Week #13- The half term escape with family and friends in the country, the mountains and by the sea.

The past week has been a busy one on all fronts with trying to purchase a house despite the best efforts of an estate agent, finally paying off our mortgage and more exciting work on the blog. This week sees the start of the half term break in the UK and we are on the road again, heading for a multi base tour of the Welsh borders and North Wales, hooking up with family and friends on the way.

Estate agent update.

We have had a stressful start to the week in terms of dealing with a new estate agent in relation to buying a house. Trust is an important thing in life, and 30+ years of dealing with teenagers has given me a good sense of when people are trustworthy or not. To put it bluntly I do not trust the estate agent that is trying to sell us a house- he is slimy, avoids calls, will not answer straightforward questions and I have the suspicion that he does not do what he says he is going to do. He is desperate for the sale to go to a sealed bid, bidding war and is doing everything possible to engineer that situation. We put in an asking price offer on the day of release- we think that he delayed telling the vendor of this. The vendor requested that the house continue to be marketed, we think that he engineered this situation. We asked that he contact the vendor for a true asking price that they would like and we would meet- we are pretty sure that he did not do this as he will not give a straight answer to this when questioned. He gives elevated viewings numbers compared to his colleagues in the same office, how naive that he cannot even get his shit together on this simple fact! Anyway, we continue to wait for further developments, as we cannot control these things, but it is bloody frustrating.

Half Term travels.

We decided to try a new tactic for the Friday night getaway- by making our escape straight from work, rather than going home first and then setting off. This in theory only saved us an hour, but in real time travelling terms it saved us so much more. Before we knew it, we had beaten the rush hour of the towns on route and we were well on our way. It was really odd packing up fully the night before, but it allowed us to be sat on site, with a beer in hand at 1730 rather than been stuck in traffic on the M6 for another 3 hours plus. Not that holiday getaways are going to be too much of a problem in the future, as Jackie quite rightly points out, this is going to be our last school holiday ever!

Paying off the mortgage.

We did it, with not a moment to spare, we are now mortgage free. Its not the easiest task to do- anyone would think that the banks had a motive to keep us tied into our mortgage!!! Anyway Jackie did a brilliant job of chasing the bank down and getting it all sorted. We are just so relieved to get rid of that massive chunk of monthly expense before our salary payments disappear in September.

Wanderlust logo.

We were so excited to get some brilliant designs for our early retirement wanderlust logo from our very talented niece @jellybellyell. We were blown away with her creative ideas and instantly fell in love with them. Needless to say, we put them to work immediately on this blog and also out Instagram page. We now just need to control our enthusiasm and resist the temptation to order a print run of van stickers!

365 days of Headspace.

Saturday marked a key milestone in my personal development journey, 365 consecutive days of meditation. I am so grateful for what this practice has brought to my life, particularly during the challenges of the last 12 months. I feel calmer within, more relaxed, I am sleeping better, I am more content with life and generally happier than I have been for a number of years, despite all the family trauma and loss that I have faced. The positive impact on my wellbeing has been so profound that I am currently writing up my thoughts in an extended blog on the benefits of using Headspace- watch this space.

So there you have it, another week gone and at this very moment we are heading to the Hay-on-Wye book festival as a family. It is nearly 20 years since we visited the festival and we are looking forward to the day together in a beautiful part of the world.

Have a great week,

Richard & Jackie.