Well more like the beginning! April 2021
So I have explained a little about how the idea for the Engine Shed came about but time to dig a little deeper.
Working hard has always been my mantra, I have always been ambitious and inherited my mother’s work ethic. I aspired to be a Director by the time I was 30 and I managed to achieve that ahead of schedule! My working life has always been more successful than my personal life…I was convinced I just had better luck with work than the rest of it.
Ii have come to strongly believe that you must have purpose in what you do, find enjoyment in it and do it for the good of others to be successful; when I loosened my grip on life, the path appeared in front of me!
This is one of the rides close to The Engine Shed...
I just knew that the profound impact living here had on me could be felt by others and I wanted to share this.
Living in the National Park is fantastic however, can pose challenges when it comes to development. I had lots of people telling me there was no way I would get approval to open up a holiday accommodation business here and the odds were against me as I knew my proposal contravened typical regulations but I just ‘had a feeling’. The feeling was enough to keep me positive and working hard to create a business model that was successful.
Once I had approval it was full steam ahead and the hard work really began!
The hard work was made easy by me exercising my trust in my gut; things fell into place fairly easily from there.
I was lucky enough to have Leon by my side at this time in my life; he has made the jump to move ‘Up North’ to spend more time with us and really accelerated our plans for the Shed. He is always a constant provider of reassurance and believes in me 100%. This was invaluable to me and from then onward I never felt too overwhelmed.
Leon convinced me that we could complete the ground work ourselves, which we can be proud of now, but at the time it was pretty back breaking! We rewarded ourselves with a lot of open fire meals in the dark nights which brought home our purpose; this is what we want people to see! Albeit in luxury accommodation but you see what we mean!
I found the next part of the build progress way more of a challenge; the weather was not on our side and trades were far slower than anticipated. Managing my stress levels at this point was pretty hard and ultimately I had to reside to delaying the planned completion of the project. I instantly questioned myself and the whole project and was forced into a few weeks off the build stage which turned out to be a blessing o(of course!) I filled my time with my surroundings, taking a look at mountain bike routes, timing horse riding routes, finding uplift drop offs, testing out new local restaurants, developing The Engine Fuel, networking and most importantly doing this with friends and family who are the dearest thing to me! I was never more sure about anything and that led me to become more excited about The Engine Shed and what it could offer people!
