Finding Enough

My memories of October are mostly of torrential downpours every time we needed to move our belongings from house to van and van to new house. The trips we did on our own in the campervan, we were able to wait for it to ease off a bit, but the two days we hired a larger van and had a couple of friends to help, there was very little let up. To add to the soggy furniture being moved in, we also discovered a bit of a damp issue at one end of the house☹️.

It happened at last! After 1 year, 9 weeks and 6 days of housesitting, campervanning and renting; on the 14th September, we got the keys to a home that we own. It is an eclectic mix of 18th century shepherd’s cottage and 1980’s additions, but it was the 2 acres of garden, woodland and scrubby wild areas surrounded by farmland and wilderness that was the real draw. Having looked at all sorts of different property options and building plots, we decided that being in a ‘nice spot’ with few neighbours and plenty of wildlife was our top priority, which meant we could be less fussy about the house itself. It turns out that our purchase also includes a rather wilful chicken.

Another tardy monthly update. I am running late this month because we decided to take advantage of the sunny start to September with a spontaneous trip to the Isle of Arran in the campervan. I did take the laptop, but was far too busy enjoying the amazing weather and scenery to actually turn it on. Anyway, more about Arran next month, back to August:

July marked one year since I last spent a day in the office, and one year since we moved out of our home in the East of England. We have certainly had an adventure since then, and have no regrets whatsoever about packing in a conventional 9-5 type lifestyle. When I sat down to write this, I thought not too much had happened in July, but looking through the photos on my phone, we have actually done quite a lot! It’s amazing what you have time for when you don’t have to spend 8+ hours a day working for someone else.

Phew, what a scorcher! June was very atypically hot and dry in S W Scotland, we even hit 30 degrees for a couple of days. I am not sure our friends and family really believed it was 10 degrees hotter here than down south at the start of the month, but we made the most of it while it lasted. We enjoyed a much calmer month, mostly in one place after a rather hectic May.

May was a VERY expensive month!! We do now have somewhere to call home, if only temporarily. We had already signed up to a couple of house sits before we knew that would happen, so 10 days of May were spent the other side of Scotland. This coupled with several trips down south in a short space of time, meant we only actually slept in our new home for 9 nights last month, and one of those was with no furniture!

March was a little unusual in that we spent most of it based in one place. We finished February at the house of friends in rural Northumberland, and spent most of March there too, while they were away. We made the most of the beautiful surroundings and took to taking evening walks just before sunset to watch the hares. One evening we counted 11! We also took advantage of the proximity to Hadrian’s Wall, which neither of us had ever visited. We walked a 4 mile section including Sycamore Gap, which you may recognise in the photos at the end, even if you have never visited, as it has been used as a filming location many times.

Our friends do not have pets except for a tortoise, who needed very little care apart from occasionally checking he remained buried in the heated area of his enclosure while it was cold out. This left us free to focus on hunting down and reacting quickly to rental properties becoming available.