What a week!

It's been quite a strange week this week, I think it's fair to say. Firstly, on my way home from work on tuesday, some idiot decided it would be fun to not notice that I'd stopped because the person in front of me had also stopped, and went into the back of my car. The short version is that I'm ok - just mild concussion and severe whiplash. Oh and the car I've had for 5 whole weeks is probably going to cost more to repair than it's actually worth. Not entirely sure what the insurance company will let me have as options on that yet - it's all fun though.

The really entertaining bit is that while sitting at the doctors surgery on Wednesday afternoon (having decided I really wasn't feeling that well after all - the concussion apparently) and before being carted off to A&E for a proper check of my neck - I was also bouncing phone calls from the estate agent. The end result being ... drum roll appropriate here ... I'VE SOLD MY HOUSE!!!!!!!

Not only have I sold it - but it's to a cash buyer who wants to move a.s.a.p., and I've settled on a price that's only £2,500 less than I'd decided I would accept. Given the current market and the price he started offering me that's pretty good going really. I can, at least, pay off the mortgage (just!) with that.

Given how I was feeling on Wednesday while all this was going on - it didn't really sink in for a while! Assuming the solicitors get on with it we could realistically be out of here by the end of August! Of course I was utterly prepared to sacrifice all principles to get out of here, but it is sort of nice knowing it's going to a local guy who works for the lifeboat station in St Ives and needed somewhere closer than he's renting at the moment. No more second home owners here thank you! ;-)

That'll do for now - I'm not really supposed to be on the PC or sitting for too long at the moment. Hope all is well with the rest of you.

Sx

Well - I've had to bite the bullet and reduce the house price today. Apparently loads and loads of details are being sent out, but no-one is following them up. I don't mind about the price - I'm certainly not doing this to make money! - it's just now getting towards the territory of negative equity. Hmmm. Current thinking is you don't get your asking price - you get £5 - £10 - £15 thousand below that. Oops. When you consider fees as well, this could be quite an unpleasant exercise. Never mind. We're both going completley insane stuck here though - it's just not what we want out of life. Modern suburbia with it's close neighbours and curtain twitchers, and people who want to do the consumerist lifestyle - it's just not us.

If you've been reading our other blog (must update that as well) - you'll know Anthony's doing loads of wood stuff at the moment - I'm typing this surrounded by boxes, candlesticks, trugs, chopping boards etc etc - well the neighbours have complained about the noise of him using his tools in the garden now. What fun. I guess we're living surrounded by people who won't understand our desire to get away from all this and the fact that we actively hate being here. It's got to the point where we both have a rubbish day at work, come home and feel more stressed because we have to walk through that front door into our suburban box. We're seriously looking into alternatives - I've seen a cheap caravan locally that we could grab and live in for the summer. Just leave this house (looking nice obviously) and escape for a while. We also know someone who has some fields they don't use so we're thinking about asking them to rent a field for a while to put a caravan on, in exchange for doing work round the place for them. We'll see. We'd be so much happier living like that - even if we still have to do the day job - it would just be nice knowing we were coming home to somewhere we actually wanted to be rather than at the moment where we actively hate coming home.

Enough of that. I had a lovely birthday - we went up and sat in a lovely quiet spot on Dartmoor for the day. It was lovely. No people around, just peace and quiet and a lovely home made picnic in a home made picnic basket. Then we came home and had a BBQ in the garden and drank far too much! A perfect day really.

This kind of goes against everything I'm trying to do at the moment, but hey - I'm not perfect!!

A few people now have asked what I would like for my birthday. Apart from the 5 acre smallholding with assorted animals (!) which I understand may be just slightly optimistic, what I'd really like is jewellery (Day to day stuff - not 'occasion' pieces).

I'm thinking mainly of necklaces, bracelets and ankle chains. (No earrings, and I have no idea what my ring sizes are!) Any colour apart from dark / sludgy oranges or greens. I do wear gold now as well as silver, although still not as often as silver / colours. I don't really have anything specific in mind about what I'd like.

Basically all the stuff I've currently got I've had for years, and am utterly bored by it all - not to mention a different person now. I've been selling off bits that are worth selling, so my stock is gradually diminishing anyway. It's time for some new things.

Feel free to utterly ignore this post - and don't feel obliged to get me anything! I just thought for the benefit of people who are now asking this may be useful.

:-)

Hi everyone.

Firstly I want to say thank you for all the comments I received after my last post! I appreciate the supportive messages and understanding from others' experiences about the frustrations of daily life! ;-)

I feel I ought to explain a little though - that rant posted a couple of weeks ago was probably taken slightly out of context! Don't worry about my stress levels - I am actually less stressed with life now than I've ever been before. It's not all getting to me as such - I was just pointing out how ridiculous the system we live in has become.

If you want to see the wider context of what we're doing have a read of our new blog - going stress free - which I've linked on here.

Stella - thanks for your comments - I'm sure Kirsty would love to see you all. And Ken yes Risk Assessments are ridiculous!! :-)

Enough for now on here but I thought I'd do a quick update from my last one in case any of you were worrying about me!

S x

Had enough

I'm in a bit of a philosophical mood today. Various things have happened over the last few days that have made me think that Orwell wasn't so much a writer as a prophet. Honestly - society is getting so ridiculous and controlled it's not true. I'm not going into a political diatribe here but really - it's all so STUPID! We are controlled and controlled and so many people (although if I'm honest I can't really include the people that are likely to actually read my blog!) are sucked into it without thinking. People don't question. I mean - Europe has decided that sheep aren't sufficiently controlled and labelled (because plastic tags degrade and ears fall off, obviously!) so they are going to make farmers use a new electronic tag system (at a cost of £1.50 per sheep plus a few thousand in equipment costs). Which will cripple their industry completely. It's already almost impossible to keep cows due to the obscene levels of paperwork. The fishing industry is on its knees due to quotas. And school children will soon be banned from wearing anything other than clip on ties because of ... it could only be ... health and safety. So we are getting to a point where unless you grow synthetic food that government can control, (or the organic stuff which is actually almost as bad in regulations), our country won't be able to feed itself. Plus we'll all be scruffy because no-one will know how to tie a tie. (Lets be honest - if you don't learn that one at school when the heck are you going to?!) It's too dangerous to go outside - all that pollution, traffic, murderers etc and you might trip over a kerb which is a health and safety risk. You can't just stay in bed - it's bad for you. You can't drink the water because of the chemicals in it. You can't drink bottled water because the plastic bottles contaminate it. I'll stop that one there but you get the idea...

Now all I really want out of life is quite simple. I want a piece of land (I don't care what it looks like or what condition its in). I want to put a static caravan or log cabin on it. I want to use wind and solar energy, dig a borehole for water, and use real fire for heat. That's all. Not much to ask is it? I'll grow my own food, keep my own animals (and feed them as well) and not bother anyone. My carbon footprint will be tiny. I will reuse and recycle everything. I'll respect the land that feeds me. I'll sell my surplus to get those little extras we'd like to have. We'll build everything ourselves, feed ourselves, make our own clothes from the alpacas and crops, and just drop out of the system. It's really not that difficult a concept - lets get back to what's real in life. Forget your banks and credit cards, your mobile phones and internet connections, your corporate targets and government objectives, your fancy clothes and worrying about what brand of make-up to use. At the end of the day they just don't matter. What matters is having a roof over your head, food to eat and time to enjoy it. Work for yourself rather than benefiting those corporate B*****s in control and reap your own benefits of your labour. It may be old fashioned, but lets get back to living off the land and working for real things like eating rather than corporate objectives and disposable gadgets.

Frustrated with this plastic consumerist centrally controlled life we're in? Me? Hell yes. And I'm growing to hate it more each day.

(You may have spotted the obvious paradox in this blog - well done if you have! And the answer is - yes the facebook page will soon disappear as will this blog. Not immediately - I'm breaking my own social conditioning here which isn't as easy as it should be - but I'm definitely heading in that direction, and sooner rather than later.)

Meet Mr Bobbins.

I forgot - if you want a nosey at my house (or even want to make me an offer!!) click here which will take you to the website.