This week has been a been a busy one- working hard on the house renovations and settling into our early retirement dream home in the Yorkshire Dales, taking time out to catch up with family and friends before the craziness of the festive period and planning for our adventures that are coming up in the next few months.
Getting used to life in the Dales
Although we still get the occasional feeling of it not quite being a reality, we are slowly getting used to being permanent residents of the Dales. It is really strange to have so many wonderful places on our doorstep that we can visit on a whim. We tend to be controlled a lot by the weather- basically downing tools when the weather is good and getting out and exploring- that is after all one of the main reasons we retired early and relocated here! It is fair to say that decorating and stripping wallpaper will always come a poor second to getting out in the hills.
In other news...Santa came to our little hamlet! After years of living in Cheshire, we were used to the yearly pre-xmas visits from Santa and his Rotary Club helpers. Little did we think that Santa would be able to fit in a pre-xmas visit to our little hamlet in the middle of nowhere- how wrong could we be! Santa was magnificent (isn't he always?) in his sleigh going through our little community. His helpers went from door to door, no mean feat in such a rural (and dark) place. I think that it is fair to say that his local helpers work far harder than the helpers that take him around the Cheshire housing estates! It was such a lovely gesture and not an easy thing to arrange in our rural area, but it definitely added to our growing excitement for Christmas.
We also had our first frost of the winter last week. Not a significant occasion for many people, but for us in a dilapidated, pre-renovation house, something that we were keenly aware of. Waking up and looking our across the frosted covered fields and the steaming cows was such a lovely thing to wake up to. As we have slowed down our lives, we definitely feel that we have become more attuned to the simple pleasures in life and are grateful for that on a daily basis.
We know we have made the right decision when we both felt a pang of angst at leaving our house for the weekend away. It really did feel like home and somewhere that we love to be. Happy days…
The power of family and friends
We took the opportunity this week to have some valuable down time connecting with family and friends before the craziness of December- more of that later. We always said that when we retired it was going to be really important to use the time to keep in touch with friends and family, despite the constant temptation to go off grid and disappear all the time!
We met up with a work colleague who retired at the same time as us last year. We have both been really busy since then, but it was so good to catch up, have a lazy lunch and compare travel experiences. They have just completed a 90 day Route 66 tour of the US, so we wanted to pick their brains on Arizona for later in the year. We followed this up with a lovely meet up with my old boss and good friend for morning coffee and cake. Again, it was so good to catch up and something that we both vowed to do more regularly. The benefit of not working means that we have the time to have these meet-ups. It is something that we definitely must not neglect to do now and in the future as it is so good for the soul.
We have spent this weekend with family getting the Xmas tree sorted at Luke’s- normally a tradition we would do at home but for the renovations! It was such a fabulous weekend of catching up, slowing down, drinking mulled wine, far too much over indulgence and all things festive. Each day we reflect on how blessed we are to have such fantastic kids and we are so proud of the adults that they have grown to be.
Sunday was such a special day spent with Luke and Charlotte. After a weekend at theirs sorting out the Christmas tree, they came over to our new house for the first time to experience a little taster of our new lives. We joined the village in the community Xmas lunch that the local farmers wives put on at the old village school. This is a normal monthly afair, but this week was crazy busy as it was the Christmas lunch menu as opposed to a normal Sunday roast. We had a lovely home cooked dinner, along with seemingly most of the population of surrounding area!
We had a lovely remainder of the day, pootling around Settle, having a drink in a gorgeous little winter apres experience at the Golden Lion and then having the most enjoyable (and surreal) experience at the renowned and award winning Courtyard Dairy cheese shop. If you are ever in the area, and love your cheese, you have to visit this place. To see staff so passionate about what they do is just amazing. We tasted so many different and rare cheeses it is hard to know where to start. You have to try this place out!
When did we get time to work?
We have realised that our calendar has filled up very quickly for the next few months and that we are going to have to work pretty smart to coordinate with builders the renovation work on the house. We now have a spell of time in the Lakes housesitting for friends before the Xmas break. We are so excited about this, as not only does it give us loads of opportunities to bag more Wainwrights, but also the chance to live in a decorated house with central heating for a couple of weeks!
We then have the Christmas holidays at Luke’s, as we cannot host the family in our house in it’s current condition. We hope that Luke is looking forward to hosting us all.
After spending New Year back in the Dales, we then head off for a family ski in France with the kids and their partners, revisiting the resort that we first took the kids to as toddlers all those years ago! When they fly home, we have a little adventure planned in the van, staying for another week at an alpine campsite to see if we can cope with skiing out of the van!
We then have a few weeks at home to sort out the house before we head off to Phoenix to visit Jackie’s Mum who is wintering in the states. Such exciting times!
So that’s it for another week- gosh it has gone so fast as Christmas is hurtling around the corner. We are so excited about what adventures lie ahead for us, but at the same time we really do want to experience each moment of the present to the full. Living by our philosophy of less is more and trying to live a simple life, we need to value this present moment- as this is life. The future is exciting- but no more exciting than the experiences of today.
Have a fantastic week,
Richard & Jackie
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