We're coming home we're coming home.... Percy here we come

Excuse the slightly weak link to an old England football song, well it is the world cup next month...  but for my (our) news please read on.

I have dropped a few teasers to another life change in past posts so here is the news.

We (or rather Rachel) took a good career move job just short of 4 years ago that saw a massive change in our day to day lives as the job was 200 miles away in Portsmouth. We let my eldest son have the Derby house and I moved on the boat - July 2014 I blogged about it here  and when I actually moved aboard.... here 

It started a mad life of living apart Monday to Friday with me on the boat and Rachel in a lovely cottage in the South Downs. Each week we would take it in turns to travel to each other, lots of miles quite a bit of tiredness but an adventure. Certainly an adventure for me as I was Derby born and bread and not moved further than the city boundaries in my 50 odd years of living.

What most did not know was it was part of a work/life/financial/pension plan that even as far back as 2014  had me planning my retirement at 55 so I could support Rachel for the last two years until she hit 55 and possible retirement.

I hit 55 and retired three weeks later. I went south and was the support worker (plus a bit of leisure time detailed elsewhere in this blog) What we could not influence was the health of Rachels mum who needed us to be in Derby each weekend pretty much for most of the winter of 2017/18. Even more driving but I was able to do this to ease the pressure on the worker !

Our grand plan was to be down here for 5 years, due to needing to be closer to family we decided to look to cut this short so Rachel applied for a job ironically at the University in Derby where I worked for 30 years !! It turned out they thought so highly of her they offered her another job at a higher level that was more suited to her very high skill set and experience level (can you tell I'm very proud of her achievements )

So we are coming home to the Staffordshire cottage and more importantly for most who read this the boat.

It has been hard to get time aboard Percy due to wanting to support Rachel down south and cover off the 'trips' (I don't do holidays anymore as my life is a constant holiday) six to date ! Being back in the midlands means I can spend my free time' on jobs at the cottage and on board Percy plus where we are moored as I did it means if it suits us we can live on the boat and Rachel can commute to the university.

So there you have it  - another life change, just got to empty the cottage down here in between two more 'trips' to France, with our lads and their partners and grandson then a week on the bike to Luxembourg.

A few gratuitous images for the blog to remind me of the cottages and the boat .....

Looking forward to this next chapter !!