Sunday 24 October 2010

A Bit About Us! & 60th Night!

A quiet and relaxing weekend, we have just chilled out, tapped keys, and done the washing!

So I thought it would be a good time for you to find out a little bit more about us!

Im 43, joined the army straight from school, in fact I had my 16th birthday in the army! Not many folk can say that in this day and age, after spending 7 years doing my bit, left and worked within the electronics industry, then left for the unknown and uncertain world of sales, ended up as a National Sales Manager, so didnt do too bad out of it, if you dont count the failed marriage, of which there has been two!

One lovely daughter, aged 16, who thinks she's 21 who lives with her mother up north.

Spent time living in Germany, and 6 years up in Scotland, but my home town is Shaftesbury, or Shaston as Mr Hardy would say. Its where they made the hovis advert of the boy going down the cobbled hill on a bike!

"M" is 44, with two kids, aged 24 and 22, she hails from the New Forest area. We met via the internet! Yes, we did, and it does work!

We have been together now for 2 1/2 years, little did she know that 2 1/2 years later she would be living in a caravan! Much to her mothers disgust! Ah well!

We both enjoy walking, especially if its towards a pub, reading which we do alot of, as neither of us watch tv, so soaps, x factor and come dancing are all alien to us! So many things to do, how can people justify watching hours of tv, life is too short to be stuck in front of a box of other peoples pictures!

We both enjoy a drink, "M" likes her red wine, and Im a cider & gin drinker, some times at the same time, but havent done that for a while, good ole days!

Music, any combination of Blues, Jimi Hendrix, Van Morrison, Jools Holland etc, Oh, and its got to be played loud!

Nearly forgot "China Dog"! A Chihuahua and Corgi cross, yep strange combination, yep, strange dog! But she is lovely, we got her from a rescue centre, she came over from Ireland and Dorset Dog Rescue. She is with me all the time, she is never left anywhere, except in the car when we go shopping, or out for a meal. She is part of the deal, and a big part of our lives. Hence all the pictures of her, she seems to always get in them!

Our reasons behind doing this, are fairly simple. Fed up with lining others pockets, as we were renting, we always found that we had just enough money to go around, but that was it. No spare, for luxuries, or for our future!

We have a plan/goal, what ever you like to call it, where we buy land, and open a camp site of our own. Where this is we have no idea, it may not even be in this country, but that is the plan. We are not in a position to buy land, I dont see the point in renting it, and Im certainly not going to borrow the money to buy land. So by living in the caravan, we can save money which will eventually fund out future, which will also give us an income in our retirement, as we cruise around Europe in our motorhome!

The money we save by not living in a traditional bricks and mortar dwelling is amazing, no water, gas, electricity, council tax bills to pay, just our site fees which we have capped at £10.00 per night and a 6Kg bottle of propane every 21-24 days at £19.00. Ok, we have bought a caravan, and there are insurance/service fees with that, but all this added together comes no where near the £1200+ we were spending a month to keep a roof over our heads! In fact we are only looking at around half that!

This is our 60th night under tin, all is well, we are still enjoying the experience, Im sure we still have alot to learn, but we feel as if we are totally on top of the situation. Nothing yet, has made us wonder what the heck we are doing!

A hard winter is forecast, who knows what problems that will bring, but we are aware of the potential problems that face us, in fact Im rather looking forward to the challenge!

So there you have a quick snap shot of us, Im sure some folk think we are mad doing what we are doing, but there seems to be an increasing amount of people who wish they were doing what we are doing, which is rather nice in a way, but sad, that they feel they cant! All though if we had dependents then this would not be an easy way to live. As its just the two of us and a dog, then all relatively simple.

Please feel free to ask us any questions, and dont be afraid to leave comments, we would love to have more feedback from you.

Lampchops and roast potatoes for tea, so thats it for now.

Till later..............

5 comments:

  1. love it , thanks so much for sharing that with us , im really enjoying it !!

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  2. Well have to be honest you are both the envy of both my partner and I, reading your blog above it was like reading about ourselves. We are both in our 40's and both have two failed marriages behind us and are wondering what the hell we are doing with our hard earned cash....like you we know the answer, it's going down the drain on rented accommdation and bills, agin like yourselves we dream of the idea of buying that plot of land and having our own caravan park. It was a spooky read I can tell you...The idea of doing what you are doing is very appealling to us as it seems the only way like you state of reaching that goal,,sadly though at present we have an 18 year old at home with us who is in college, with what seems like no thoughts of moving into the big wide world on his own yet..we also have a 1yr old beagle and a 15 week old staffy (rescue dog),,,so at present we can only read (nightly) your blog in awe and carry on with our weekend jaunts in our tourer for another year and fingers crossed we too could be living your life ourselves. Tracey & Darren

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  3. Congratulations on making it to two months. Interesting to see how you make out through the winter.
    Always a good read. Thank you for sharing your adventure with us.

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  4. Slowly reading my way through your blog, start to finish. You are living our dream but we are working on making it a reality. I have smiled a lot already, reading. I also feel a bit tearful at times.... I soooooo want this for our future!

    Grace

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  5. I'm also reading through your blog from the start ... although I have a lot more catching up to do 😆

    We live on a smallholding in North Wales and spend as much time as is possible in our static near Garstang, Lancs. We're currently thinking of investing in a tourer to go round the UK coastline in. Reading through your brilliant blog for tips and info ... and a bloody good laugh. You have a wonderful way with words 😊

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