Homelessness

‘We’re homeless. Intentionally. What planet was I on when I agreed to this?’

Do you see where it says that up there beneath the title? When I wrote it all those years ago, I thought it was funny. I had no idea it would go on for so long.

As I said in my About page ‘ours is not the tragic homelessness of poverty or extreme weather, but the ridiculous homelessness of an Englishman who wanted to live in America with freedom and an Anglicized American who wants to live in England with family.’ And so we’ve wandered.

Well we’re back in the UK now. And still homeless.

We have spent in total five years in an RV (one-and-a-half years in Europe and three-and-a-half years in the USA) and four years (one-and-a-half in Washington State and two-and-a-half in Arizona) in an apartment as temporary accommodation before taking the next step. After six months in England in a rental house we are still floundering. Himself is keeping an eye on France with a view to fleeing the UK after the next general election but I won’t air our political views here.

Ingrid asked me if I missed ‘it.’ I’m not sure if ‘it’ is Arizona specifically , warm weather, RVing or possibly all three.

No. I don’t.

With the greatest respect and best wishes to all of you off on your adventures and photographic journeys – and you all look like you are having a whale of a time – I’ve had enough of meandering. I need a base. And I’m happy in damp England. It’s where I belong despite not wanting to give up my navy blue passport.

We toured the Suffolk and Essex countryside on Easter Sunday, initially to look at a house, and saw thousands, nay millions, of daffodils. Each new field of dancing yellow blooms took my breath away. Quarter mile driveways of stately homes were lined with the yellow darlings. What a treat to come home to that. What a treat to come home at all.

Is living the gypsy life a guy thing? He’s already bought another caravan/travel trailer/RV long before a sticks and bricks house. In fairness to him he spends a lot of time online researching houses to buy (and cars, trucks, motorcycles, race meetings, campsites, channel crossings – tunnel vs. ferry, flights to Arizona and Australia and reading just enough news to make him angry). But mostly he looks at house sale sites.

Mr. Chevy with his new friend.

Himself would go back to the itinerant lifestyle in a shot. I would not. Himself is lamenting leaving Arizona. And if you could pick it up and drop it in southern England, so would I. I just can’t bear the thought of all the long haul flights and the accompanying aggravations I seem to attract with the airport gestapo. He takes it all in his stride. It was beginning to drive me bonkers.

Beginning? Don’t kid yourself, you’re thinking.

I would be interested to know from all you full timers:

Do you get homesick for somewhere that no longer exists?

Do you at least have a family base where they put you up or plug your RV in in the driveway and offer you showers and laundry and meals?

Do you fly there or drive there?

Do you see much of your family?

I also put it to you people of a home loving persuasion – would you sell up and store your present existence in order to fund travel?

We’ve traveled through 47 states and seen glorious U.S. State Parks and National Parks, Sites, Recreation Areas, Monuments and Historic Sites too numerous to mention. We’ve RVed east to west and top to bottom of England and Scotland and traversed France and Spain. We’ve camped all along the three U.S. coastlines as well as the interior and visited most major cities. I have thousands and thousands of photos and have written over 300 blog posts.

Now I want a house. A home base. I don’t want to go anywhere. At least for a while.

Am I being unreasonable?

Photo Challenge: Symmetry

Except for the ill thought out placement of chimneys for a symmetrical photograph, Anglesey Abbey (first built as a priory during the reign of Henry I, i.e. 1100 – 1135) displays near perfect symmetry:

Don’t look too closely. There are other flaws in symmetry.

You looked at this picture and thought our house hunt was over, didn’t you? We decided not to make an offer as the heating bills might strain our budget.

Symmetry

New List!

It has occurred to me that Jimmy and I may not be thinking along the same plane or are even on the same planet. We rarely do are should our Quest be any different?

“The List” of requirements for the perfect place to live, which we had agreed on, has been thrown out as being ridiculously unattainable so now we’re drifting aimlessly, mentally and geographically. We each speak longingly of our nirvanas but these potential home bases may be more pie in the sky than pie on our plate and his is probably apple and mine is pear.

When I say Let’s live in California he says I don’t think we can afford it. When he says Let’s live in Florida I say I don’t know if you can stand it. And that’s the end of the discussion. If you can call that a discussion.

As we’re not the best at communicating, at least in any constructive way, it seems appropriate at this point to put into writing our options. Perhaps the unspeakable possibilities will spur us into taking action about settling down. These are our realistic and unrealistic prospects:

1. Do nothing. We are fed, clothed, warm, mostly dry and have beds, in fact have everything we need all in the one small room.

   

   OK. So our space is a bit bigger than this! (Columbia River, Washington State) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

2. Move into an apartment once again with a view to buying a house at some point.
3. Move into a single wide and keep the travel trailer for a means to escape bad weather.
4. Spend a little time with family in Washington State and Florida then tow back to California to look seriously at different areas, cost of living and apartments.
5. Research cost of living in California thoroughly online before wasting a few months realizing we can’t afford to live in Malibu.
6. Pack up our meager collection of furniture and belongings stored in the U.S. into a U-Haul and travel in tandem back to Florida where we know we can find a nice apartment and the cost of living is affordable but we don’t know if our 50°N latitude bodies are ready for 25°N latitude heat and bugs.
7. Keep traveling in our shoebox and looking for an unconditionally perfect place to live.
8. Return to the UK.
9. Live in France.
10. Check out Hawaii.
11. Sink our house fund into a new big shiny RV and new car. DO NOT TELL HIMSELF I EVEN SAID THAT.
12. Give up all our worldly goods and join a religious commune.

There. That should focus our minds. There are some pretty scary prospects there.

On second thought, this doesn’t look too bad! Commune d’Esch-sur-Alzette (Photo credit: nunor)

Even more worrying is that it is only No. 12 that we would both find completely alarming.

I’ll get back to you when we’ve had a proper grown up discussion about it.

Would you live here? Or here?

Would you like a little des res?

It is quite endearing that nine out of ten Americans when asked where is the perfect place to live? will immediately tell you the name of their home town, actively promoting it as though they are a member of the Chamber of Commerce. Have they really considered the question or is it just a point of pride or familiarity?

Do you fancy living here?

Here is an interesting conundrum. Imagine that your house has been sold and you have the cash in the bank (assuming you have a house and assuming you have no mortgage. Remember this is make believe) and you have no job. What you do have is an RV and sufficient income to travel the country for a year or two before you settle down again. (Some of us are already in this position!) Try to take family and friends out of the equation and think – where would you go? What places would you visit? Where would you like to end up?

You could set up shop here!

Now make it a bit more interesting. Take yourself and your RV to a foreign country and give yourself residency there. What country would you choose and how would you go about looking for somewhere to live?

Is this the style you’d like to become accustomed to?

All I really need at this point is a real estate brochure advertising an affordable house with a swimming pool and a little ground for a garden and I’m there, settled, seeing out my sunset years.

A little cottage by the sea for you?

“What I really, really want is a house in southern California, with a mountain view backdrop behind and an infinity pool in the front, beyond which I can watch Pacific sunsets.” An hysterical laugh burbled up out of Jimmy’s throat. “Okay. Okay. It’s a movie star’s house, but you never know, we might stumble on a bargain.”

Himself didn’t even comment.

This one requires green fingers. Is that for you?

Traveling east to west in northern Florida, I amused myself with the previously mentioned brochure instead of staring pointlessly at the road atlas for hours, losing concentration just when my assistance was needed. “Listen to this. Thirty acres in the country, all fenced, four beds, three and a half baths, two car garage, large family room with fireplace, eat-in kitchen/breakfast room overlooks stunning pool and deck, kitchen with granite countertops, marble back splash, two pantries, exquisite master suite, large bonus room.”

“Where is it?”

“Who cares where it is? Sounds perfect to me.”

Would your yacht fit in one of these parking spaces?