thing to hide, they know they are going to move house and maybe have to leave their friends & family. Siri is worried and stuck to my side like glue, he's scared and doesn't understand what's going on, so I'm making sure he spends lots of time with his girlfriend & her mum.

There's a housing crisis, too many houses have been sold as second homes & airbnb's, there is no where for the locals to live. 

To make a single mum with 2 small children and a slightly broken old couple close to retirement age homeless is devastating, it means our family has been broken in two and face an uncertain future.

I have no doubt our flat will be sold as a second home or airbnb and will remain empty for months of the year. 

This is the 4th time we have lost our home, the first was our house when Phil was made redundant, the sale of the house went through the day before the bailiffs turned up. 

The second was because our landlord didn't want to repair the chimney so evicted us and sold the flat so it was someone else's problem. 

The third was a bolt hole the second time Phil was made redundant. We have very kind friends who helped us out when we needed it, we knew it was only temporary and would be sold, but it still hurt when the estate agent came round to value it.

Life has kicked us so many times, I fear that if we have to leave our friends, family & village behind there won't be much left to kick.

The one thing I am adamant about is I will not give up my dogs, I would rather live in a tent and you never know it might just come to that.

We have applied to the council for help, but have been told we are in a long queue due to landlords panic selling. Labour have promised a new law making section 21 notices a thing of the past, but until it is passed there will be a lot more in the same situation as us.

On the day the notice arrived we took the boys to Dunster.

Dunster beach was grey and gloomy, but we made the most of it Grandpa climbed rocks with the boy's while I threw (and lost) balls for the dogs. Then we ate ice cream in a gale on the top of the hill overlooking Porlock.

In an effort to avoid looking at the packing boxes surrounding me and to try and take my mind off it I've coloured a second Summer print. Its also coloured in watercolour pens, so strictly no tears or the rainbows will end up running all over the page.

The photo is of it almost finished, I've finished it now and moved onto the next.

Rainbows are full of hope & positivity , if I colour enough of them maybe the positivity will rub off on us and we won't have to spend Christmas Day living in a tent.

We are off to stay with our son & his husband next week, so we can visit family and have a couple of days with them. We both desperately need this break, maybe it will help us come to terms with what's going on and help us move on to better things.

Photo's on my Phone 28th July to 6th August 2024

Seems like ages since my last post, but it was only a week ago.

The sun has finally come out so the day's have been warm and fuzzy.

Ron didn't want to play ball anymore so he refused to move and forced his master to carry him. It was early evening and even though the temperature had gone down he still exhausted himself. This was after 5 mins of play, trouble is he runs a million miles an hour so gets tired really quickly. So no more ball play for Ron until it gets a lot cooler.

We went to lots of beaches. 

This is Woolacombe, in between swimming and playing football the boys pretended to be really cool, all Queenie and Grandpa wanted to do was lay in the sun and read their books, but alas caring for two small boys makes it impossible.

In between swimming and shouting at small boys to try and stop them kicking balls at people I did a sketch, which I'm not terribly happy. The tents were supposed to look like jelly fish and the jelly fish tentacles to look like the sea. I shouldn't have added the parasols, but I quite like the people, I added the spots to make it better, but instead I've made it worse. Sometimes things aren't meant to be.

The dogs re-enacted a photo taken about 9 years ago, only Tinks remains of the original 3. Siri has replaced Loki and Ron has replaced Billy, which is ironic because Ron hates cat's. I wish I still had a Billy, he was the best cat ever, but sadly we will have to wait until Ron has gone, fingers crossed it's a very long time. I will wait for another Billy in the same way I will wait for another Land Rover.

Our next beach trip was to Blacklands which is our local beach at the bottom of the hill,  it's a huge contrast  to Woolacombe. We did more swimming and I attempted to do more reading, I might of managed a page or two. I hate photo's of me, but this one is ok, its me & my small boys at home in my happy place.

Yesterday's beach was Crow point, no swimming as the tide was out, but plenty of sand, most of it is in still in my hair and sketch book! A little bit more relaxing as the boy's played on the big sand dune, which is on its own and means they can't disappear into the Burrows like rabbits never to be found again.

My Crow Point sketch is just a pencil sketch, I will work over it in fine line pen.

I've finished my first colouring of the ghost of Hollerday House, it's interesting to see how the colour changes the image. I love it and have already started on the next coloured print, the coloured Hollerday House will be available to buy as soon as I've worked out how much to charge. If you are interested please let me know.

I'm still working on the digital version of Summer, I can't wait to start colouring, but it will probably be digital colouring as the A1 print will be far too big.