So 2017 is now over and we are in the south of Spain basking in the sunshine on the first day of the new year. Last night we drank the remainder of our drinks cabinet from home – an inch or so of gin and vodka, a smidge of white port and a couple of beers and ciders. Not enough to give us a hangover but enough to generate an impressive looking recycling collection.
We’ve never been a fan of New Year’s resolutions so I’m afraid they are rather thin on the ground, but we have spent a bit of time looking back over 2017 and forward to 2018. How different life is from the beginning of the year when we were both in full time jobs, jobs with stresses and frustrations but also with certainty, accomplishments and purpose.
Of course at the start of the year we did already know that our lives were due to change, my redundancy was a long a drawn out affair giving plenty of time for planning and preparation. So it was that in April we’d had all the leaving parties and finally shucked off the bonds of employment and by early May we had packed up our belongings, let our house and embarked on our travelling life.
Since then we have spent time touring the UK, mostly in Wales and Scotland before moving onto mainland Europe in October. Bertie has taken us over 10,000km though Britain, France, Portugal and Spain. We have walked 661 km and cycled 1218 km (and that’s just the tracked walks/bike rides), we have used the kayak a paltry 4 times (we may have to revisit whether it’s worth lugging it around with us) and Paul has caught very few fish. We have explored places familiar and those we’ve never even heard of before; from mountains to coast and everything in between.
We watched with pride as our son graduated at RAF Cranwell, we passed our 10th wedding anniversary unremarked (we’re not very good at remembering things like that and thought it was next year – doh!), we have learned what it’s like to rent out our ‘home’ and the frustration of dealing with issues from a distance (why the issues with drains now?), we have seen the lives or our friends and family change and evolve, even if only from a distance. Social media may have it’s downside, eating data and time, but for us it’s a communications lifeline, the ability to share snippets of life on a constant basis rather than as bundled downloads makes us feel more connected.
Gradually we have settled into this travelling life. It has been an odd transition that I have compared to the point when Aaron stopped needing us to ferry him around to his various activities. Suddenly our weekends had no purpose and we drifted for a while before we established a new rhythm, what would we do with all our free time? In a similar way we are only just finding a new structure to our lives, we are starting to understand the right balance between activities, sight seeing and ‘rest’ days where we don’t really rest but spend time doing more domestic things like baking cakes, cleaning and maintenance – we’re having one of those days right now. We have got used to spending hours in each other’s company in a box that’s less than 7 meters long and 2.2 wide but conversely we know we have to work harder at ‘bursting the bubble’ of the two of us in Bertie and push ourselves into interacting with people however transitory the relationships. We’re also putting some effort into acquiring languages, although I think there needs to be some sort of ‘foreign languages for the socially awkward’ guide to help not just with the learning part, but with the confidence to use it and not just end up falling back on English.
What will 2018 bring? We hope to do some skiing and test how well Bertie is winterised, and we’ve got tickets to watch a six nations match in Italy. After that we’re not sure whether we’ll head down to see the south of Italy, or go north to Norway. There are some important birthdays in summer which will take us back to the UK and we are considering whether we get some temporary employment while we’re back for a couple of months, we’re also looking at volunteering opportunities in other countries. We’ll carry on trying to improve our language skills and interact more with people as we travel.
Every time we talk about what we’re doing we think about how lucky we were to have this opportunity and how fortunate it is that we decided to take it. It has bought us many amazing experiences and opportunities.
For everyone out there we hope for a positive and rewarding 2018.
Cheers x
Really recommend Norway ! Wildcamping and wilderness , amazing scenery and very little traffic . Stock up on alcohol before you go and take tinned stuff and frozen to avoid the shocking prices in Norwegian supermarkets but don’t worry about money , do go!