Firstly - a celebration 🥂 We are finally in! Me, Ross, Alto, the guinea pigs & our favourite houseplants are in our new home, and it feels SO good.
For anyone who isn’t familiar with our journey, I’ll backtrack a little…
We lived in a home that we really, really loved for 7 years. It was surrounded by good walks and good people, and close to everything we could possibly need whilst still maintaining a rural feel. However, I always had itchy feet. I kept putting off doing new things to the home (like a new floor we wanted, all the better for Alto), because I knew that a move was imminent. This was the case for about 3 years, mind, so perhaps a little premature…
Before 2020, Ross and I were out working out and about Monday-Fridays. Since the paradigm shift that it brought, we have both been working from home, meaning I was running my online business - filming, podcasting, coaching - from the kitchen table. Not ideal!
An opportunity
It then happened that a house came up, off-market, that we wanted to go for, so we did. To cut a very long story short, we put our place on the market, accepted an offer, went through the paperwork… and then right at the end, that home fell through (a common sign of the times I have since learnt!) I look back now on this being the push we really needed to guide us through to the new home we now have & it unleashed a series of fortunate events.
We decided to go ahead with the move and throw caution to the wind. I was raring to go - I had many, many ideas about working from random places in the UK (Exeter! Bath! Scotland!) that probably weren’t the most sensible of locations…and then an angel of a friend pointed us in the direction of a person who was looking for someone to stay and look after their home on a casual basis. This was literally the ‘tick box’ house - in the countryside, further out than we were used to, massive garden, fireplace…perfect!!!
So, we packed our things in storage and headed to the unknown.
What happened from then was:
▪︎ We viewed 22 properties and couldn’t find a thing
▪︎ We moved out at Christmas to my parents (and their 2 dogs). This was great actually as it is a new home compared to the last home we all lived in together, so it was nice to experience living there.
▪︎ We finally found somewhere (completely the opposite of what we had in mind) & reserved it
▪︎ We had the craziest January: Water pipes bursting twice, Ross’s parents catching covid, isolating in the annex, having no date for our next move, Alto having sore foot…I could go on 😆
We then moved to Ross’s parents whilst they were away - again, another wonderful home. By this point though, I was suffering hugely from tension headaches and a sore neck. Although I didn’t THINK I was stressed, as always, my body was poking me on the shoulder (or, actually, banging me on the head) to say “hi, are you ok?” I had to stop everything - emails, podcasts, blogs - and literally just focus on my clients and keeping things ticking over.
The In-Between Time
Our move back to the original country house came along for 6 more weeks - and with it, covid!!! At this point, I was thinking: what more can 2022 throw me?!
This felt like a very liminal time. I was trying so hard to be absolutely grateful for the home we had (and truly, it was a lovely, cosy, wonderful place), whilst trying not to wish the time away to be in the new place. It honestly felt like it would never come, and it weirdly didn’t feel real that we would actually be having a brand new house of our own.
Moving Day
Moving day arrived…and as I type this, it has been solidly sunny weather since we have moved in. It was so incredible to be reunited with our things and to have space of our own - and more so, that the future is a solid vista opening up in front of me, compared to stop starts & just living to the next phase.
We learnt a lot along the way, and I’ll be releasing a podcast episode with some more specifically on moving with a dog, but wanted to leave some thoughts here from a more personal viewpoint:
♥️ You really, really don’t need as much stuff as you think. Seriously, we discarded most of it as each move went on until we have the bare bones, and it makes you much more grateful when you are reunited
♥️ It took about a week for Alto to feel really settled in each place. That’s with him being really resilient, so you might want to give you dog more time, depending on the move.
♥️ We let Alto sleep upstairs on these first few nights until he felt comfortable & I would really recommend this to anyone to help them settle in ASAP.
♥️ Keeping your routine as similar as possible in each place will help you and your dog massively
Different locations will give you a different lens through which to look at the world - so don’t be surprised if you feel differently about things once you move
♥️ Separation anxiety can come up at ANY time, so always be aware of it and film your dog as much as you can when you leave them in a new place
♥️ Everyone says this BUT - the right thing will come along and the ‘right’ homes you look at & miss out on are not always so perfect…we learnt this specifically with one house that I was obsessed with and then learnt of all the problems that it brought to the new owners.
Ultimately, it was the best thing we could have done. Alto is sleeping on the sofa as I write, and if anything, it has taught resilience, patience, and how to make any place feel homely & safe.
Have you relocated or moved in the past year? Share in the comments (everyone loves a good moving home story!)