In the blink of an eye, 18 months have passed since we crashed back into a sleety, January-flavoured England and tried to re-establish ourselves into normal life. It's been a different sort of year. The UK has been ...well a mess! But it has been good to be home.
I'm going to put it out there, when we first came back, I needed to put 'travelling' into a box to store away at the back of the shelf for a while, even during the thick of last March's blizzards. We needed to cleanse ourselves. It took a good fortnight to get over the jet-lag; a few months to process our journey; many more to stop being irritated/envious/sad when seeing all of Stanley's UK cousins very much alive and well on the roads; and probably still are making the most of every chance to be able to enjoy the comforts of a proper bed, all of the food that we'd missed and wear something other than the same 3 outfits over and over.
One of my 'Things I learned in Australia', was that there is definitely more in life than just working. I think we have tried to make more effort to 'get out' more- it's been lovely to catch up with some of the friends we made whilst we were away. Visiting Rachel gave us the chance to visit Cardiff; attending friends' weddings broadened our Essex and Suffolk experiences; and a fleeting weekend to see Si and Donna meant we could visit more of the Midlands on the way to 'THE NORTH' (a huge deal for us southerners!). Some of our staycation travels haven't been quite as far afield: Lands End, Dartmoor, Paignton and even closer still to the ever-scenic Mount Edgecumbe and Jennycliffe (as much as I dislike Plymouth for its miserable concrete-grey makeup, there really isn't anywhere quite as beautiful as the views surrounding the Sound on a warm, sunny day!)
Trying to action the above has not always been as successful as hoped; returning into our old work routines has easily been as difficult on our "lifestyle" as it was before I finished teaching. The seemingly never-ending cycle of me walking through the door as Kjel leaves for work again (or us briefly waving at each other as we drive past each other!) hasn't always given us the opportunity to make the most of our time but it isn't something I'm going to give up on!
Living back in Cornwall has also made us miss our little flat, with our own little routines. We didn't really feel it when we were in Australia but I suppose our living arrangements were so vastly different week on week that we didn't need to dwell on it. It's not been all doom and gloom though: not being responsible for four walls has given us chance to save up again (albeit taking 12 months longer than we thought!). And most importantly, it's given us a chance to spend invaluable time getting to know the smallest people/dog in our lives and enjoy the glorious coasts on those rare summery days.
It's taken me about a year (and Kjel a little longer) but the slight travel itch that appeared now and again around Christmas erupted into full travel bug bites by February and I've been ready to leave work and jet off since! I love looking through the photos; the ones I'll get made into canvases one day and the ones I'm going to put into a colossal book of our bloopers! It makes me so excited for our adventures to come.
Our hard work on the farm definitely paid off; two shiny new Australian Working-Holiday visas have been approved and in just under 4 weeks we fly away again! It's been exciting to plan and scheme and get things in motion. I have had no less than four countdowns in the lead up to this. I can but only hope that we learn from our previous experiences and am definitely excited to write about what we get up to again!
I'm definitely looking forward to spending another glorious year of being able to wind up the love of my life, every, single, day.
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