So I’ve been away from hive for the past few months more or less. While the UK was under the tier system I was running around the country trying to find a new home to set up in. Not because where I was was terrible or insecure, or due to me needing to find somewhere. The move and the process was a tricky one so in this post I'm just going share the experience and random photos of settling in.
One day my partner and I sat down and looked at the state of things around us which lead to us asking ourselves some serious questions we had been quietly asking ourselves for a while... are we going back to normal as a society? Nope. Is mass joblessness on the horizon? Yup. Is there a chance of new variants or vaccine enhanced disease? Dunno, but maybe.... can't say as just don’t know. Are the people in the rural area I live morally aligned with the type of people we are? Nope. Despite being rural/semi rural the area I lived in had an insanely high crime rate of which most crimes were violent assault and sex crimes. Wasn’t as bad when I moved there. But County line drug gangs had ruined what could be an idyllic area. Add to that most of the areas population was well... heathen? Lost in a sea of booze, drugs, and their own genital fluids. Forgotten daughters and sons angry at their mothers grown middle aged and nasty, sneaky, just ick.
There were good people like my neighbours, but even they said if they could leave they would. That the area had become worse than when they moved to it. I’ll actually miss them in truth as we were all close. But was this where I wanted to be as things slowly began to worsen around us? As people lost jobs, food prices swelled, and people potentially became erratic and angry... again nope. I didn't expect a shit hits the fan situation and still don't. But things are changing so we wanted to be in a more rural setting with less risk as they do.
So we started a hunt not to buy, but to let. Despite being in a comfortable position to buy we both felt property price is due to shrink soon. No point selling what we have to buy more, or liquidating anything just yet. We both had invested in preparing for what covid has done long before it happened and have done ok. Crypto playing a huge role in that. We just needed a spot that was safe, rural, no large populations in striking distance, and low crime. We needed ground to grow food on, preferably an elevated position (floods and the like are a concern in rural UK), and a long lease while we sat and sorted buying woodland, and potentially another house.
The chaos of the first day in the new place... and an unhappy dog
In the UK hitting all this criteria was tough and finding a landlord who was willing to accept a dog was tougher. Our hunt took us from Sussex to Lands End and all the way into Wales. We were stopped by police, questioned over covid violations (Wales was the worse for this), had landlords gagging for us to be their tenants but what they had didn’t fit what we wanted, and shot down by others for a variety of odd reasons time and time again.
Chaos of unpacking a kitchen
The reasons for the shooting down could be the dog, or that we were assumed American... I’m a dual citizen and was raised there so I do sound like I’m from the south, my partner is Canadian... somehow that equated to being Trump supporters? It was lunacy. Despite being born in London, half of my family being English, having explained I live here and chose to come back here to live in adulthood... I still was a Trump voter because I sound southern... yes literally. We had a landlord shoot down our application to let after meeting him because of political hysteria. Despite offering to pay a full years rent upfront, having impeccable credit, and impeccable records in public service and the like. Despite me saying when the topic was forcefully brought up that I don’t care about politics or like either side of the aisle. It was just a nope outright followed by being ranted to about... you guessed it.. American politics. Again the experience reinforced my view that people are starting to become dumber. It’s driven by media and movements on both sides atm, but once hard economic realities set in I’m not confident it will be a pretty picture.
The view in the morning and a lazy old girl in the snow
Towards the end we almost gave up, but then adjusted our strategy.... who are the biggest preppers in the world who heavily subscribe to strategic relocation? Government and the upper upper Rothschild grade crust... where do they go? What’s their rural retreats in this country? The unknown non google ones. The place their kids live rather than their historic family “seats”... Rats know when to abandon a sinking ship and know what direction to swim after all, so why not swim in the direction the rats are swimming. This started a new search that brought up loads of potential places in Scotland, but that was a no go. We love Scotland, but I still needed to be able to at least reach vulnerable family in the event of a crisis within five hours. Next we landed on really really unsuspecting locations in England and Wales. With some deep diving and a lot of phone calls we found an area that if one wasn’t looking they’d miss. An area that has massively important money and hidden government infrastructure most drive right past the maze of turn offs to. To check these places out we had to have an excuse to travel if we were stopped by the police enforcing covid restrictions. So we had to book a lot of things to provide excuse and legalise our movements. Again this was a nightmare. After a lot of searching the hunt began again for a suitable rental in the area we picked to hunker down in for a bit.
A roaring fire and relaxing dog
Everyone knows moving house is a bitch and a half. But doing so with a lockdown setting in was way worse. Most removals companies were fully booked, couldn’t be asked, or would outright try to price gouge. So we had to buy a new car. What we were using wasn’t suitable to rural anyway. So I wanted truck, my other half a safe car. I’d say truck, she’d say estate (what we call station wagons in the states).... in the end I lost and we got an Audi estate. However I still pretend it’s a truck (I abuse the hell out of it), and it got all my furniture and possessions here so it wasn’t to bad. It even handles off road alright. I still had to do a lot of gas guzzling trips back and forth over long distances, but it worked out.
lounge finally coming together
In the end we managed to settle in ok. Our suspicion regarding the area we moved to were correct... lockdown may as well not be happening in these hills. Everyone seems to be doing their thing with less than two recorded covid cases for miles. Small shops and farm set ups are doing brisk trade, people socialise and greet each other normally, neighbours seem to be being neighbours, and friends being friends. It’s like a bubble of sorts. We found a spot that ticked all boxes, the dog is happy, and work around growing food, buying woodland, networking with locals to get hunting permissions, metal detecting permissions, and house hunting has taken off.
I’m hoping to tokenise the efforts here on the hive block chain as we do this so it’s kind of a post to mark that. The end goal is a successful year here, move to woodland, start a zero impact life on that with houses to rent out for passive income, share the journey with others if able. I grew up in the states hunting, fishing, growing my own food, and close to the ground I lived on as did my partner so we should hit these goals as we have a starting base of knowing what we are doing. Worse case scenario let the world lose its mind and be self sustaining enough to shut it away. Best case have the life we always wanted with each other anyway. Again big goals, but we got locked into position a while ago for this. The crypto bull run has been a god send in these efforts.
Lounge and blogging desk... and ugly ass curtains left by the last person who lived here
Well guys that’s it. This was just a post I’m using to ear mark the beginning of what we are doing in response to a changing world. I’m hoping now that we are settled in I can begin the various posts on growing food, self sustaining or at least cutting costs, and the general follow on with what comes next in a “new normal” world. I’m only doing this on hive as I gave up on Steem and overall prefer hive even though it’s not rising in the crypto ranks. I still see it as my native blogging patch and have a soft spot for it. Again thank you so much for reading and looking forward to checking out all the awesome posts and projects you wonderful folks put up.
the most important person during the whole move being happy
image credits:
Lancashire evening post
Upad.com
my ipad and phone