So what made us want to travel? Where are we going? What about your stuff? What's happening to your house? How long are you going for? What about school? These are all questions we've been asked and we only know the answer to a few of them!
Rewind 2 1/2 years to Easter 2022. We'd just moved into what we thought was a lovely but slightly too big house. We never wanted a big house but assumed with a baby on the way, we'd grow into it. It needed a complete renovation and I was 7 months pregnant. Not the best combination!
With Andrew working tirelessly on renovating the house and juggling work, and me suffering from serious post natal depression we quickly realised the size of the house and ongoing maintenance needed due to the age of the house was not for us. Think of the stressed out couples you see on Grand Designs - we were fully living that nightmare. All of our time was consumed with work, renovations, house maintenance and of course looking after a baby.
At that point, we made the decision to sell the house as soon as we could. Feeling completely burnt out we finished the renovation, recovered slowly from post natal depression and put the house up for sale.
Knowing we'd always wanted to travel and not wanting to make another bad decision on our next house we toyed with the idea of traveling for a while - using the time for a reset and to think about what we really want to do next. With my work contract ending in October 2024, we put the house up for sale a 2nd time (we tried the previous year but the sale fell through), hoping it would coincide with finishing work.
At the same time, in our infinite wisdom, Andrew decided he'd have time to build a campervan for us to use for traveling if we wanted, but also for future holidays. As ever life gets in the way and with just a month or so to go before we potentially moved out, the camper build was only about 60% done. Queue another batch of very long days and late nights trying to get it finished. Firstly so we could use it and secondly because without a house, we'd have nowhere else to finish the build.
Wrapping up the sale and packing up the house was almost as stressful as the renovation. I was trying to pack a house, pack for a winter trip, pack for a summer trip, pack a campervan and rehome our animals. Andrew was trying to wind down his work, finish a campervan and typically continue fixing things in the house that had a habit of breaking. All whilst trying to keep things feeling normal for Henry.
As for our stuff - we're now the proud renters of 2 storage containers. We sold what we weren't precious about and kept our main pieces of furniture.
We knew that the dream of traveling was now happening but until a few weeks ago we couldn't have told you where we were going and how long for. Everyone we spoke to about the plans asked the same questions: "where are you going" and "how long for". I guess we didn't start making firm plans until very late in the process as we didn't want to be disappointed if the sale fell through. We also struggled to have the time and mental capacity to research where to go.
I can still only partially answer those questions and our travels officially start tomorrow. Eeek!
For someone who is a project manager by trade, it feels very weird to have vague plans at best. All I do know is we are going to Europe before Christmas for a few weeks, home for an undecided amount of time and then (possibly) somewhere further afield and warmer, again for an undecided amount of time.
Come back soon to see how our plans unfold.
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