Our Home In Beetley

~ beetleypete

***All photos can be enlarged, by clicking on them***

After posting many photos of the places where I lived in London, it struck me that I should also show where I live now. There is only one residence to feature of course, so I have used more photos of the house. It is an unprepossessing brick-built detached bungalow, built in 1979. It was later extended at the back, in 1987.

Front of bungalow from across the road

As you can see, it has a separate garage, and enough space to park three cars inside the gates. The side view shows the front door alcove, and the climbing Hydrangea. The huge Oak tree visible behind the garage is in our back garden. It is estimated to be almost 280 years old.

Front door and side gate

The back view shows the kitchen extension, and the garden shed built onto the garage.

Back of the bungalow

The garden is a manageable size, and enough for us.

Back garden in Beetley

It is not a ‘pretty’ house. Neither is it a country cottage, or a typical village property found in similar villages all over the UK. It is part of a small estate, mostly built in the 1980s. But at each end of the road there are few houses to be seen, and you are immediately in the countryside.

104 thoughts on “Our Home In Beetley”

  1. Sadly, it reminds me of the Monty Python sketch of the interminable slide show containing the line “and this is the front of the house but you can see the side of the house”. Seriously, it looks comfortable, manageable and lovely.

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    1. It’s a very boring house to look at, David. I will happily state that. But the living room is very large, there is a decent kitchen/diner, the garden just about manageable, (for me) and the off-street parking is the best in the immediate vicinity. All in all, it ‘made sense’. Head, over heart.
      (And t was only £147,000 in 2011, the price of a single garage space where I lived in Camden at the time.)
      Best wishes, Pete.

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    1. Thanks, Abbi. It is certainly solid, and quite dull from the street. But it has useful space inside, which is the main thing, as well as good off-road parking too.
      Best wishes, Pete.

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      2. Let me not forget: Here in “Bavarian Siberia” some people really think they have to build houses in Toscana Style. Over nine months coldness, two months rain, and one month a little bit sunshine. Thats really not Toscana feeling.. ***lol*** Ours is made by old stone, and living herein feels like in an old monastery. 😉 Best wishes, Michael

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    1. Thanks, Pit. Yes, it was early evening, in the summer. I had been gardening all day, and took the photos whilst everything looked smart!
      They are about three years old now, I think. 🙂
      Best wishes, Pete.

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    1. This house was/is very cheap to buy, compared to most of southern England. It cost less than £150,000 in 2011. At that time, we could not have bought a one-car garage in London for less than £165,000. Recently, someone paid £250,000 for a car-parking SPACE in central London, and our house is still only worth £200,000. Beetley is considered to be remote, so house prices are suitably low. So, not loaded at all, we just used everything we had to buy it for cash. 🙂
      Best wishes, Pete.

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    1. Thanks, GP. Solid indeed, brick built. The paths are not so tidy at the moment, due to the very hot summer we had. The photos are around three years old, when I had just finished tidying all the hedges and garden. 🙂
      Best wishes, Pete.,

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      1. You are welcome, Pete. Funny how we get a picture in our head; here in New England, brick is only in the cities and the suburbs. I never thought of Beetley with brick houses. See how trained we all are in our thinking?

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          1. Very interesting, Pete. I grew up in a city of brick homes, and so did my husband. Moving to New England was a lesson in the upkeep of clapboard houses (is that the same as timber-plank?) , and a great appreciation for brick. 🙂

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  11. It looks perfect and easier to handle than some of the old properties (that I’ve always loved the look of, but not having any maintenance or D-I-Y skills I’d never manage to keep up with). And I’ve always loved oaks. Wonderful!

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    1. Thanks, Alex. The garden is much the same, though we have replaced that wooden double-seat with a weatherproof option. (The wood rotted away, as I couldn’t take it in during the winter)
      Best wishes, Pete.

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    1. No I haven’t. It was a random choice of location, based on the price of the house against the size of the plot. I didn’t want to live here at first, as I had a hankering for the Lincolnshire coast at the time. But I was swayed by ‘no street lights’, believe it or not. (And it was closer to Julie’s girls, in 2011)
      I regret not living on better transport routes, and always having to drive a few miles to get so much as a pint of milk. But when it is totally dark, and I listen to the Owls in the trees, I don’t mind so much. 🙂
      Best wishes, Pete.

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    1. I think these were taken around 2015, Eddy. The place actually looks much the same, except for the conifer hedges, which need cutting. (Next year!) I chose my ‘best’ photos of course, taken after two days of hard work in the garden at the time. 🙂
      Best wishes, Pete.

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    1. Thanks, Doug. The photos are not current, and the leaves are everywhere at the moment. The big hedges at the back need cutting too. Obviously, I chose my ‘nicest’ photos. 🙂
      Best wishes, Pete.

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  19. I think it’s a very nice house, Pete. I like brick. When I was in high school, back in the Midwest, we had some brick on the front of our house. Out here in Las Vegas, homes are mostly stucco painted in light desert tones, and few people have a back yard worth writing home about. (Huh?) …Anyway, unless you have tons of money, you’ll end up with an exceedingly boring cookie cutter home.

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    1. Thanks, David. Brick is the norm here of course, so seems ‘usual’ to us.
      I am glad the house hasn’t been painted, (some have) as I would have to keep doing that, or have to pay someone else to. 🙂
      Best wishes, Pete.

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    1. It is not that large compared to some here, Arlene. The house to the left in the photo has one twice as long, and almost twice as wide. 🙂
      I doubt I would show interior photos, unless I had something specific to feature.
      Best wishes, Pete.

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      1. … grrrr .. I just wanted to correct my misspelling and off it went …
        an impression of where and how the three of you live in Beetley. It makes a difference, it’s almost like an invitation to your home and well done to you for doing so, Pete. It looks very well-kept and the tidy drive puts a smile on our faces; thanks to your recommendation, we also have this awesome weed-puller.
        Good night and best wishes from Cley,
        The Fab Four xxxx

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        1. The photos are three years old, Dina, and the drive is not so tidy at the moment! it is covered in leaves, and has many weeds untended during that hot summer. But it’s pretty much unchanged, just not quite as smart as that day. 🙂
          Best wishes, Pete.

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  26. I was hoping you would do this post. I was curious after the London shots. It’s nothing like imagined, and yet, it seems like a perfect spot for you and Julia. What shocked me was how tidy it was! I thought your outside hedges and gutters and grass would need tidying as I thought you would wait until after Christmas to get the chores done. 😉

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    1. These photos are three years old, Cindy, and taken in early summer when I had just done the gardening. I think most people expect an ‘English Village’ house, or maybe a character cottage. There are some of those round here, but they needs lots of upkeep! 🙂
      Best wishes, Pete. x

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        1. There is no ‘Downtown Beetley’, Cindy. No shop (s), or central point of any kind. For that, we have to drive almost four miles to Dereham. Beetley is purely a small residential district, with two churches, a village hall, and one school. ‘Downtown’ Beetley made me laugh! 🙂 🙂
          Try this post again. You have seen it before, but it will remind you. What you see is all of it, plus the houses of course..
          https://beetleypete.wordpress.com/2016/01/30/a-bright-afternoon-in-beetley/
          Best wishes, Pete. x

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    1. It wasn’t that tidy inside, BF. But it was a couple of years ago, when I tended to do more gardening! 🙂
      It hasn’t changed that much, but had I taken the photo today, you would just have seen leaves everywhere…
      Best wishes, Pete.

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  29. Pete tell me if I’m out order and that’s fine, but is displaying your car number plate a good idea! I had someone contact a member of my family all because without thinking I wrote just one fact about myself I thought at the time inconsequential, just one fact within 200 posts, incredible! Then quite incredibly this person tracked the family member down (I shan’t say how but it was a street address). I’m still in shock to this day, luckily this happened May and we’ve heard no more but it seems some people enjoy internet detective work! Perhaps they get a kick out of piecing bits of information completing into a picture similar to doing a jigsaw. Who know. A blog friend Andrew 🙂 .

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    1. A valid point Andrew. And I had a similar thought until I realised that it would be pretty easy to track Pete down since we all know he lives in Beetley, wears shorts most of the year and has a unique dog – can’t be many of those around!

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            1. I was being tongue-in-cheek there, referring to your ahem, ‘perfect murder’ story. But you must be relieved that those particular real neighbours have moved. Hope you get a nice quiet retired couple.

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    2. Thanks for the thought, Andrew. To be honest, most people in Beetley know where I live, and are familiar with my car too. if someone from my past wants to do me harm, then I am easy enough to find online, on Twitter, Amazon reviews, Google+, Linkedin, WordPress, and many Google searches too. I am the only person with that name in Beetley, and there are less than 1300 residents to choose from. Plus, I have a dog that is unique to the area, and everyone sees me walking it, all over the place.
      If a random stranger decides to target me, then there’s not much I can do about that. I have no money to speak of, nothing to steal, and as a rule I don’t tell people I am away anywhere, until I come back.
      I think I am already ‘out there’, so I will just have to take my chances. 🙂
      I sort-of refuse to be scared about such things, though I know they exist.
      Best wishes, Pete.

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