Residents Messages
Retirement
It is now coming up to the 5
year mark since we first moved to Finchale and how quickly the time has passed,
we were due to retire in 2013 but we had the chance to take early retirement at
57 and decided to enjoy life that much earlier.
So we started our retirement
on New Years Day 2010 and what a start it turned out to be with the heavy
snowfalls being the worst for 30 years so we did not have the problem of rising
at 5.30 and travelling to work in Newcastle. Although residents did manage to
get out of Finchale every day which was down to Eric and the lads doing such a
great job with the tractor in clearing the snow.
We decided to do daily shopping
on foot by walking to the nearby Arnison Centre and the other days just walking
around the Finchale area enjoying the snow covered scenery. People often ask
about the winter but you just have to view the DVD of Finchale photographs
taken by our resident photographer Barry Armitage to appreciate how lovely the
area looked.
So now we have a different
lifestyle, we no longer wear our watches as time does not matter, and surprise
surprise we have had no problem adjusting to our new way of life. Reading our previous
letters our lifestyle has not changed, only that we are now able to do our
activities everyday rather than just at weekends, we are looking forward to
sitting out on the decking and enjoying the summer nights and have barbecues
whenever we feel like rather than be constrained to the weekends.
One of the biggest changes is
that we see more of our neighbours as we left for work in the dark and returned
in the dark and only saw people if we were out at the weekends, now when we set
out on our walks it takes us longer to leave the village, but that is not a
problem because we now have all the time in the world.
So the dream of retiring and living the lifestyle we enjoy in a place where we
love has finally arrived and now can only get better.
Now living the dream has
become reality !!
Michael & Chris Storey
Living the Dream
We have now passed the
landmark of 3 years since we moved into the village and it is now well and
truly established with Phase 2 quickly being occupied.
You might think after 3 years
that we would be over the feel good factor that we expressed in our earlier
letters, but just last Easter with those few days off work we thoroughly
enjoyed our break even though the Easter
weather was the worst for over 40 years.
We spent the weekend totally
relaxing by not having to rise for work at 5.30 in the morning, we were still
getting up early around 7.30 and at this time of year the sunrises we view from
our living room with the dark outline of the woods against the red sky are
spectacular.
Each day we did a different
walk, we have even found a few more walks through the woods that end up in the
I have to mention the
excellent contribution from Bruce one of our residents who has taken the time
to create 3 paths through Finchale woods with some lovely seats by the river
made out of Extrudawood so it will never need any maintenance, these walks can
only be accessed by Finchale residents and I am sure the newcomers to our
second phase will find this very attractive, so we are all very privileged to
have this on our doorstep, there must be very few people who can claim to have
these surroundings unless you have a title!.
The village has now been
complimented by our new security gates and the rockeries which has now given
the village an established look and being the first residents we are always
amazed at how over these 3 years we have arrived at where we are now and our
expectations have been exceeded.
We were reflecting a few weeks
ago as we often do at how lucky we are to have this lifestyle and to have no
regrets which is very important and Chris said it was ’Living the dream’. This
turn of phrase totally encapsulates everything we do and feel about living at
Many of the residents have
expressed to us that they also love living at Finchale and that proves it is
not just us.
Michael & Chris Storey
April 2008
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CHRISTMAS & NEW YEAR 2006
A new
year note from Michael Storey...
It is coming up to two years since we moved to
Finchale Abbey and we have seen a lot of changes from the beginning of the
development to what the site looks like now, these changes makes the term
‘site’ irrelevant now as it was decided to rename it Finchale Abbey Village as
this is now what it has become and the word ‘village’ encompasses the new
environment.
At Christmas 2005 there was only the two residents,
ourselves and Norman & Gillian Woods and since then we have been joined by
9 other residents and more will be joining in the coming months.
2006 has been a year of the newcomers! throughout this
time we have had the experience of meeting all of our new neighbors who have
come from all parts of the region, afar a field as Yorkshire and Dave &
Heather Powel, have moved here from High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire, seeking a
new lifestyle and have settled in very well. They are amazed with the
friendliness of the people up North, the beautiful countryside, the coastline,
and the ancient historic city of Durham with it’s World Heritage site
Cathedral, sorry I tend carried away when I think of the image people from the
south have of us northern tribes!
Whilst everyone had their own personal Christmas, the
New Year celebrations offered a chance for everyone to get together and
celebrate new friendships, new lifestyles, and new beginnings.
Our original plans was to see in the New Year with our
friends Jack & John as we did not know how our new neighbors wanted to
celebrate the New Year and then on the New Years Eve afternoon we were invited
to the Hodgkiss’ then the Pierpoint’s and then to the Watson’s.
Remember the old days when people would leave their
doors open and have no reservations about visitors walking in, well the new
village environment took on part of that as we went door to door, so from just
having the four of us at midnight, everyone assembled in our lodge to welcome
in the new year, someone shouted who was going to be the first foot and within
seconds John was bundled outside with a bottle in his hand and given the duty
of first foot, a tradition that has been lost, although we had no coal to give
him !
Colin & Denise Watson had brought along some party
poppers, we opened bottles of champagne and our lodge now full of our neighbours waited for the chimes of Big Ben and on the stroke of
twelve John entered our lodge amid lots of noise and the clinking of glasses
and the party poppers exploding toasting a New Year, a new beginning and a new
lifestyle to our residents in the ‘village.’ We continued our celebrations back
at the Geoff & Eileen Hodgkiss’
lodge and
we left them at
3.30am after enjoying a thoroughly good evening.
Cheers Michael
January 2007
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We have
completed our first year at Finchale Abbey, when you decide to make a change in
your lifestyle it is in the back of your mind whether you may have regrets or
doubts that you have made the wrong decision.
Well we
celebrated our first year in March and we are pleased to say that we have no
regrets or doubts either in moving to Finchale, the lodge and the site we
selected.
Over the
year we have experienced all the seasons and each one has it’s own beauty, we
moved in the spring and enjoyed getting our wooded area and our rocks looking
shipshape by planting wild flowers and buying our decking furniture, after all
the upheaval of the development the wildlife slowly returned and we now have
our resident pheasant, squirrels and many different birds.
By the
time the summer arrived we were truly settled and enjoyed sitting on our
decking on the warm nights relaxing in the peace and quiet of our surroundings,
we would occasionally walk down to the river and enjoy watching all the day
visitors picnicking and then at the end of the day when they returned home we
had the riverside all to ourselves.
The
autumn brought it own natural beauty with all its wonderful colours and before
long it was winter! Finchale has it‘s own magic and when it snowed it was on
with the wellies and walking through the snow covered woods. We find now that
no matter what the weather brings there is no obstacle to going out and
enjoying our surroundings.
Cheers Michael
March 2006
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A note from Michael Storey...
It is now nearly 6 months since we
moved in to our new lodge, and have settled in very quickly, we have enjoyed
exploring the area around Finchale and
Before we moved in we said we wanted a change of lifestyle! And that is
certainly what we have although, we are still working, when we come home, we
sit on our decking and enjoy the peace and quiet drinking our wine!
A short while ago we went down to Yorkshire for the day and visited places we
loved, one being
Over the months we have spoken to
people thinking of moving on to the park and have shared our experiences of
living here with them and are often asked if there are any negative points and
we always reply honestly and say they are none except having to leave it to go
to work!
We have met some lovely people
here and made new friends, our security guard Jack and Eric co-owner often pop
up to have a quick chat when they are on their rounds or just saying hello to
people as we walk around site, In our old home we got to know only a few of our
neighbors.
The site around us has changed so
much since we moved in, the grass has been sown, and is now green all around
us, we have lovely trees, ferns and shrubs beside our lodge and often watch the
squirrels, and after visiting a restaurant in Durham, on a lovely summer night,
while walking back to Finchale we saw our first deer grazing in the field above
our lodge. Sheer Heaven!
Cheers Michael
Eric and Jack join Michael and Chris for a spot of wine.
Cheers!
Michael would be happy to hear any of your comments or
help with any questions you may have about life at Finchale. Please E-mail: michael.storey10@btinternet.com
he looks forward to hearing from you.
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Mr and Mrs Storey came to visit the site in December 2004 to see the progress
on the plot where their home would stand. Michael gave us the following letter
about his experiences of Finchale so far.
We visited Finchale Abbey for the
first time in January 2004, as we drove through the gates the scene with the
Abbey, River and with the hens and pheasants walking about, it was so peaceful
and we loved it straight away. Ann walked us through the site and explained her
plans to us, it did look like a bombsite but this did not deter us, as like any
undeveloped building site you have to have the vision in your head.
Over the next few days we thought it over and decided this was what we wanted so throughout the year we visited Park Home exhibitions and looked at all the different homes available but as we always returned to our first choice. Then we were asked to visit Reiver Lodges in Carlisle to view their Show Lodge, we were shown around the factory by George the owner and found the lodge really impressive and although we linked our original choice there was no comparison, the quality, style and layout was far superior. We had several discussions with Mark and Vanessa the design team who helped us with the floor plan and décor and they gave us excellent advice.
We then concentrated on picking
our site and taking advice from Ann before making our decision, we have seen
the site being transformed from the plans into reality and Metcalfe's the
developers have worked really hard and have done an excellent job in such a
short time.
Our last task is to plan out our
decking, and once again received an excellent service and good advice from Bill
of Extrudawood, so here we are ready to move on to the site in the New Year and
being the first residents we were given the privilege of naming our site 'St
Godric’s Walk' which links in with the history of the site.
We were always confident that
Ann's ambition for the site would materialise and look forward to seeing the
changes ahead in phases one and two.
Mr Michael
Storey
Saturday 18th December 2004
For
more information on the Park, our new development and availability of
residential plots
please call Ann on 0191 3866528 or E-mail: godricawatson@hotmail.com