Dreams have a weird way of coming true

Hi there.

I hope this post finds you well. Thank you for all the love and support over this period of grieving. We are all doing great. The funeral is in two weeks and our family will be travelling to Blackpool for it. I am really looking forward to that because there were so many things that the girls all loved doing with their "Grandie" and we can do it one last time in her memory.

This season has been full. My question for the universe is, why don't these things happen when nothing else is going on and we can handle it properly? As I write this, I know the answer - the last time I had nothing going on, I was 15, so I guess there haven't been many options. In saying that, Beryl's timing was really lovely - I had been home for a while and with the support of my work, could really take time to support my wife and her mother and my kids. Don't worry I had a game called Super Auto Pets to support me.

But when I said life was full, we had just moved house to Jasmine's Aunty's flat. We stayed there for 6 nights then we moved to another friend's place near the beach, for 5 nights. This has been just amazing. The beach has healing effects on the soul, and we enjoyed every second. But today we move again.

Why do we move so much? Let me explain.

We have been living in London for 2 years and for the last 15 months I have been searching for our next step. We absolutely loved the rental we were in but I kept thinking there is a better option out there for us. Rent was really high, but even if we moved further out, it would only drop by £300-400, and the quality would also drop a lot. Plus our landlord seemed to be the only one in London who was willing to take a chance on us and let us rent a two-bedroom flat for 5 of us.

I kept thinking "we live in London, some of the most interesting places in the world are at our doorstep; one short flight or train ride and we could be in a different country, with a different culture, using a different currency and speaking a different language. There has to be a better way than just renting a place in the suburbs."

We looked at buying but we didn't know where and we didn't know if we were here long term. So we looked at buying an RV. We did a lot of research and even found the model that would work perfectly for us, but we abandoned that idea because there was no place to stay close to London. We looked into getting a park home as we could rent it out when we travelled but after inquiring we found out we would need to pay in cash. Banks will not loan you money for park homes and the lenders that do charge a 40% interest rate. We also looked at houseboats, now, that was the dream. One that is permanently docked to a mooring. We looked into continual cruising (where you have to move every 14 days) but that didn't sit right so mooring was the right choice. Once you buy the houseboat you have to pay mooring costs which worked out to be about 50% of the rent we were paying. Not a bad deal.

Then one day we went walking around our local park that we frequented and as we explored a different area next to the park we saw houseboats, and one for sale. This was the perfect spot but we were quickly disheartened when we found out the price. Yes, this particular boat we saw was huge but the reason it cost so much is it came with ownership of the mooring space. That was the only way houseboats were sold at this location. So even my idea of buying a boat in our budget and trying to get a mooring rental space had been dashed.

But we kept searching for our next step and then the right choice became clear. We would become nomads. We would leave our rental and have no fixed address. This would give us totally flexibility to go and live anywhere for any amount of time and not have to worry about also paying rent at the same time. This would also enable me to do something I have wanted to do for a very long time. When I travel, I would now be able to bring the family with me, as the savings in rent would help with covering the extra costs.

I am not sure if you know but I am a writer so I can work from anywhere in the world with an internet connection. On top of that my wife is a home educator and our three girls all do homeschool with her. So becoming nomads would make us the world's most flexible family.

The plan was to look for short-term rentals (airbnb and booking.com) as well as sign up for a pet-sitter service. This is where people with pets go away on holiday and in exchange  you get use of their house whilst taking care of their pet. Unfortunately we have not had any luck with this service, as it seems hard to get your first opportunity. But that didn't matter because of my friend Bill. Bill and his wife Maggie are amazing people with whom our families have since become good friends with. The first time I met up for lunch with Bill, I told him our plan and he said 'oh, you can stay at our place when we go to Canada for 4 months'.

Floored by his generosity, we took him up on his offer but it only lasted 2 months. 10 days ago we had to move out to the afore mentioned Aunty's place, then my friend's place on the beach. Why? Because our friends Bill and Maggie bought a place. Not just an ordinary place, but a houseboat - next to our favourite park - and today we get to move in for the next two months.

Dreams really do have a weird way of coming true.