It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. So said Charles Dickens at the beginning of his novel, A Tale of Two Cities. In my case I’m referring to last week. Most of the week was full of failed challenges and technological irritations. Then, at the very last moment, 3 o’clock on Friday, the week took a potentially big turn for the better.
Both the best and the worst refer, in my case, to two of the projects I mentioned in a recent retirement blog. The blog was about my projects coming off the rails. In one case despite my prolonged efforts to re-rail it, the project remains well and truly in the ditch.
The project in question was me taking over the running of my podcast, The Vineyard Years, in the absence of my poorly chum. I can honestly say I have put hours into this project this last week. And while I have made some progress, there’s a long way to go before I put out a podcast equal to the quality of those put out by my chum.
Proof, if such a thing be needed, is to be found in the latest of these podcasts – chapter 11, The Shed. The quality is poor and I was aware of this before I posted it but then as my chum reminded me I am currently paying out about £10 a month for no return at all. I’m talking about a satisfaction return not a financial one by the way. Also after much huffing and puffing I felt I needed to put out something, anything, no matter how bad, just to feel I had achieved some little thing. So I put it out. With any luck I will replace it before too long.
And then the week took a much-needed turn for the better. As I say I had to wait right until the very end of the week for this change in fortune. That there was a change is not conclusive but under the circumstances I need to hang on to something. That something, and this will sound a bit bold, but it makes for a sensational headline and that is – man becomes £100,000 richer after Zoom meeting.
If this turns out not to be true just bear in mind that I needed to write something positive this last week, true or not. The Zoom meeting in question was between me, my architect chum and a planning consultant of his acquaintance. That’s different in this world of different experiences.
So this meeting’s connection to the project retirement blog was about my architect chum offering to get a change of use, (from artist’s studio to residential) for our barn up in Nidderdale. I bumped into him again on Friday morning (on his electric scooter with dog in tow) and reminded him about him having suggested this as a potential venture. He contacted his chum, the planning consultant, and before he could say, I’ll get back to you, we had a Zoom meeting set up for that very afternoon.
At that stage the meeting was simply to discuss whether this guy thought we had a good chance (not 100% definite) chance of being successful in applying to Harrogate planners (notoriously anti development in the Yorkshire Dales) for a change in use. So the meeting could have either added to my misery or significantly reduced it.
So at three o’clock that afternoon there we all were. ‘There’ in a virtual sense that is. The meeting had a slow start with the planning consultant trawling through all the legislation he thought was relevant. Most of it went over my head or, more probably, directly through it. The only thing I wrote down was something called ‘prior approvement application’ and I’m not sure whether I got that right or what that means. In the end I asked him three questions 1) Do you think we have a chance of being successful? 2) Would you act on our behalf and do all the letter-writing / form-filling in? and 3) How much is it likely to cost, roughly)
I had a figure of £500 in mind. But that was getting ahead of myself. The answer to the first two questions were, yes, and yes. At this point I stopped listening to the technical advice he was offering and just thought oh, goody. True, it looks like the cost will be twice what I had budgeted for but, given that the property would, I think, at least double in value, that seemed like a fair return for my investment.
There is a slight issue in the sense that we will never sell the barn and its vineyard, so any profit is purely hypothetical in the sense that it will go to the children, not us, but still, it’s better than a slap on the belly with a wet fish as some people say.
So just to mix my metaphors or whatever they are, if this doesn’t prove to be successful I will end up with egg on face alongside the fish on belly, but I’m still putting it out there. You can laugh if it doesn’t come good and think serves you right for being so avaricious (nice word, nasty concept).
So there is of course a moral to this story and I think it’s something like, if you’re having a bad week don’t give up until 3 o’ clock on Friday before you write the whole week off, something good might just happen to you even that late in the week. And if it doesn’t well bollocks to this week, let’s just move on, it’s the weekend now. As a retired person this must still count for something.
PS.My chum wrote a comment on my last blog about grass not being greener that I should look for a project near to home not in Colorado. If this goes well, who knows that might just happen. Watch this retirement blog for any further developments.