Time is precious. We all know that. We also know that life’s too short. This is why we embarked on this adventure – taking a year out and travelling.
We are struggling to believe that we are already nearing the end of this year (I know we still have 4 months of the year remaining, but remember we ARE in the UK and we WILL lose the weather sooner rather than later. We are however desperately wishing for a prolonged Indian Summer so that we can keep travelling through to later November. We understand that we have a maximum, therefore, of 3 months travelling in the UK.
Being at the end of August we were expecting to be in Scotland by now… Actually, we expected to have almost finished Scotland by now! The furthest north we have got, however, is Whitby in North Yorkshire – there is so much to see and do in this wonderful country of ours.
Back to the point of this post though. Time is indeed flying by, but what I have found is that when we spend time with family and friends it flies even quicker. The last 2 weeks have seen us spending a week in Cornwall (my favourite spot in the whole world – keep an eye out for my post on this) to celebrate my friend’s 40th birthday, followed by a return ‘home’ to catch up with family (in particular to make sure that Calv’s grandchildren still recognise him!), and to celebrate my friend’s birthday again (on the actual day this time 🙂 ).
This time is going by so quickly that it simply emphasises the point of our travels, of our year off, of doing this before we run out of the energy or the desire to do anything.
Everyone tells themselves that this is something that they would love to do in some capacity (i.e. not necessarily in a motorhome!), but there is always a reason not to take the plunge. They don’t have enough money, they need to keep an eye on the kids (adult kids even), they just need to see through this big project at work, they couldn’t possibly give up work…
All valid reasons of course, and, don’t forget, we all have different motivations and desires.
However (and it is a big however), we truly believe that we have changed our lives for the better. Despite the fact that there have been a few bumps along the way (I shan’t go into that now!) which meant we had less money available than we initially thought, this hasn’t detracted from our enjoyment of our time on the road together. We have found that we want for a lot less, we have become far less materialistic if you like.
I didn’t actually consider myself overly so to begin with to be fair, but even I have noticed that I want for less – apart from reading material and the occasional new (but useful) gadget for the van! Even our grocery shops have declined (although they’re still more expensive when we’re meeting up with people. Alcohol. Of course…!)
Even with all the time in the world that we have gifted ourselves we still never seem to have time to do everything. We have learned to relax (even Calv, it might surprise some of you to learn), although it doesn’t seem that we actually do that very often. We only realised this yesterday when we did actually relax for the whole day. We sat reading (well, I did – he hasn’t changed that much!), drinking tea (yes, tea), enjoying the sunshine and then went on a lovely walk in the countryside to a local country pub (The Old House at Home in Chidham, well worth a visit, and actually much older than it appears from the outside).
We have loved spending time with friends and family, apart from the fact that we also put weight back on when we see them – so in 2 1/2 weeks our waistlines have taken a definite hit!
But we are also looking forward to getting back on the road. On Tuesday we will be heading north again, taking in the Yorkshire Dales and the top of the North York Moors via York itself, before heading into Northumberland – which we believe (and hope) will be the highlight of our trip so far. We suspect that by the time Northumberland has finished with us, and us with it, it may be time to cross over a little to the west coast and start making our way home.
We are sad that we won’t make Scotland this year but, if all our plans come together, we would like to think that we’ll head straight there for some time next year. We have lots of plans going forward – another by-product of this time is that we really talk to each other. A lot!
Please stay with us as we tell you about our adventures yet to come over the next few months, as we visit yet more places that we have never been to before and create more wonderful memories – trust me, we will always have something to talk to each other about!! Please feel free to comment with your own thoughts and experiences – we love to hear from you!
I will aim to tell you about Cornwall as soon as possible – but we are busy seeing people over the next few days before we head off again!
Keep travelling! xx
turnrightoutofportsmouth 