Something big, and slightly chaotic, happened last week

On moving, breathing easier and spilling tea

We moved.

Last week we moved from our increasingly uncomfortable house to our slightly more comfortable caravan, Colin. In truth, he’s a lot more comfortable. Big windows with amazing views, far fewer drafts and central heating which we rarely even have to use.

After running out of oil some time in February, then having to bleed the boiler to remove the air lock, the boiler then gave up the ghost altogether. The only thing we could attribute it to, that was fixable by us, was the capacitor, so we ordered a new one and waited hopefully for about eight days for it to come to us. It wasn’t the capacitor.

This left us with two options:

1. Pay someone to come and look at it, they would then either fix it or tell us what we think we already know which is that after 30 odd years of service it’s put itself into retirement. Expensive

2. Or to grin and bear it.

We grimaced and bore it. For a couple of weeks anyway. After one week of shivering, wearing a hat and gloves, I moved my office into Colin and then the week after that, once we’d run out of firewood, we moved ourselves in.

Colin the Caravan

If you’d like to get a closer view, you’ll have to head to Instagram as I created a voiceover reel over there on Friday. In my opinion it’s gone viral, well for my little account it has and it’s a little bit mind blowing.

Preparing Colin has been a five weekend epic, starting with scrubbing the walls (two weekends), arranging a carpet and upholstery cleaner and washing the curtains (one weekend), blitzing the bathroom (one weekend) and this weekend, we’ve been tackling the kitchen. The oven and hob still haven’t been touched, I’ll need a heavy degreaser and one of those toxic put in a bag jobs, so I’m off to the local shop tomorrow to see what they have to offer.

The whole thing saw us dismantling most of the inside and then putting it back again. Removing built in furniture, discarding a rusty sofa bed, taking off cupboard doors, dismantling and resealing the shower and sink (we drew the line at the loo, that seemed like a step too far).

At this point I do want to say the state is no reflection on the previous owners, it’s been sitting on the drive for almost a year, we had leaks we didn’t know about and naturally a year of sitting and stagnating will allow mould to grow.

While it’s not perfect and some areas of the carpet and walls will be forever stained, it feels clean, warm, dry and healthier.

One of the many issues with our back boiler is that when it’s not running, there’s a very strong smell of oil (perhaps a small leak). Whilst this in itself isn’t problematic, I developed an irritating tickly cough that peaked at night. I started taking antihistamines again, it is the season, but it didn’t go. Since moving into the van I haven’t coughed once. I can’t definitively say it was the oil, but I’m no longer waking up at 2,3 and 4am with an irritatingly dry cough that can’t be soothed.

That all said, I have just now had a coughing fit, after a bit of chocolate digestive got stuck in my throat, and have thrown hot tea over myself, the bed, the bedside table and a book someone has kindly loaned me…I really hope the book survives.

In spite of all the weekend scrubbing, April has felt like a month off. Client work seems to have slowed down, which I’m grateful for, I know it will pick up again, and I’ve been enjoying the long, rain free days. It’s been utterly glorious and the long standing puddles in the fields have finally dried up.

I was chatting to someone yesterday about how wonderful it’s been and they commented “I wonder what that means for our summer though.” Which got me thinking.

I’m not very good at tracking the weather, I tend to be more in the moment and quickly forget if it rained two, three or five days last week. Any good weather immediately erases the memory of bad weather, but does a good spring automatically mean a bad summer? I hope not.

One of the things I intended to do as part of my new permaculture lifestyle was to track the weather.

I managed January and then stopped abruptly on the 3rd February. We do have someone on the island up at Rackwick with a weather station and sometimes they post monthly stats on the community Facebook group but not always. One thing I do know and can record here is that April 2025 was dry. Even if it rains solidly for the next three days, it would have to be ‘Biblical’ to make up for the beautifully long dry spell we’ve had.

Booky McBookface our mobile library paid us a visit this week.

I’ve always been a fan of libraries and one of the first things I do when I move to a new area is join the library. All those free books! And now we have BorrowBox, Libby and others. I haven’t succeeded with ebooks as I couldn’t find a way to turn the page (just me?) but audiobooks I love. My most recent listens have been:

• The Five by Hallie Rubenhold. I loved it so much I bought the book.

• Orbital by Samantha Harvey. Beautiful in places but it wasn’t for me.

• 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World by Elif Shafak. Powerful, heartbreaking and heartwarming.

• A Flat Place by Noreen Masud. For anyone who loves a flat place and S P A C E. As she quite rightly observes, Orkney is not flat, we have undulations, but we do have open sky.

Trigger warning: A Flat Place is a memoir and Noreen Masud talks about her upbringing and resulting complex PTSD

When I say I loved a book, film, play or TV show, “loved” isn’t always the right word, but it’s better than enjoyed. I loved Prima Facie with Jodie Comer, which I watched as part of my National Theatre at Home subscription. But did I love the story - a well-heeled man drugging and raping women? Did I love that the protagonist used to defend men like that? Of course not. But it’s an important story, brilliantly written and beautifully executed. It made me feel.

And that’s often what I mean by loving something.

Like The Five.

I don’t love the fact that five women were discarded, lied about, dragged through the public eye, seen as “lesser than” - but it’s important to know. We need to know more about the women Jack the Ripper killed than the myth and legend of him. We need to honour and care more for the women he killed than glorify what that man did.

My National Theatre at Home subscription probably sounds a bit wanky and way more “lovey” than it is. I kept seeing adverts for it in December - “this is a perfect Christmas present” - and it was. Thanks, me!

I grew up surrounded by my local Am Dram crowd. My Aunt was heavily involved and naturally they became my Mum’s friends too. The theatre would put on at least two if not three productions a year and always a summer show in the gardens (weather permitting) It was wonderful. Although, in truth I never felt part of it, these people were creative, confident and rich. I was boring, putting on a brave face and we were comfortable (not to be sniffed at). I don’t know what the reality was, I was a child/teenager - feeling awkward and misunderstood is part of the baggage.

But it did instil in me a love for the theatre. Now watching live shows on the telly box, laptop or iPad is really lovely. It started with an adaption of Small Island by Andrea Levy in lockdown and I was hooked. It’ll never quite beat being in the audience, but it still feels visceral, like you’re there, with them.

And so here I am, back in bed with a pot of tea at 12pm writing getting distracted by cows, calves and crows thinking about what needs to be tackled next. Do I tidy my old office and bring what I need through, do I plant my tomatoes out or do I sit back and watch Mosquitoes?

I’m never sure the best time to post on here, but I find Sunday mornings are a good time to write and because the style is generally the week that was, it feels most appropriate to publish immediately. It has got me thinking back to my SubStats and the fact I haven’t looked at them in a really long time.

I know I have 283 subscribers (how?), my average post view is around 220, overall views have increased over the past 30 days (probably because I’m posting more), my recent Aurora note did brilliantly (probably because it’s an aurora!) and two people are still dedicated to paying me for my words and after deciding to turn payments off I’m now wondering if I turn them back on again. I feel a mass SubStats post coming on…maybe that’s what I’ll do next, anything to avoid moving, I’ve done enough of that recently.