Remote Welcomes

Today has been one of those gorgeous bright winter days with the promise of spring in the air. The sun shone low in the sky, which was a beautiful blue with fluffy clouds and the daylight stretches a few minutes longer each day.

Thanks to an introduction from a friend we went along and met Mark from Green Directions this afternoon and spent a very interesting couple of hours chatting to him about alternative technologies, keeping animals and growing food. Green Directions is a really exciting project with some great opportunities for spreading the word about renewable energy and lower impact living.

We've been contacting a few of our WWOOF hosts and other people we met along the way on our adventures last year, to share our happy and exciting news of the answer to 'what happens next'. At our interview for the croft we explained that one of our greatest strengths is the big fat contacts book we have - sure enough we are getting offers of help and advice, along with making new contacts as we go.

Dragon and Star are very much enjoying the prolonged visit with friends this week - they are stocking up for the months ahead without quite so much contact with same age children, although we are getting potential visits to Rum in our diary for later this year already from various friends, so I doubt we'll have a chance to miss people too much before we are showing them round our new home. We can't wait to share it with people we love, as stunning as the photos are they still don't do it justice. I'm so looking forward to walking with friends on the beaches, pointing out wildlife and just seeing them register the views.

Life has suddenly got very busy again with a big long to do list stretching ahead of us - paperwork to process, research to do, logistics to arrange. Fortunately we're getting offers of help from Rum, of support from back in Sussex and of assistance from friends all around the country. We have no real news on the sale of the house - one viewing so far which came to nothing and late March will be spent packing up our things currently stored at my parents and working out the best way to get them up the country and across a sea - a further exercise in determining just how much we need things, another cull is certainly on the cards, goodbye electric breadmaker, farewell cheap table and chairs, au revoir business suits and high heeled shoes, we have no further need of you (and that's just Ady!).