Movement

We've accepted another offer 😃. Unfortunately, we had to go down with the price again, but that made it possible for a formerly interested person to finally make an offer. This time it's looking good, and we see this going through fine, hopefully within the next 6 to 8 weeks, which takes us to mid/end August.

Only the garden is difficult to leave behind

Every day, I've been walking along the river Thames in Abingdon with my little furry friend Jack, and every day I've been longing to live on a barge. It has been a roller coaster of feelings for me and us, and I'm glad we're both sharing this dream. I feel so blessed to be with my incredible man 😊.

Our Orange Blossom - Love it

What an incredible summer this has been so far, hasn't it. I love English summers, they are bearable. Where I come from, in Germany, the recent weeks must have been torture in terms of heat and mugginess.

We're looking at 25 - 27 ft long cabin cruisers at the moment, hoping to find one that is suitable for a tall person like me. I'm 6ft2, which makes it very difficult to find a boat I can stand upright in. If there's any advice out there, we'll welcome it.

I'm finding the in-between time of leaving the house and buying a wide-beam barge a difficult challenge to tackle. Where are we going to live? We thought we might be able to live on a cabin cruiser (which will eventually become our river taxi from boat to land and vice-versa). But I can't really see myself being happy with that. As I said, I'm tall. Ewan is a strong built man. We need space, and at our age, we also need some level of comfort, even if it's only for a few weeks. Maybe I get used to that thought and can adapt. Otherwise, we'll have to find short-term accommodation.

Lots to think about; and also lots of packing up into boxes as well. I can't quite find the drive to do that, yet, as packing boxes is not my favourite thing to do, and I'm a procrastinator. I'm sure Ewan will cheer me on 😉.

So, it looks likely now that we're moving to a barge this summer. Keep your fingers crossed for us, please. We feel we need a bit of luck.

We love sitting by the river and watch the sunset

In the meantime, I'll take care of my physical health, as I've been suffering from a bulged disk in my neck since October 2017. After lots of treatments, I feel there's now an improvement, and I trust I'll be in full working order again some time soon. I've been feeling very let down by the NHS. After all these months I've still not even had as much as physiotherapy - grrrrrr. I've been paying for all my treatments. But hey - I've also learned a great deal from my dis-ease, to be honest. So, it's all good.

Off to seize the day now. Surely I'll find myself by the river again today, as it's like a magnet to me.

Soon, folks, this blog will become a reflection of our experiences on the river and therefore more interesting, we hope. Wishing you all well and thanks for staying with us so far.

Stagnation

It's the beginning of June, and we still haven't sold our property. In case you didn't read my last post, our sale fell through Mid May. We were devastated, it really hurt. After that and a few weeks without house viewings, we felt we had to go down with the price even more, and we've had several viewings since. Most of them went well, and some of the people are really interested and are apparently sorting out their money situation in order to make an offer. Who knows if that's true. We've had no offer and are still hoping for our dream to come true any minute. We are both very impatient and literally can't wait, which makes our situation hardly bearable. Don't get me wrong - we are chirpy and cheerful most of the time, making the most of the time we have in our house. But there's this limbo situation. When we decided to live on the river, we wanted it to happen there and then. It's been 8 months. Our patience is being challenged big time. But what can we do.

Sorry for the whinging. I thought those who had been 'following' this blog might want to know.

In the meantime we've kept going with the sorting out process. We've now got rid of most things we don't necessarily need, and some boxes full of memories have gone into private storage. It still feels good to let go, and having all that time, we're letting go of more and more. Maybe it's good that we've had more time. Who knows what this is all good for.