We recently finished up our winter work in Devon and moved out of our lovely little cottage there. The plan was to spend a couple of weeks with the Somerset family, then have some extended holidays in some countries we haven’t explored yet. Italy was definitely on the list, and perhaps Switzerland if we were feeling particularly rich. Then, over the last weeks, one by one all countries in Europe starting closing down, and though for a while it seemed like it might still be possible to drive through and maybe even find remote places to stay for a couple of weeks, the situation changed day by day until the word “lockdown” became the common state of affairs.
So, our current plan is to take each week at a time and enjoy the longer period we’ll now be staying in England for as much as possible. We’re lucky because we both have remote jobs at the moment, which we’ve been working on alongside our winter work, so we can now spend a bit more time on those. One of us writes online content. The other has had a remote job with his old company for the last few months and has also been letting his creative juices flow with a second side project. It’s something he has thought about and wanted to do for a looooooooong time, our #vanlife finally gave him the time and space for it, and #viruslife has allowed even more time! If you don’t know what we’re talking about, there’s a sneaky peek photo below, and see Instagram for the full story.
We also have some more house improvements to carry out in Somerset, scheduled before the world went mad. If we’re not careful, we could soon end up working full-time hours, which was never part of the plan! It does seem like we won’t be moving back into the van though for a while, which is a bummer for sure. But it will be so awesome when we finally can and we’re looking forward to that already.
Having written and deleted a few paragraphs now with further thoughts on this virus and how the world is reacting to it, perhaps it is best to finish up with some more gratitude. We are happy to be more than two years into #vanlife already, which means we live a life where we aren’t dependent on a regular 9-5 job with steady incomes to make a comfortable living. It also means we live a life where we never had more than a few weeks into the future planned out, so not knowing what we are able to do from one month to the next is no real shock to our systems. We have also been used to spending each and every day around each other, and so far we continue to see that as a bonus of our lives! The virus sucks so much, and the way the world has reacted to it only makes things worse for many. We still manage to enjoy every day, and know we are lucky to do so.
