What a year this has been!!! Just over a year ago Covid swept across the globe. People everywhere were shocked to have their liberty taken away, and we found ourselves placed in restrictions which prevented our movement and changed our lifestyles beyond belief. I am writing this from the UK, but most countries were affected in a similar way.
The impact on everyone was huge, but life becomes especially difficult for those without a fixed base. The gypsies, nomads, wanderers and travellers whoever they may be. People stuck either in their own or other countries were unable to move. My partner Mike and I live on a sailboat, and we also enjoy camper van life. I think most people choose this alternative lifestyle because they love travel, they love visiting new places, they embrace change and they especially love the idea you can move your home to a new base whenever you want to. Not right now!
We were living in Torquay in South Devon at the time, and remaining in our marina berth there proved too challenging.
The police were patrolling the harbour and telling everyone they needed to ‘stay at home’. Our boat is our home, but as the country started to go into a state of shock, panic buying and telling tales on their neighbours, minds become closed to the concept of an alternative lifestyle.
Fortune smiled on us and through the power of social media, we found a new home on the River Dart where we could live on our boat amongst like-minded souls and sit the lockdown out. We left the English Riviera, and sailed our sailboat along the coast to our new location.
We found ourselves in a delightful creek which was peaceful, packed full of nature and far from the madding crowd. You could almost pretend Covid wasn’t happening if you didn’t switch on any of your devices!
So here we have been for almost a year....just down the river from Agatha Christie’s former home Greenway in a place of magical sunsets. Lockdown was still going on in the world, and we missed being able to take off in our camper van for a few nights, visit family and have family visit us. We had planned a trip to the Alps for Christmas which was scaled down to a trip to Scotland to complete the North Coast 500, which was then scaled down to a trip to North Devon as Scotland closed its borders (see the lovely Clovelly at Christmas below). It was then scaled back to an early departure back to the boat as ‘Stay at Home’ became a thing again.
So here we are in Spring 2021. Stay at Home is about to be lifted tomorrow, and non essential shops are allowed to open. We can get our haircut and we can sit in a beer garden and drink a cold beer in the sun! How do I feel about this? I am excited of course. But I don’t want to leave behind the good things about the last few months. Being cosy below deck through the winter months, spending every day with Mike, having the time to work on our forever-boat in the boatyard opposite our dock, not spending hours in the car in traffic every week.....so many positives.
I’m sure I’m not the only person to be thinking this way. I really hope as everyone’s life shifts back to a new normal, people remember to keep enjoying the simple basic things they have enjoyed over the past few months and also start to once again enjoy the things they have been denied with a new appreciation.
Mike and I continue to count down to a big life change in two years which will allow us to slow down and appreciate life at a more humane pace. This is a time when we will be racking up the life experiences and developing a quality of life which after years of responsibility and working full time will be so greatly appreciated. I will write about the ever evolving ‘five year plan’ in a future blog post.
We can all make our best plans, but really none of us know what the future holds and indeed how much of it we have at our disposal.....so we should seriously consider how we can best spend it wisely!
Which brings me to what prompted me to write this post.....
