Why, sometimes, there’s no place like home

Share This!

So we are now - quite a bit sooner than planned - back in the UK. It’s all a bit strange! I’ve really enjoyed not being able to understand the majority of the conversations around me. I’ve enjoyed the ‘bubble’ that this puts you in - if you can’t understand what people are saying, then you can’t really get sucked into the daily lives going on around you, which means you can quite happily believe that there’s no ill in the world and the only thing that matters is what you are having for lunch. Now that we are back we don’t have this luxury anymore and I am finding it a bit of an adjustment if I’m honest (that and the inability to just go and see somewhere that we’ve never been anywhere near before. I liked that vibe a lot).

We are back because of a medical issue - which I’m 99% sure will be nothing to worry about - but it was going to cost us more money in Germany to get it all investigated so we decided to come back for further tests, etc, where it won’t cost anything. In the past couple of weeks we had already decided that we would probably be coming back in early November, but the medical stuff has just brought it forward.

So, aside from the medical stuff - which only brought the date forward a bit - why are we back? Well, it’s for a few reasons. In no particular order:

1. Warranty work

Since buying the van and moving into it nearly a year ago (mad!), quite a few little things have broken that shouldn’t have, and we now have quite a long list of them. Because we bought a relatively new van, we are still under warranty, which means we can get all of these things repaired or replaced for free. We’ve tried to get this done while travelling around but it was proving a bit tricky. Getting it done in the UK is a lot easier.

2. Income generation

We are now getting near to the end of the budget we’d set for our trip, so it was time to have a proper discussion about all things financial. We are not bringing in the income we want yet, and as we are solely working on new material for the next few months, it’s going to be a while before we are in a position to promote new music and bring in more wonga from it. We also realised after discussing this fully, that lack of income was a key reason for Bryn’s recurring unhappiness during our trip.

As a result we decided to start putting energies into other means of income generation. We have been testing different online businesses as part of that, but we also knew that being back in the UK would make it easier to get other types of paid work.

3. Friends and Family

Some people are happy being away from close friends and family for ages. Some people are not. Bryn realised that this was also a big contributing factor to his down days. And once we’d uncovered that, I knew that there was no contest - it’s no good one of you being unhappy and one of you being happy, if you know there is an easy fix to the unhappy without affecting the other. Once we’d realised that it was a no-brainer.

4. Save money to make money

We came to our friend in northern Germany so we could stay in one place for a while, very cheaply, and save money, which we have been able to do for four weeks, which has been amazing!. We knew we ideally needed a similiar setup over the rest of winter while we worked on music and income generation - and we both knew that we needed to focus on that without the distraction of travelling. Once some wonderful friends in the UK offered their place, it made sense to take them up on it.

5. Winter tyres

Last but not least, winter tyres! There are certain countries in Europe where winter tyres are mandatory from November onwards. This would be a few hundred pounds to replace them all which we could save if we came back.

So we are home for a few months but the journey doesn’t end here! We are still on a mission! We have an opportunity to re-design our lives and we are taking it. We still have big dreams for how we want our lives to be, and where we are on this planet does not change that one bit.

Til next time…

Heather & Bryn xxx

Share This!