Being realistic

We can afford a couple of acres and a house in the fens. This would suit me fine but there are others to consider and although many, many people commute into London from King's Lynn and Downham Market, I'm not asking my nearest and dearest to do likewise. The point is to reduce stress levels! But as you'd expect, suitable properties better placed for rail links are out of our price range. Waaaay out!

So until (a) I win the lottery, (b) First Capital Connect speed up their services and/or (c) my nearest and dearest finds a more portable job we will have to make do with the space we have. This has advantages as well as disadvantages:

We have a good mortgage deal - keeping our current mortgage makes better sense financially than moving before September 08. I like my neighbours. I have downsized my job a bit but I don't want to be rushed into finding a different one, I want time to find a better one. For a small gardening business, I have more chance of finding customers in town than in the countryside.

But there is still the space issue - we can't have pigs or goats because we have neighbours, we can't have Great Big Dogs while we both have to go to work most days and can't give them free access to the outdoors, we have limited growing space, we're not allowed to sell anything from the allotment, we have no room for a polytunnel or a greenhouse in the garden, we live in a conservation area so I can't cobble together a solar water heater and bolt it to the roof.

So what can we do with what we've got?

• As I mentioned, we can have chickens. Rescue battery hens will be arriving in September - 4 girls.
  
• The allotment has kept us going as far as potatoes and green veg are concerned and we've not made best use of all the space yet. We could build some raised beds in the unused spaces and have a better-planned planting scheme.
  
• We have a wonderful, enormous apple tree. I'd like more variety though! We could get two or three different varieties and plant as cordons along the hedge. 
  
• We have a bigger than usual garden for a town and there is quite a bit of it unproductive - the shed could come down, the jungle behind it could be cleared out, we could have space for a new, bigger shed (subject to planning permission, not guaranteed here!) and a small greenhouse.
  
• I can get going with gardening as a means of generating income without worrying about having to start all over again somewhere else.

But if we both decide that we really can't hack it in the world of employment any more, we probably have enough equity on this house to buy a chunk of the Western Isles and have no mortgage. It is tempting.