<a href="http://pigyard.com/wordpress/archives/256/great-doddington-house" rel="attachment wp-att-257"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-257" title="Great-Doddington-House" src="http://pigyard.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Great-Doddington-House.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="150" /></a>More news on the Market Rasen plot. We've made an initial offer of £250k which has been rejected but we are close to agreeing a figure. The deal will be subject to the vendors liking what we intend to do and us getting planning permission for our designs.

If we thought getting to this stage was problematic then we're beginning to realise that this was the easy bit. We have to try to resolve some significant conundrums about who to contact first. Do we engage a solicitor before we know how we're going to divide the land up which will require input from an architect and of course whatever we do has to be agreed with the local planning department. Perhaps we need to undertake a critical path analysis with the key decision points. I think I might be in my element with that. Of course the future is challenging but that's partly the point of doing this in the first place.

There is a danger that as we head into our third age we dig ourselves deeper in a happy, familiar rut with few challenges and it's the challenges that keep you young and active.