Now, that seriously confirms I'm a Boomer - no one under 60 remembers THAT song!
“Where have you been?” You ask.
Well, I took the year off to attend “Life School”. I attended crash courses in the areas of Persistence, Resilience, and Flexible thinking.
Let's start from where I left off a year ago.
Little did we know, when we sold our house on Christmas Eve of 2021, that house sales were riding the crest of the wave and that in January, that wave would crash, dumping anyone whose house was on the market head-first into a massive property slump.
This graph says it all! That is some dive!
Housing Market Sees Biggest Slump in 40 Years.
Andrew and Lara were among the victims.
So began our lessons in the area of Persistence.
We watched as they went through open home after open home. Anyone who has sold a house will know the traumas of open homes, but they did it religiously, week after week, month after month!
And our lessons in Resilience. We felt the highs and lows of offers made and offers lost. We trudged through every lifestyle property on the market, and they made offers on most. They were amazing teachers …… Persistence and Resilience nailed with excellence.
Our course in Flexible Thinking saw us dodging covid by becoming the proverbial peripatetic parents scampering between the homes of our offspring as the virus wreaked havoc in their households.
Nope – we never caught it! Appears we outran the little buggers!
In the meantime, our Tiny house was being built.
In March 2022 our house was completed and begging to be lived in. Instead, we towed her off to storage where she stayed for a long, long time!
Finally, by the end of November 2022 we decided we had to take the plunge and find some land to rent. Flexible Thinking Course completed!
We found a beautiful spot, committed to the landowner, built the driveway into the paddock and our spot was signed and sealed.
We were very happy. It has great potential …. Next best thing to living with Lara and Andrew
Two weeks later....... Guess what?
And a month after that, they moved into their beautiful Lifestyle block only 12 minutes up the road from us.
Happy endings all around.
Getting Set up.
Steve and his team from City Scaffolding got stuck into setting up the house, the deck and the pod – She’s a pretty big job! But they had it positioned and safely secured within a day – One of the joys of Tiny houses.
By this stage, it was almost Christmas. My elderly parents had flown all the way from South Africa and were staying for a few months. Living in the tiny house was not an option, so we continued to flit between our children’s homes. Everyone got to know each other really well. It was a lovely time leaving us with lifelong memories of the cohabitation of 4 generations.
During this time we continued setting up and managed to tick off the following tasks.
Solar panels completed.
Thanks to Pete and Mark from Renewable Energy Solutions.
Water tanks, wastewater, plumbing connections, and toilet installation completed. Thanks to Yours truly, Plumber Extraordinaire.
Pretty Impressive for a seventy-something-year-old! That space under the house is much tighter than it looks!
Starlink Fitted.
And we got one of those awesome TVs that look like a photo frame or painting.
Curtains and blinds (Thanks to Shelly from Curtain studio)
I will go into more detail about all these things in my next blog.
My parents left in February after a traumatic last two weeks dogged by Covid, isolation, and a massive dose of Shingles!
(And I STILL didn’t catch it!)
Thank goodess we got a medical certificate to get them on the plane because 2 days later........
Cyclone Gabrielle!!
New Zealand was hit by not one, but two cyclones in quick succession. The worst floods in living memory! Houses under water, devastating slips in numerous places, and whole towns buried in silt.
Sadly our ex-homes fell victim to the slips. Many of our neighbors and the new owners of our house (see post 1. Boomers go Tiny) were left homeless. Most are left with houses that will need to be demolished. It's hard to explain the sadness felt by everyone in our region.
For those of you not in New Zealand, you should google it! Terrifyingly awful.
0ver 50 trees blew down on the farm where our Tiny house is parked.
"Did our tiny house blow away?"
Not at all! It stood firm with absolutely no damage. Thanks to these little beauties!
Well done Steve Fortune GREAT tie-down method!
"Did our solar panels blow away?"
Not at all! In fact, the lights continued to work throughout the weeks of storms and bad weather. Neighbours in our area were out of power for two weeks. We lent our children and then our landlord our backup generator! No backup was needed for our Solar System. A shining light in the darkness…. Metaphorically and literally speaking.
Tiny Homes Rule!!
Knowing our Tiny house was as safe as it could possibly be, (I’ll never use the term “As safe as houses” again!) we decided it was time to end our nomadic lifestyle and move in…. But more on that next time.
Have a lovely day. See you soon (NOT in a year this time!)