Where on earth do I begin?
I suppose just to give a few highlights rather than the full two year hiatus in all its garrulity!
I think I left the building somewhere in 2021, possibly to finish my Master’s thesis, but that would claim I am a very studious and conscientious person, whereas, in actual fact, I think I actually developed the wording ‘portfolio career’ long before it became common terminology. Perhaps, or perhaps, just being who I am, I like to have lots on the go at once.
So, Master’s finished and I’m now in year 2 of my PhD (but that’s for another day and place to post), all kids are now out of education, well, the little Miss (less little!) is finishing her A levels as I type. Mr Beehive the elder is currently working in London for a well known travel firm and loving it. He’s popping off here there and everywhere- – jaunts this year for him include Egypt, Svaalbard, South Africa and Japan. Mr Beehive the younger is finishing his degree, again, as we speak and now has an agent so is working as a cocktail bar tender until acting gigs come along. The little Miss is taking a gap year and hoping to go overseas to do some community work with Raleigh if she gets accepted.
As for us, we’re still here. We’re having a bit of a weird year having lost a shit ton of money in January due to unscrupulous builders going bust within 6 weeks of taking our money and then having some Ukrainian guests stay with us and subsequently wreck the annexe over the 8 months they were with us due to neglect and lack of any care, giving us several hundreds of pounds of damage..so we’re currently (having found builders) amid a VERY slow build and lots of self (read ‘me) renovation of the wrecked annexe, so this has meant several things.
- I left classroom teaching at the end of 2021 in order to spend time on the PhD and build up Thornhill House and all the homesteading stuff…only I have now gone back to work to try to recoup some of our lost income. That said, I’m not class teaching, so no stress. I’m working for a local firm selling pianos and content writing – which is fun!
- The homestead is currently hard dried mud. The bees did not have a happy wet winter (not due to the build) so we are down to just one hive and feel no need this year to try to build the broods up again, so we’re having a short break as we just feel we are trying to juggle too many plates.
- I have spent a lot of time repairing and redecorating the annexe so that we can ‘hopefully’ air b and b it for next season to gradually bring us back to being able to work from home again.
- We lost two years to Covid!
All in all, here we are in June already!
It’s not all bad news, by any stretch. Those of you who have been with me since my days of ‘Across the Pondlife’ back in 2005, may be interested to know that it is going to print! My editor is currently working on it with me and I hope that towards the end of 2023, we might be seeing a physical hard copy of Across the Pondlife, which I’m very excited for.
We’ve also done a LOT of walking. We did Hadrian’s wall last summer, walked 1000 miles boots on over the course of the year, which also included a couple of overseas jaunts in Morocco and climbing Mount Batur at 4am in the morning in Bali (it was honestly worth it).
My brother in law got married too…that’s exciting news! He’s married a fabby…Jo, who I am so thrilled to have as a new sister-in-law…but they’ve subsequently moved to Malaysia for three years (it’s okay Jo, I get the hint!). It’s gonna give us some great excuses to travel over there. I think I’ll have to work seriously hard on my uphill though if I’m going to tick off Mount Kinabalu in Borneo whilst we’re there.
Oh and Millie…hmm, not sure I mentioned her? We caved to our mid life crises and are now the proud parents of a camper van! We’ve done lots of local UK travel in her so far but are now waiting for Mr Beehive to fully retire so we can go up to the north of Norway for a month or so.
Anyway, it’s good to be back!
Thornhill House 