I said how all the posts were bubbling up like geysers. Now I am drowning in them, and I don’t know where to start! So lets start with this one…

I am 62 now. My how time has flown, and it has made reconsider….

In 2023 I wrote a post about us not getting into debt. After that post we slogged on, paying to renovate the house as we saved up. But as we have got older, it has got harder, especially when working full time. We reduced RD’s hours to a 4 day working week because he was doing the main renovations but each year got to be more and more of a slog. I realised that if we are lucky we will still be here in 10 years time, but we would have been renovating the house for at least another 5, and then who knows, may not have been in a position to enjoy what what had done.

It has been over 10 years since we moved to France, 9 years since I found the Tao, which made me think about how we get debt and then are tied because of it. Tied to a job you hate, tied to no frivolity, too tied to make change, and it made me fearful of any kind of debt, in this material world.

But France taught us about managing money, if you don’t have it, you can’t spend it, and do you really need it? This made us think about what we really needed, to walk away from something too expensive, to make our money work.

But in this case, the answer to me was that we did need it, the house needed the renovations, especially the bathroom. But I deliberated long and hard, over a year in fact. I watched RD get more and more knackered, even working 4 day week. I realised it was not the loan, it was how long it would take us to pay it back that was scaring me. How long would we be caught on the hamster wheel? It was that which was frightening me.

In Ireland they have Credit Union Banks. Each specific to the area it serves. Now my favourite film of all time is ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ – perhaps this was life showing me the way?! Looking into it we could get a loan, but because you’re charged interest daily you can choose to pay more off and reduce the term of the loan with no penalties. It was what we needed, and we got a loan to finish the house (All insured of course!)

I no longer have the luxury of thinking my life will go on ad-infinitum, I need to seize the here and now, and enjoy my life, and our home. Being the homebodies that we are!

So…I am writing this post from our pretty little summer house. It will serve as an extra bedroom when people come to stay, and as our sanctuary. No TV just nature. We do have a disco light and a speaker for when we want to go clubbing, albeit in our jimbies!

We have placed the summer house to look across our paddock, it gives us privacy from people walking past the driveway, and enables us to look at the blossom trees planted with the ashes of our beloved puppies, Wiglet, Harley and Snowy The Dude. The weeping tree has our beautiful Diddies beneath it.

We feel a good energy in it, and the girlies feel it too.

Sitting here now, at the start of 10 days annual leave, wine in hand, listening to the trees rustling brings us closer to nature. Something we are choosing to do more and more in this horrendous world of man we currently live in.

More to come…..

Moisy