Here we go again - the fifth house move in 11 years beckons. Somehow it never gets any easier or less stressful! This move goes hand in hand with some life-changing refocussing for me - going freelance after years of employment, starting to train as a traditional upholsterer and furniture restorer, which will take me through 2013 and out the other end with a certificate from AMUSF and hopefully the start of a business, and with a bit of luck a lot more time for art.
Also a move back to the country, with everything that involves - fortunately the village we are moving to has quite a few shops left, so this time I won't have to drive 7 miles for a pint of milk, which was the case last time we lived in the country! The garden is beautiful (the first time we have ever moved into a house with a garden which didn't need loads of depressing work doing to it before it was habitable) and has a vegetable patch which is going to have its retaining wall built up to make a raised bed which my back may be able to cope with. It's even got a pond. And apple trees. And multiple places to sit out. And as the rainfall in that part of Somerset is roughly half what it is here in the South Wales Valleys, I might even get the chance to sit out and enjoy it occasionally!
Things I am worried about? The cost of getting anywhere when I may have no income in the first few months and the price of petrol is going back up. My friends deciding that rural Somerset is even more remote than Wales and not coming to see me. Not being allowed to be myself - I'm getting to the age when I am weary of having to act the part that's expected of me to avoid criticism or worse. Especially as the Dutch part of my personality seems to be gaining the upper hand the older I get, and I am getting more stroppy, assertive and unwilling to be conformist! I'm also worried I might love it so much I never want to leave...
Things I am looking forward to? Not being hemmed in by thousands of houses for miles in every direction. The birdsong being louder than the traffic noise. Being able to go walking on the spur of the moment, without having to organise an expedition and first drive to the start point. Feeling safe enough to walk through the village to the shops by myself (I am under no illusions about rural crime - but I know from preliminary visits that the atmosphere on the street is very different and less threatening). Being surrounded by working countryside, with farms and businesses. Being able to buy from the farm or farm shop, and reduce our food miles, shop locally and sustain local producers. Having my own studio space - a beautifully large, light room with views over the garden, and even a sink! Radically reducing the number of interactions I have with people, which, as a fairly extreme introvert, I have found particularly exhausting about my current job with its constant round of meetings and especially training sessions which often leave me 'all peopled out' and needing to go and hide in a darkened room, exhausted. Above all, having some 'me-time' and, just occasionally, to be able to sit down and read a book for the sheer interest of it without feeling guilty or piling up a backlog of work I should be doing instead.
The decluttering has been moderately successful - I think I've achieved something like a 25% reduction in my 'stuff', which is not quite the one third to one half I was aiming for - but the plan is to do a further 'layer' when things come out of the boxes after the move, and have to convince me that they are worth giving house room to. The new place is quite substantially bigger, but I want to keep the SPACE, not fill it up with STUFF! Altogether, I think this move is well timed to aid my striving for a simpler life in every way - actually having a significant drop in income will help to give an 'excuse' for reducing consumption, and a new home environment which is so lovely that I want to keep it that way, and a radical change of lifestyle, could all contribute to the overall simplification. Hope so.
