We had a bit of a disappointment recently.  We found a derelict barn with planning permission.  It had only a small bit of land with it but in an area where there are fields that can be rented.  The barn is a few miles away but not too far from where we live now so we'd still be able to see all the family.  It all sounded great but there was the dreaded question of money.  We'd worked out that we could almost buy it and still live in this house while we built the new one.  Except that the banks would not lend us anything like enough to build the new one.

The auction was last week and we didn't go because we just could not raise enough finance and it would have been torture to watch somebody else buy it.  It is the best chance we've seen in this area so far and ticked so many of the boxes.  Still, we are obviously not meant to move to that property because things just did not work out.  I'm trying hard to be positive because at least this has shown that there are still some possibilities around.  I had not found anything even remotely suitable for so long.  Anyway, I am still a smallholderwannabe for a while longer.