A premature return to reality

So, it's been a while since my last update and for those of you wondering what hapened, things have taken a significant turn....we are now back in the UK.

In the weeks running up to our return, we were having significant problems with our tenant.  We continued our travels north and stopped off in Germany to see some friends before our planned onward journey to Scandinavia.  Unfortunately, the tenant problems didn't desist and after some soul searching, we decided that the best solution would be to return to the UK, fix the problems then continue our travels.

We headed back to the UK for what we thought was going to be a month of DIY and catching up with family before jumping back on the ferry and resuming our euro travels.  Turns out the tenant had left the place in a bit of a mess, in addition to having left with substantial rent arrears and once we'd cleaned up that mess, there were more underlying issues with the house that we needed to fix before we could re-let.  That was in May...

We made the decision to do what needed doing and to postpone our travels to a later date.  After spending so much time and effort sorting the house out, we were really quite loathe to let anyone else live here and risk someone else trashing it.  Probably sounds like a cop out to some people but this house was always intended to be our home and not just a temporary investment.  If we'd had a reliable tenant, we'd have stayed on the road, but I firmly believe that everything happens for a reason.

We probably won't get back on the road for a few years now, but time is on our side and we still have Dora, so we'll still take short holidays when we can.  It's not quite what we'd planned, but we're actually enjoying making our house a home.  I've yet to secure employment, but I've applied for jobs so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Since we returned, it's been home improvement central here!  Pete's in his element as there's so much to do.

As much as we do miss life on 4 wheels, we're loving being back in the UK and having our own house on no wheels is still a bit of a novelty.

Obviously there won't be any more updates on here for a good while, but if you're on Facebook, we''ll see you there!