I’ve got to admit, every time I come across one of those ‘top ten most stressful things in life’ lists that includes ‘moving house’ I laugh out loud. As someone who has led a fairly nomadic life* I have moved house a lot of times; and being married to an Army Officer means I am going to be moving for the foreseeable future. While like many other ‘Army spouses’ I dream of my ‘forever house’ and wish I could have a garden to work on for more than two years, in all honesty I can’t imagine staying in the one place for a prolonged period of time.
Don’t get me wrong – I don’t relish the palaver of organising mail forwarding, sorting out broadband contracts (why can’t one company just cover the whole bloomin’ country properly???), dealing with utility companies and the like. At least we don’t have to deal with school enrolments. But there are advantages to moving: not only do we get to see a wide variety of places and join different communities** but it is also a great motivator to assess things. Assess what things you carry around with you – do I really need to take this with me? Have I even used this since we moved the last time? Could that wait until we move again? – and also assess how things are going in your household – is there something I wish we were doing? Must make sure we do that in the new home. So as you can imagine there has been a bit of that going on around here.
In regards to the two main topics I write about here – travel and home education – moving has meant I have been focussing on what they are going to look like in our new home. We are moving to Wiltshire, and I am really looking forward to exploring a new part of the country that has so much to offer. So I am forecasting that a lot of my future travel posts will be about local trips rather than (what are for us) far-flung destinations (my husband pointed out last night that I have not once been to ‘the continent’ so far this year! What’s going on???). Don’t worry, there are lot’s of fascinating places we will be exploring and I promise to write about them.
Home education is probably going to change a bit too. It is coming up to nearly twelve months since Willem left school, and I will write a post all about that when the date arrives. When we move I am hoping to get a bit more involved in some local home education groups; but as well I am probably going to shift focus with what we are doing and how. One thing I am hoping to incorporate a lot more is nature study and just generally getting outside and learning about our local surroundings. If you are not sure what I am talking about when I say nature study, check out the awesome Handbook of Nature Study blog to see a family that really puts it in practice in a meaningful and fun way.
Lastly, after two and a half years of not quite knowing what I am doing with my life (after moving from Australia to the UK, moving from full time work to now full time at home educating and whatever) I think I have the next stage figured. I think 
I am going to be a bit more focussed on a few things, a little less scattered, a bit more committed. And I will probably blog about it, so if you are a regular reader you will get to see what I am on about over the next year or two. Lucky you.
* As I sit here in Medway typing this, this house is the longest I have continuously lived at one address in my life – just over 2 1/2 years.
** A great thing about military life, especially here in the UK where the Married Quarters are located on a ‘patch’ together, is that you have an inbuilt community to start with. That doesn’t mean you can’t also join other communities, but there is something to be said about having that built-in support network of people who have some idea of where you are coming from in life.
We’re moving (again)
I’ve got to admit, every time I come across one of those ‘top ten most stressful things in life’ lists that includes ‘moving house’ I laugh out loud. As someone who has led a fairly nomadic life* I have moved house a lot of times; and being married to an Army Officer means I am going to be moving for the foreseeable future. While like many other ‘Army spouses’ I dream of my ‘forever house’ and wish I could have a garden to work on for more than two years, in all honesty I can’t imagine staying in the one place for a prolonged period of time.
Don’t get me wrong – I don’t relish the palaver of organising mail forwarding, sorting out broadband contracts (why can’t one company just cover the whole bloomin’ country properly???), dealing with utility companies and the like. At least we don’t have to deal with school enrolments. But there are advantages to moving: not only do we get to see a wide variety of places and join different communities** but it is also a great motivator to assess things. Assess what things you carry around with you – do I really need to take this with me? Have I even used this since we moved the last time? Could that wait until we move again? – and also assess how things are going in your household – is there something I wish we were doing? Must make sure we do that in the new home. So as you can imagine there has been a bit of that going on around here.
In regards to the two main topics I write about here – travel and home education – moving has meant I have been focussing on what they are going to look like in our new home. We are moving to Wiltshire, and I am really looking forward to exploring a new part of the country that has so much to offer. So I am forecasting that a lot of my future travel posts will be about local trips rather than (what are for us) far-flung destinations (my husband pointed out last night that I have not once been to ‘the continent’ so far this year! What’s going on???). Don’t worry, there are lot’s of fascinating places we will be exploring and I promise to write about them.
Home education is probably going to change a bit too. It is coming up to nearly twelve months since Willem left school, and I will write a post all about that when the date arrives. When we move I am hoping to get a bit more involved in some local home education groups; but as well I am probably going to shift focus with what we are doing and how. One thing I am hoping to incorporate a lot more is nature study and just generally getting outside and learning about our local surroundings. If you are not sure what I am talking about when I say nature study, check out the awesome Handbook of Nature Study blog to see a family that really puts it in practice in a meaningful and fun way.
Lastly, after two and a half years of not quite knowing what I am doing with my life (after moving from Australia to the UK, moving from full time work to now full time at home educating and whatever) I think I have the next stage figured. I think
I am going to be a bit more focussed on a few things, a little less scattered, a bit more committed. And I will probably blog about it, so if you are a regular reader you will get to see what I am on about over the next year or two. Lucky you.
* As I sit here in Medway typing this, this house is the longest I have continuously lived at one address in my life – just over 2 1/2 years.
** A great thing about military life, especially here in the UK where the Married Quarters are located on a ‘patch’ together, is that you have an inbuilt community to start with. That doesn’t mean you can’t also join other communities, but there is something to be said about having that built-in support network of people who have some idea of where you are coming from in life.