sounds like a plan- just make sure to watch that tv show about dogs behaving badly, think its sunday night on channel 4, they had a spaniel from hell on there the other day, and it ended up being very well behaved.  We have wisteria front and back of our house, it needs ,maintenance, so make sure you find out how to prune it to get the best out of it (Im lucky, husband is a professional gardener and horticulturalsit) they can take a very long time to come into flower, so sometimes worth buying one which has already started flowering.  We lost one because its grafting point failed, but the other one runs rampant, and smells gorgeous when in bloom.  If you cant get one of those, theres another beautiful climber which is evergreen, and flowers mid summer, it looks like white jasmine, and smells heavenly = trachelospermum jasminoides. Like you I enjoy having something else to look forward to, for me it will be waiting for the crocuses to come out. already got my snowdrops!