Finding Enough

Thankfully there is no new Prime Minister to talk about this month, but plenty of cost of living doom and gloom. The outlook for our planned property purchase is sadly not much more cheerful than the current UK economic outlook. Having started November hopeful that we might be in before Christmas, with our seller agreeing to move into rented accommodation and rent back the grazing, things changed quite quickly. We haven’t quite drawn a line under the idea of this particular smallholding, but the seller can not find anything suitable to rent (near enough to her livestock). After her planned onward purchase fell through, she found something else she was keen on, but last week she was outbid at the closing date. This leaves us almost back at square one, but with much less currently on the market 😦

Another month and another UK Prime Minister! The idea would have been ridiculous not long ago, but now anything seems plausible. It’s at times like this I’m quite glad I am not working with colleagues around the world anymore. It was embarrassing enough having blustering Boris representing the UK, but the antics of the last month have been absurd. Let’s hope the grown ups have now taken charge and those in government remember who they are actually working for.

While the media have been having a field day and financial markets have been in chaos, we endured yet more obstacles to buying our smallholding.

The UK saw a lot of change in September with a new Prime Minister followed quickly by a new Monarch and then an interesting ‘mini-budget’ that was really anything but mini. While the world was changing around us, we remained in limbo regarding the property we want to purchase in Scotland, so carried on with our mid-life house-sitting vanlife adventure.

Having sold and moved out of our house, August was a truly nomadic month for us. We stayed in 6 different locations, helped friends and family lay the tiled floor in a new garden room and put a the mist coat on new plaster in a new home office. We also house sat for 2 different dogs (and 2 chickens) for complete strangers! The beautiful weather continued which made a few nights in the camper van between stops, a breeze.

July was a milestone month for us. We moved out of our home of 11 years, I left a company I had worked for in different roles for 15 years, and we set off in a campervan having packed 99% of our possessions into a storage container. “Darling, there are a couple of vagrants at the door” was how we were cheerfully welcomed by friends shortly after.

I am rather late with the monthly update this month, as it coincided with part one of our big move: selling up and moving out. After a hectic couple of weeks packing up and moving our remaining belongings into a storage container, we took a week off to recover. After a relaxing week on a lovely campsite in the Norfolk Broads in our campervan (I can highly recommend Clippesby Hall if you fancy a trip out that way), we are feeling recovered and ready to enjoy a nomadic summer.

Every month I look back through the photos on my phone and pick one to add to the post that reflects either the season or somewhere we’ve been / something we’ve done in the past month. This month, I couldn’t resist introducing you to a new friend I met out on a walk. I hope it made you smile 🙂

I am pretty much back to the normal schedule this month, as we put travels on hold for a while to focus on preparing for our house move. The last couple of weeks have mostly been about decluttering and selling anything we are not attached to. We’ve been wandering round the house asking ourselves two questions of each item:

I am writing this somewhat later than normal this month, quite simply because I have been spending far too much time travelling and enjoying myself! As we always gravitate towards rural locations with more animals than humans, connectivity can be an issue. In fact, for us disconnecting is part of the point. We even spent a week in a favourite corner of the Isle of Skye, where we had no WiFi, no TV signal and not even a phone signal without hiking up a large hill.