Timber-framed, with a facade of soft red brick, a roof of russet clay tiles and, inside, undulating rosy pink plaster walls, our out-of-town property was quite a fox.
She is still an undeniable catch but, like all old buildings, our girl is needy — demanding yearly, practical attention. And her controlling disposition is not aided by the fact that, like most second-homers, we are only available to dance attendance on her for two or three days a week, plus holidays. As time has passed, a litany of niggling tasks has built up, putting a strain on our ménage-à-trois.
We are not alone in facing such problems. According to this year’s report from the Affordable Rural Housing Commission, there are an estimated 93,000 weekend homes in Britain’s countryside. The Commission for Rural Communities’ research shows that, in England’s 73 most rural local districts, an average of 2.6% of all housing stock comprises second homes, mostly on the coasts, in national parks, the Welsh borders and the Cotswolds.
Politically, weekenders are far from flavour of the month, accused of inflating the property market and mopping up low-cost housing that could go to locals. Personally, though, we have never been made to feel anything but welcome, perhaps because our neck of the woods is the refuge of so many other menaced British minorities, from 4x4 drivers to fox hunters, and people who make a living catching eels.
We second-homers are also often disproportionately passionate about our properties, creating a mini boom in business for rural developers and architects, salvage yards and gardeners, pouring time and cash into conserving relatively unimportant but fascinating historic buildings for the nation.
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Well, that’s the theory. Now I have to pull my socks up and get on with the practice. Because, for weekenders in possession of these period gems, there is a litany of chores — cleaning of gutters and gulleys, repointing, repainting — that should be done before the onset of winter, the season when your home is most vulnerable to damage from the elements.
The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings holds a maintenance week every November to assist delinquent owners like me. So, before the relationship with my ideal home deteriorates, before minor grudges become irreconcilable differences, I have resolved to rekindle the romance.
I’m starting with a to-do list. A recce of the exterior reveals one side of the house is besieged by ivy. Its tenacious green tentacles have crept across the sitting room window and engulfed the chimney stack. This will mean lost roof tiles, mutilated brickwork and blocked flues unless I act ruthlessly: sever the plant near the root, wait for it to die and gently ease it away from the wall. I fetch the secateurs and prepare to chop, but the trunk is the circumference of my arm.
In the meantime, I notice that the cushions of silver-green moss on the north-facing section of the roof have joined up to form a rolling landscape reminiscent of the Sussex downs, a state of affairs that’s easy on the eye but potentially hard on the pocket. Moss retains moisture, making clay tiles porous. The tiles take in water, which freezes and expands, and can eventually shatter them. The good news is that moss is easily dislodged with a stiff brush. The bad news is, I will have to borrow a ladder to reach it.
Clearing dirt and leaves from the gutter reveals another chore. The section of gutter outside the kitchen window, which cracked open during a summer downpour, has been secured with green garden twine ever since. Cast-iron guttering tied up with string is not one of my favourite things.
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Besides, damaged, leaky gutters can divert water onto the wall and create a damp problem. Item three on the list: get a man in to repair the joint.
The paint on the exterior woodwork has developed a hound’s-tooth pattern of cracks and flakes and needs to be refreshed.
Best coating of all, for weather protection, flexibility and breathability, would be a traditional lead-based paint but, as our house is Grade II-listed, rather than Grade I- or II*-, I am banned from using this hazardous substance (which could poison me, should I repeatedly lick my windowsills).
Linseed oil-based paint is the nearest legal substitute; it has lead paint’s protective properties and can last up to 14 years (rather than the three to five-year lifespan of conventional paint). The only drawback is that rags soaked in linseed-based paint can spontaneously combust. Will book the decorator.
Last job outside is to check the brickwork for crumbly mortar. A handful of joints are showing wear, and the risk is that moisture will seep into the damage, and cause cracking when it freezes. Unfortunately, however, I have just missed the March-October season for working with lime mortar — the traditional material best suited to old buildings. Lime cannot be used during frosty weather, so my minor repointing will have to wait until spring.
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Indoors, I use flour and water to paste tissue paper to the beams to check for a return of the deathwatch beetle infestation that, in the past, peppered the timbers as if with a shotgun. If holes appear in the paper, the bugs are back.
While I wait for evidence to emerge, I catalogue other, smaller, jobs: the defunct hot tap on the bathroom sink to repair; the old wasp nest under the eaves to remove; the dead mouse to extract from the pantry. The mouse lived behind the wine rack all summer. The nibbling and droppings abruptly ceased this month and we are waiting for a rotting rodent smell from behind the Cloudy Bay.
Finally, I check the inglenook and flues for nests, dead birds and hibernating bats and, seeing nothing untoward, light the fires experimentally, adding sweeping the chimneys to my mental to-do list.
So there is a mountain of home maintenance to climb, but by summer next year we hope to be enjoying a second honeymoon with our adored country cottage. At the very top of my programme of works is the acquisition of fabric for new curtains.
As I was working in the garden, in the summer, I heard the house’s previous owner observe to a friend that I was still using her old curtains. Well, I accept it is probably time to replace the drapes. But her washing machine still works a treat.
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For a wealth of good advice for second homeowners, try www.associationofsecondhomeowners.co.uk.
For a sensible maintenance guide, visit www.maintainyourbuilding.org.uk, or contact The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, 020 7377 1644, www.spab.org.uk
Protect your assets
How do you look after your second home when you aren’t there? The simplest answer is to advertise in the local newspaper or village store for a retired resident to help out.
How heavily you rely on them is up to you. It could be a full-time, live-in role (tricky when you arrive with your extended family for Christmas), or you could ask them just to walk around the house once a week to air the rooms in summer and check the pipes haven’t burst in the winter.
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Alternatively, local families often have part-time home helps or au pairs on the lookout for extra cleaning or gardening work elsewhere (the going rate for cleaning/gardening is about £8 an hour).
Having someone pay a weekly visit to your property not only has maintenance and security benefits: your insurer may also insist on a keyholder looking in once every seven days.
If you are absent for an extended period, have pets or livestock that need looking after, or a kitchen garden that needs watering, a housesitter might be the answer.
Nothing fazes Universal Aunts (020 7738 8937, www.universalaunts.co.uk), which has been going since 1921 and whose staff will deal with anything from helping with the shopping for a granny in the annexe to looking after a stable of horses.
Other services, such as Absentia (01279 777 412, www.home-and-pets.co.uk), Home Sitters (01296 630 730, www.homesitters.co.uk) and The Home Service (08451 303 100, www.housesitters.co.uk) are staffed by similarly resourceful, mature sorts. Prices for housesitters start at about £30 a day.
High-tech surveillance systems allow you to keep an eye on your home yourself. Prestige CCTV (020 7225 7887, www.prestigecctv.com) can design and install a system that uses tiny wireless cameras to capture images of your house. These are fed to an internet site that can be accessed from a laptop computer anywhere in the world. The picture quality is not brilliant, but should the worst happen and someone break in, it can produce images crisp enough to submit as evidence in court.
Alarm systems can also be installed that will alert the emergency services remotely and even call your mobile phone to let you know there is a problem, so you can then check what is happening on your laptop.
Such bespoke systems aren’t cheap, starting at about £2,500. For the most sophisticated packages, you won’t get much change out of £20,000.