It's rather strange that the whole reason for setting up this blog was to document our year away 'living the alternatives' and that only now, six whole weeks after leaving our old lives behind, have I got around to writing about our experiences so far. Since leaving home Lielle and I have immersed ourselves in our new experiences from morning to night, leaving me very little energy come evening for sitting down and writing about it all.
The original plan was that Dani would take a week or two after our departure to tidy up his work affairs and would then be joining us, but the weeks rolled on by until.... TODAY! We received a surprise phone call a few hours ago telling us that he is on his way right now! While Lielle and I have both loved the laid-back time schedules and holiday atmosphere I think that we both feel that the time has come for a little more routine and to start getting stuck into some proper work, both projects on the house and with the homeschooling.
So, a few updates since the last post:
* Never underestimate how important it is to have backup copies of all your important stuff on the computer! Shortly after we arrived in the village I spent several hours right into the night editing and filing photos of our trip. I must have been really tired or just generally disoriented but when I thought I was deleting an empty folder the computer asked me: "Are you sure you want to delete these 34,867 items?" Silly me assumed that it was the computer that was wrong, so I hit the 'yes' button and it prompted me with: "Are you sure you want to proceed as these are too many files for the recycle bin and will be permanently deleted?" I clicked 'yes' once more ... and within seconds saw all my 6 years of family albums flicker and disappear before my very eyes. When I checked out the file that I thought they were all in and found it empty I was devastated. I was never so thankful that I had taken the time to transfer all my photos and personal documents to an external hard disk, although unfortunately all the new photos of our visiting friends on the way to the village were lost. Some of them were able to be recovered when I was introduced to a program that can be downloaded from the internet to recover lost files - but I had left it too late to recover them all. Still, I've learned a good lesson.
* We must be the world's worst (but luckiest) when it comes to leaving things until the last minute. Lielle's passport arrived via France just two days before we left. The even better news is that since we left home it has been confirmed that I was due for severence pay from my last job which I held for around 14 years. The pay has already been put into my bank account and should provide a safety net for the project. Although we knew the project would be very low budget we also knew that it would be impossible to live without any money at all. It's very good to know that we shan't go hungry and can afford the travel costs between our various destinations.
* One of the last things we did before we left home was to spend a few hours on the beach watching the sun go down with the children and the grandchildren. These precious family moments are the ones that I shall most treasure and they make me realise that, with all the learning we shall be doing this coming year, the main thing is to learn about ourselves and each other and to relish living in the moment and being in each others' company.
* Now that Dani is on his way (he should be sitting on the plane right now waiting for take-off!), I am hoping that I shall find the time and a few quiet moments every few days to keep this blog properly updated. I have so many ideas in my mind of things to write about and share.
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