On Long Term Plans…

Morn­ing every­one! Today’s blog post is a reflec­tive one… long term plan­ning. Do you have plans for your future? Is buy­ing a house next on your list after get­ting mar­ried, or do you already have one? And is it your home for life?

Plan­ning a future together… the dream

I don’t talk much about me on here (the lit­tle men in my head are already shout­ing “boooooor­ing”;) but I’ve spent the last few days in the Lake Dis­trict where I grew up, and yes­ter­day on the jour­ney home we were think­ing — as we always do! — about mov­ing there for good one day.

This is the vil­lage I grew up in — pho­tographed from a bench at the top of the hill you can see the sea in the dis­tance. Turn around 180 degrees to see the moun­tains… it’s beautiful.

Cheshire is all very well, and Gareth’s lived here all his life. But as a cou­ple we’re ready to think about our future together — long term. Gareth has a thing for Devon and Corn­wall, while I love the Lakes. The more time we spend there though, the more he loves the moun­tains and quiet coun­try­side — and maybe one day we’ll make our home in the hills.

It’s funny how you set­tle with some­one and as the years go by your plans seem to con­verge very nat­u­rally: we both love the coun­try­side and can’t stand the city. We both want to move some­where iso­lated, rural and quiet — so long as there’s broad­band, a post office and a shop we’ll be happy!

In a few years’ time when Gareth’s kids have flown the nest we’ll be set­ting out on a new adven­ture — to find a peace­ful lit­tle cot­tage away from the traf­fic and light pol­lu­tion, with a cosy kitchen, room for a comfy sofa and a lit­tle art room and music room. We’ll sell up and lit­er­ally skip away from our house in the town to some­where we can feel a lit­tle more free­dom, enjoy our gar­den and a bit of the good life!

The per­fect coun­try cot­tage? This one’s a bit big for us, but the loca­tion is per­fect. One day…

We’ve lived together for about twelve years now, and rather than being in the first stages of an excit­ing adven­ture it feels like we’re strolling through life together and as a lit­tle fam­ily. Our path onwards is smooth and set­tled: we’re both self-employed and can make our home any­where — and there’s noth­ing to tie us to the city.

Per­haps it’s because we drifted into liv­ing together and moved house a cou­ple of times that we never really sat and thought through our future together. Maybe if we’d had a wed­ding (there’s still time but it’s as likely to hap­pen when I’m 60 as any other time!) we’d have thought harder about where we lived and where our life together would take us. I don’t know.

The funny thing is, nei­ther of us are plan­ners… we take life as it comes. It’s only now (as I reach the grand old age of 35!) that we’re really con­sid­er­ing the years ahead of us. I thought of ask­ing brides and grooms: do you have a long term plan for your future? Where will you be in 30 or 40 years from now? And has get­ting mar­ried got you think­ing and mak­ing your own life plans?

Claire xx