Three months in Pewsey

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Well we have been living in Pewsey for three and a half months and it feels like home. Visitors have told us that it is ‘so me’ and reminds them of our flat in Amsterdam in as much as we have low ceilings and beams and a loo almost off the kitchen. Although it is bigger than the old place we can’t quite fit everything in, so there is stuff stored in the loft and also the outhouse.

Last week spring/summer arrived and it has been hot. The months of March and April were a bit of a wash out and, though I wanted to tackle all those pots I brought over from the roof garden, it was just too cold. This week, however, I have managed to do some gardening and it looks so much better.

The plants haven’t really had much care for the last few years and are all much happier in new pots. We have also tackled the out house and Dave has found all his tools and they are all sorted in order with labels on the outside of the boxes; so organised!

So what have we been up to? For the first month we concentrated on getting our 200 boxes unpacked! We are almost all done now; just a few boxes of books to go and still a bit of sorting out. The charity shop here in the village has done well from us and yes, we paid to have junk stored and then I gave it away.

It took a while for broadband to be connected but Dave knew the instant it was as he was watching the lights on his modem. After that he set up all the machines in the office off the kitchen. It was too tempting for me to chat and ask Dave to help me so he has decamped upstairs to the third bedroom which is now his office. He is very happy up there and he can shut the door to work.

He did his first job in Pewsey as PC Doctor Dave for our property manager and since then he has been getting more and more work. We have done mail drops and his card is all over the village. Apparently there is a bit of competition but not too much. We are planning to target local businesses as soon as he has made a suitable flyer. Lots of people have been bringing their laptops for Dave to dismantle and I am very proud of him. His website is now up and running and he has registered as a proper business so all is going according to plan.

In the meantime we have been busy trying to get a social life here in the village. Dave started the Pewsey Bridge Club and the inaugural night was very busy with around 30 people. It has since calmed down and although we don’t have as many, there are different people each week, so it is interesting. It is not for everyone and some people have stopped coming. We can’t win them all but so far so good. We even charge money now which is good; we don’t hold that though just in case people think it is for our retirement fund. Dave also gives teach-ins so that the beginners can improve and it turned out that one of them went to school with my sister, same class. What a small world!

I have a job too, in the local tea room one afternoon a month. I get paid a cup of tea and a slice of cake and have even worked some extra shifts. This week was my normal afternoon and we were rushed off our feet. We ran out of food, apart from some slices of cake, so that was fun.

I joined the Women’s Institute thinking I could be a Calendar girl but nothing so far and have volunteered to sort out the programme for next year. I said I would help and now I find that I am doing it and someone is helping me! Dave has joined the Gentlemen’s club which involves eating a humungous cooked breakfast once a month. Just up his street really. There is so much going on here its hard to fit it all in. We both really love it here and hope to stay.

We have been exploring the surrounding area; there are lots of lovely pubs all selling real ale. In fact Pewsey has its own brewery and we sampled their wares a couple of weeks ago when we had an orange party in honour of the Dutch Queen’s birthday.

I hated Queen’s Day in Holland because Amsterdam was so packed but here we invited all our Dutch friends now living in England and in the afternoon all the girls went for a walk round the village much to the amusement of the locals.

Living in a village is quite a novel thing for me as I have always lived in a city before but here we have a High street and a market once a week. We have a supermarket but I buy meat from the butchers and always try to buy local if I can. That is not to say that we have been further a field to visit the bigger stores but we try to combine our shopping trips with other excursions so that the car is not just being used for shopping what with the price of petrol now.

There are some nice towns around and when Dave’s mum came to stay we showed her around. She loves it here and hopefully will come again in June.

We did a small trip with her to Doncaster I suggested that we go there with her to visit her sister for her 82^nd birthday. Didn’t realise it was so far but we combined it with a visit to a friend of Dave’s (Graham Kirkham).

We now have an English car which we named Priscilla. She is a silver Ford Mondeo which Dave bought at an auction at a bargain price. It now has PC Doctor Dave on the doors.

We had to scrap the Dutch BMW as it was not worth the cost of importing it so she has gone to the great car park in the sky! We had to do lots of bureaucratic nonsense to transfer our no claims bonus but as of today it is all done. The old car was having serious problems the worst being that she didn’t like going fast any more, still her kilometerage was well over 300,000 so she did very well. Dave still uses his bike around the village and the motor bike is still with us. Dave started work on it yesterday to get it through its MOT so it can be imported. It may take some time!

We are off to Holland next week flying out of Bristol we are going to a birthday party. This will be one of 3 trips back now, September and October. We miss the people and even some shops, but not Amsterdam as such. We are looking forward to being real tourists as the last time was very busy and stressful.

We are hoping to have some visitors in the next few months, which we are also looking forward to. Mark is returning from New Zealand for a week in July. He is coming over to take part in the London-Mongolia car rally. He and 2 friends will be driving a London taxi cab trying to raise money for Mongolia. We are having a welcome home and good luck party and hope to wave him off from Hyde Park the following week. Not sure of the route they are taking but hopefully they wont break down too much and I think there is a kind of convoy. Check out their website if you want a giggle. Mark’s bit on the video is very funny and well worth the wait (he is on after 90 seconds).

As Jonathan is living in Perth for the next couple of years we hope to visit him next year. We are provisionally booked in his crowded diary but it really depends on how well Dave’s business is going by then. He and his girlfriend Hannah appear to be having a wonderful time enjoying the warm outdoor lifestyle of Australia. We also have the Pewsey Carnival (pictures best here) to look forward to. We will keep you posted about that.

Hope all is well in your worlds

Big hugs

Lizzie and Dave