Recently, Kev and I saw an architect about converting the barn in our field to a home.
Planning permission is on our list of goals for 2023, and it’s a sure sign that we’ve developed amnesia about our previous building projects.
Like a woman whose memory of the pain of labour is less than the desire for a new child, we’ve decided to “try for another”.
In my delirious broody state, I’m even looking back on the pains of past building projects through rose tinted spectacles.
Like the time we were building our utility/ bedroom extension, and the electricity board needed to move one of their poles further from the house.
It involved digging a deep trench 8 metres from our house in which to lay the cable from the pole to the meter box.
I’m not quite sure how it happened, but a glitch in communication meant we had to dig the trench in a matter of hours or we’d miss our slot to get it done for weeks.
Failure wasn’t an option as we had other trades lined up, and it was too late to call for back-up labour, so we just set to it.
We live in an area of very thick, heavy clay. Clay is basically a bitch to dig. If it’s too dry it’s rock hard, and if it’s too wet it’s heavy and sticky.
We must have had a few wet days preceding our dig because that clay stuck to our spades like a randy dog to an ankle.
Every single clod of liberated earth had to be scraped off the spade - not difficult when you’re at ground level, but when you’re a couple of feet down in a trench, pushing hard to break the soil, then lifting it up, then scraping it off before you start the whole sorry process again, it’s backbreaking.
It took several hours of solid digging from both of us. At times we laughed, at times we fell silent, and occasionally we shouted and swore.
Towards the end, we’d lost daylight, our sense of humour and the will to live.
It was one of the hardest rush jobs I’ve ever had to do, but it’s all part of the deal with building projects.
Sometimes, you’ve just got to dig deep (groan!) and make things happen, or you go to the back of the queue for a critical element and hold up your whole project.
Weirdly, I have fonder memories of digging that trench than any other part of the project. I love the fact that it almost killed us, but we won!
I can’t remember doing the “fun” bits like choosing paint or furnishings.
We tend to remember the events with the strongest emotions attached to them, hence we don’t remember much of the detail of our childhood, especially if it was a safe and reasonably happy one, because our brains archive large amounts of data and only keep our emotional highlights accessible.
There’s something special about overcoming struggles, whether acute and painful, or long and drawn out.
No doubt, if we get planning permission, we’ll have various struggles along the way and I’ll wish we never started, but for now I’m blissfully optimistic that whatever happens we’ll deal with it.
Please remind me of this if you ever hear me moaning about it in the future. (My one-to-one clients will love the chance to feed me my own medicine!)
Sometimes, the best memories are made in the trenches.