Missives aren’t concluded, but there’s now a formal written acceptance of my offer on my solicitor’s desk, so unless something goes horribly wrong, I’ve bought a house!  It’s not actually called Ethel’s House, it’s number 156, but like so many houses in this village, it’s generally known by the name of its longest resident in living memory, so Ethel’s House it is.  From the agent’s blurb:

This traditional 1 and ½ storey croft house which requires internal restoration is set in an area of true space and openness. The house was built in approximately 1920 and has panoramic sea views. On the ground floor is an entrance hallway, a living room, kitchen and bathroom and on the upper floor a landing and three bedrooms thus making it an ideal family home or fabulous holiday retreat. The house is mostly double glazed  and has the original v lining through the whole of the upstairs. There are stone built outbuildings which were formerly barns and stables also included in the sale and these offer various conversion options. There are areas of garden ground to the front, rear and side of the house. The house is heated with oil fired radiators and there is also an open fire in the living room.

The agents took the picture of it straight on and full frame (it’s on one of these rotating image things and even looking at the page source, I can’t track down the url for the original image, sadly), so it looks rather grey and sad.  I prefer this picture of it from the day the Google Street View car came past (yes, I can’t believe they made it this far north either!), because it shows a little of the amazing views the house has:

What I’m buying, technically, is the croft tenancy with all its improvements, one of which is the house.  The field on the right belongs to someone else; the house comes with three fields behind it, one down on the point (not down the track in the picture, there’s another track about 15 yards to the right) and then another croft at the other end of the village, next door but one to my house (I live in the white one in the picture below):

As you can see, there are the remains of an old house on it (there’s actually another one on the other side as well if you look really closely) and we’re hoping that one day we’ll be able to build our dream house here – a few years of planning and saving to do first though.  This field is 5 acres and runs all the way down to beach level.

So, step one in this project (once I get the keys, obviously): get Ethel’s House sorted out and ready to be lived in again.