One year on!

It’s been nearly a year since we moved into the caravan at the bottom of the garden for the ‘change over period’ of 60 Shelley Road, to Paul, Rach and Dave.

In fact only 5 days short of the year!

I can’t quite remember how I felt back then as we had Lighthouse and all that it entails, to look forward to, Explorer ‘B’ camp which we had also committed to, not to mention leaving everything we’d known to travel through France, Spain and Portugal.

I can remember being in a frenzy getting rid of a lot of our ‘stuff’ to make room for Paul and Rach moving back in.

Frenzy is not a word my brain or body is familiar with now! I hope I will never ever ‘get into a frenzy’ again, there’s absolutely no need.

Reflecting on where we are now to where we were then, there’s a vast difference. It has been helped by the lifestyle we’ve led over the past year, but this lifestyle has also taught us some very important lessons.

We left High Wycombe hoping to learn how to ‘be’ instead of just ‘doing’ or responding to situations which we found ourselves in the middle of. Also, to live without clutter, as a caravan doesn’t lend itself to useless articles or items!

Being—has not been that easy to learn, and we now wonder if many people actually accomplish it. We’ve realised that we enjoy having a purpose to our lives, and although neither of us see ourselves going back into paid employment, doing something which is fulfilling will be very important to us when we get home.

Living without clutter is much easier. I still have far too much ‘stuff’ in the caravan, and on setting up a new home when we arrive back in the UK I will certainly make sure only the items which are regularly used will accompany us!

We’ve also realised that being content with who and where we are is also a major part of living. It’s something that doesn’t always come naturally, you have to accept things which aren’t always easy to accept, and put up with niggles without moaning, but if you can accomplish that and be thankful for what you’ve got, life becomes a lot brighter.

The hardest part of this adventure for me (Julie), has been not being an everyday part of our children’s lives. Not that we were before we left, but being too far away to make an immediate difference in helping them has been particularly difficult. They, on the other hand, have probably been pleased we’ve not been around to interfere!!

Have we accomplished what we set out to achieve?

A 20 year dream was to travel through Portugal, and yes we’ve done that, although now we would like to do it again in a motorhome. (Access to the more remote parts would be easier.)

I’ve already talked about ‘being’ and ‘decluttering’.

We now have bags of experience to continue to go ahead with what we feel we’re called to do next, which is to find some land and make it an enjoyable venue which can be used for us to live on and host family, friends, friends to be, the local community, and whoever else wishes to use it to relax and ‘be’.

Where that land will be is yet to be determined, but we still have 2 months of this experience left to enjoy, and enjoy it we will!!

Have we any regrets?

None whatsoever. When we first set out I thought I was ‘doing’ this for Peter. ( He had always wanted to spend a long time travelling, I never had.) As time has gone on I have gained so much from this experience, lessons which I couldn’t have learnt in any other way, and I’m so thankful that I’ve had this opportunity.