A serious title for actually excellent news. Our eldest daughter, her daughter and fiance are moving to Norfolk, more specifically they are moving into "new" quarters at the other end of the house.
I explained before that the ground floor of our house is now fully occupied -- if you consider a ballroom occupied. The first floor has bedrooms, for us, our children and some guests. Via a different set of stairs, and somewhat in an older part of the building there are more guest accommodations and a substantial amount of still unrefurbished space, especially at the end of the building where there is actually an additional floor.
With the strong support of my wife, my daughter and her boyfriend hired our old architect to remodel that part of the house into a nearly self-contained home. Call it a granny apartment with several bedrooms, living rooms, a kitchen and a dining room in addition to a lot of extra space.
After their wedding next August (again at the house) they are planning to move their practice nearby. In fact, they are buying the practice of a retiring doctor who has been looking to sell for some years. The house is more than large enough, and my wife is tickled pink to have her first grandchild living under our roof.
The space was last renovated in the late 19th century. There is no heating, electricity or running water, basically a blank shell in which they can build their dream. There are no issues with how they finish the interiors since there's really nothing there, everything was destroyed by water ingress over the past half-century.
Since our daughter confirmed that she had signed off on the plans the architect had already drawn (at my instigation some years ago now), our usual contractor (he who is building the warehouses), will start the building process as soon as permits are issued (later this week), water, electricity, sewage first, then all the building of partitions and facilities. What my daughter will find out about now (if she still reads my blog posts) is that my wife and I will be paying for the entire renovation. Two reasons it simplifies the issue of ownership (don't worry the house and grounds are in a family trust) and two it is a nice wedding gift, considering that they will be buying their practice (suprise honey).
The reality is that the apartment will have a kitchen, but we have a cook. I am confident that my wife has already created a plan to ensure that her granddaughter spends most of her afternoons with us in the main house. In other good news, our son (and brand new wife) called and told us they wanted to spend the weekend at the farm (the new flat is not ready yet and they have already started boxing their current apartment). I told him that he was more than welcome, as we would only arrive back home on Wednesday morning.
My wife said to me she was very happy with this new development that our children want to spend time at the farm, and I concur!
Tonight for dinner it will be Indian take-out. I've not had Indian for some months now, since our last London visit, and the favourites will be on the menu: Korma, Vindaloo, Saag, Alu and Dal...and lots of naan bread.
The skiing was brilliant, although it was overcast but very warm. It's supposed to change overnight. We started early this morning to get nice peak snow and finished early (around 2) so that we could have a nice light meal.
Note: Part of our windfall investment gains were used to seed the property needs of our children. The eldest two saw their mortgages paid off, and our eldest son was able to buy their new flat debt-free. The two youngest still have trust for the very reason for when they choose to purchase real estate. A large percentage of the windfall gains from the bitcoin investment ended up in the family trust, for when we need it (as an example we bought the new farm with cash from the Trust).
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