"You would not get this back in Brighton" and "You will never guess what I'm doing! Were repeated so often in the first few years they became our family's catch phrase. Why we seemed so surprised about every day events now escapes me but I do remember at the time thinking to myself "This is why we moved here"...

Here is the lovely village of Croxton Kerrial. On the edge of the vale of Belvoir and found on the map where Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire meet. We were not unfamiliar with the area, as my parents live not to far away in the village of Whissendine.

"But how can you leave Brighton!" was another of those early, often repeated phrases. The reason was wholly due to Dean. Living in the country was on his, "things I must do with my life" list.

We had an allotment, watched every episode of The Good Life...even kept chickens in the back garden (I've not heard a chicken since the war...an old Hove pensioner told us).  But I'm not unfamiliar with Dean's list and knew that his allotment was never going to be enough. So when he said 'Let's move to the country, if we don't do it now, we never will".... I was not too surprised.

So my parents rose to the challenge of finding a house with a very small brief...a character house 3 bedrooms and a large garden. A very large garden.  

A few properties were looked at and then we found Ivy Cottage. Intrigued by Dads comments of "the house is awful, I couldn't live there...but it's perfect for them" we came up straight away. He was right and by the beginning of September we were in and ready to live our own version of the good life for real...."