A Taste Of Luxury

As I wrote in my last post, I’ve recently left the confines of the ‘glorified shed’ to venture on a few small shorts breaks. Both times I’ve been quite happy to return to my rural haven, but what those breaks did do, was highlight our present lack of facilities and the strange glamping existence that we currently lead.

The months we’ve spent here, managing with impromptu accommodation whilst renovating this former workshop, have just become quite normal to us. It’s not until we go away that we realise that we’re actually living some alternative existence.

Our recent Travelodge stay seemed total luxury – I mean bedroom walls, can you believe it? At the ‘shed’ our bedroom is just an area created by strategically placed furniture. The internal walls that we do have are mostly bare, but at the Travelodge they were painted! And oh the bliss of having our own bathroom – don’t worry we do shower, we just have to pop round to my mother-in-law’s to be able to do so.

And then of course there was Pontin’s. Although accommodation was modest, there was a kitchen with a real cooker. At the shed we just have a mini oven and a microwave sitting on an old workbench. I even got to wash up in an authentic kitchen sink; here the arrangement is a series of bowls that sit on an old camping table. Oh how the other half live!

It’s amazing how after some eight months or so of making do, the smallest of things can seem like treasured luxuries.

Don’t get me wrong. We’re managing quite nicely in our little ‘work-in-progress’, but once in a while it is nice to remind ourselves of the niceties of ‘normal’ life. And of course, these reminders spur us on to get things moving here. Of course daily life has a habit of taking over, slowing down progress. To save money, we’re only pulling in people to attend to such matters as plumbing and electrics, for everything else it’s a question of do it as and when we can. But slowly and surely things are happening, and one day we’ll have the home that we really want.

In the meantime there’s always Travelodge!