Where To Start?

This blog will be about the every day things that give so much pleasure and entertainment from living off the beaten track and about the journey getting here. There have been hurdles and a few fraught times and sometimes acts of faith, bucking against convention and upbringing but it has been worth it. As this blog develops I hope to inspire and impart some modest knowledge to those aspiring to do the same in the hows and routes to achieving a step change in your life style.

There are often practical issues that have to be circumvented, such as income, travel, family ties but these things can be managed out and if these notes give some guidance, solace or light hearted entertainment that help you progress, I will feel I have put something back into the ‘cosmos’ as an expression of my gratitude to all that have helped me on my journey.

This of course is just an introduction and a first for me in blogging so I am not going to do a lot straight away, I will be feeling my way forward and would appreciate contact and responses from those of you that find this of interest. If you have not yet been convinced of the power of allowing yourself to make mistakes you should try it, it is not only liberating it is one of the keys to progress and I am sure I will make mistakes in learning how to blog.

You might think ‘what’s to get wrong?’ but as you’ll discover, one aspect of freeing yourself from what is the general way of living is, you may need alternative ways of generating an income, ones done on your own terms. So I have started re-educating myself and using the internet as one of my income streams. This fits well with being able to spend time in the environment of your own choice but it can be quiet a learning curve and does demand the practice of all the tools and communication routes that support an internet based business. So in that situation, blogging is not only a pleasant way of interacting with others with which you have things in common but it is prudent to draw on its ability to contribute to the growth and sustainability of your chosen life style.

See, that’s a first lesson. When you want to live outside the run of the mill norm, you start to practice a more holistic approach where the boundaries between your ‘job’ and everyday activities become more blurred.

Anyway, as I said this is just an intro, so I will sign off for now, but not without a snippet of the set up at home and why I call this a Diary from a Country Retreat.

I live on a plot of land called Ravensclough in Vale Royal, Cheshire, UK. Mine isn’t the only house, there are four, two semis as is common in the UK. What is less common is, these four were built by a railway worker at the beginning of the 20th Century. How he raised the money for the project I don’t know, but in 1901 Thomas Williams a signal man, bought the plot know as Ravensclough from Captain William Higson of Oakmere Hall for the princely sum of £50 plus 5/s (shillings) stamp duty.

The houses were built in the traditional style of their time with a front room, often little used expect for special occasions, the ‘middle room ‘ where most of the everyday living went on and the ‘back kitchen which housed a large range fireplace for cooking and heating the water. There are three rooms upstairs, I think originally all bedrooms with toilet outside but all houses gave the smallest room over to be a bathroom. All the houses have now been modernised and substantially extended with the exception of the property which now bares the name Ravensclough. (Documentation didn’t bare specific names or numbers for the properties until after 1930.) Ravensclough is much the same layout as it was when built.

We are situated at the end of a lane (a private no-through road) in a wooded area and at the start of The Whitegate Way which is a 6 mile country way utilising what was the railway link between Cuddington and Wynsford. The recently opened Delamere Loop bridle path also skirts the lane and riders can been frequently seen enjoying a hack.

We, Karen and myself, had identified three lanes in the area that we liked the looks of and were in walking distance of the railway station. Karen commuted to Manchester at the time and wanted to be able to use the train. It took three years before a house that we could afford came up and when it did we decided to beg or borrow the money to get it without having to sell our house first. That was probably one of our first deviations from what people normally do. It wasn’t the last.



Stephan P