Where to start?

Ours is the house at the top left of the picture

Its always a dilemma when you move to a new house as to where you actually start. It had been owned previously by a couple who were clearly not keen on either decorating, home maintenance or gardening. So what should we attack first? We decided in the end to leave the house as it was, we would live in it for a year to get a feel of the place before we made any big changes, apart from decorating which I would do whist my other half, Peter was back in Oxfordshire working his three month notice.

The garden is approximately 1 acre but as we live on the side of a hill it is split over 6 terraces. The bottom small terrace has grass to about my waist, and has a small narrow terrace above it which has a lovely breeze block wall running the full length of it splitting it from the next two which are laid to lawn, well I say lawn I actually mean moss with the odd bit of grass. The fifth one is where the house is cut in to the hill and also contains a sloping bank with a small pond which the previous owner has left us a note to feed Freddie the goldfish. (How they know there is a fish in there I don't know as the water is a very dark green colour). This bank also runs round the back of the house and joins up with the top Terrace which is all overgrown and borders the Oak wood behind the house. All this is surrounded by a mixed hedge to the left (where my neighbour lives) and a laurel hedge at the bottom and round to the right, these are both about thirty foot high and make the garden quite dark.