18 Months on..

So, it's been a while since our last post, here's an update...

The businesses are going well.  Linda now has lots of regular customers and the house is often packed with dogs!  Phil also has a number of clients as well as doing some consulting at a city council, so it's slowly building up.
Being your own boss is great!

Since our last post we have also got engaged and moved house.  We are now lucky enough to live in a lovely little cottage deep in the Shropshire countryside, and loving every moment!

Our new future!

Following the post below, we now finish work on Friday 25th March..

Plans for the new businesses are rumbling on, and the websites are now up and running.
The main one is for our Bookkeeping/Accountancy business, which we have decided to call Severn Bookkeeping www.severnbookkeeping.co.uk We will be hoping to build the business up over the next couple of years.

In order to generate some further income we have also set up Best Friend Petcare www.bestfriendpetcare.co.uk this is something that Linda will really enjoy building into a hopefully thriving business which we can run alongside the bookkeeping.

Let us know if you have any feedback on the websites!

Post-Trip Update.

Well, we’ve been back 3 months now, and are gradually coming to terms with living in a house! When we first arrived back at home, there was so much space we were following each other from room to room, and we couldn’t get used to having more than one room!
We’ve been gradually bringing all our stuff down from the attic and the house is looking more like a home now.

The return to work was very difficult, and as you can imagine! And everyone there is very glum because of the government cutbacks and the possibility of redundancy.
So our big news is we are being made redundant on 31st March! It’s not bad news as we now have other plans, and the intention is that we will set up our own business. We’re busy working on business plans and websites, and the future looks very exciting!

I’ll update the blog further when the website goes live..

Life in a caravan

Well, the trip has sadly come to an end, as all good things do, we might have had the caravan written off but we both agree that if we could carry on for another year we would!

So what’s it been like to live in a caravan? A lot of people have asked us on the trip and the answer is: fantastic. During the course of the year we have had temperatures ranging from minus 18 to high 20’s, but we’ve always been comfortable in the’van, despite having a big hole in the front for half the trip!

Tips for living in a caravan:

• Go with someone you get on with - you're going to spend a lot of time bumping into each other.
• Take small dogs with you, not large dogs – you’ll keep treading on them (sorry Prince).
• Make sure you have lots of visitors – they remind you of home (thanks everyone!)
• If you buy something new, something else has to leave (think of the weight the car is pulling!)
• Don't rely on there being TV or mobile signal in Scotland.

Trip Statistics
Total number of miles driven:	13,650
Miles ridden on the mountain bike:	860
Miles walked on planned or waymarked routes:	660
Celebrities spotted:	4
Number of split screen VW camper vans spotted:	11
Number of waves received from passing caravans	17
Number of caravans written off:	1
Number of photos taken:	5,600
Number of arguments:	2

We met lots of lovely people on the trip, and it is the people as well as the places that make a trip like this special. So in no particular order we send our love and thanks to Roy and June, Dave and Lorna, Greg and Karen, Martin from Lealholme, Mike and Dorothy, Vic and Vron, Carol and Julian, Anne and Nigel, Julie and Roy, as well as everyone else we met who we didn't know the names of!!

For the nerds out there, the caravan we used for the trip was a 2002 Sterling Eccles Onyx, a single axle 'van with a fixed bed (which we couldn't have done without, no making up the bed every night for us!)

Unfortunately the 'van will now be taken away by a salvage company, and go to caravan heaven..