One of my best friends recently asked this question whilst we were on a video chat. We were discussing what we’d been up to recently and he just came out with ‘so what do you DO all day?‘ with some serious emphasis on the ‘DO‘. It made us both laugh but got us thinking …..
Is this something that a lot of people think? Does everyone wonder what on earth we do with our time?
Well we are still enjoying life in our lovely cool Airbnb apartment in the beautiful village of Middleton Cheney and well settled into the rural Northamptonshire life. Been here nearly 8 weeks with a couple more to go but what exactly is it that we do? We don’t work and have hardly any possessions so what the heck is going on?
Daily Treks
As so many of you will know by now we love walking and hiking, or tramping or whatever you might call it. We get out every single day for at least a 4 mile walk and dependant on the weather it’s either boots and fields, or trainers and village. We prefer boots but it has been fairly wet lately.
Lifestyle Planning
Sounds impressive and depressing in equal measures doesn’t it? Like some sort of new age commune where we sit around discussing work-life-balance and where we see ourselves in five years time!
Not exactly, in fact not at all. We do a lot of research on places to go, a lot of monitoring our finances, a lot of journey planning. Try to make the most of every day and every pound.
Family and Friends
Most importantly we work very hard at keeping in touch with everyone that we care about and put aside time every single day to email, text, WhatsApp, and message as many people as possible. With our nomadic lifestyle it would have been so easy to lose contact with everyone that we knew so we have worked very hard since that first day on the road to stay in touch. Unbelievably important to both of us.
Games and Messing About
So much messing about! In the nicest possible way of course but regular Bananagrams, Sequence, Wordle, Nerdle, and others keep us amused. Always a couple of books on the go and Jo sews and knits pretty much every day.
And we do watch TV, of course we do. But we try to limit it to evenings only as we think daytime viewing is a slippery slope to vegetating and doing a lot of nothing. So post-dinner watching is our thing and although we love films we do have a few TV series on the go currently that we occasionally dip in to ;
- Sneaky Pete on Netflix
- Peaky Blinders on BBC
- Upload on Amazon Prime
- Mad Men on Amazon Prime
Oh and we still do the occasional bit of housesitting if we can. Looked after our friends little terrier Bear last week for a few days in Melksham.
Exploring
It goes without saying that we love to get out and about and explore as many places as we possibly can. We didn’t really appreciate just how many wonderful towns and villages were within easy visiting distance. Over the past few weeks we’ve had days out in …
All within a short drive and all jam-packed with history and oodles of character. Well worth a visit and we hope to be back to every single place very soon.
So our days are pretty busy as you can see but you’ll have to excuse me now as I need to put my boots on. There’s a muddy field calling our name ……
01/03 – 18/03/2022
JWalking 
Sounds like an awesome life. I particularly appreciate your walks, and the pics you shared is so cool. Thanks for sharing!
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Not a bad life and we do our best to get out walking every day exploring as many new places as we can.
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So pleased to read you are continuing to enjoy your days in the countryside!
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Loving every single day and really enjoying the improving weather now. Can’t wait for some warmer sunnier days.
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All sounds very wonderful. There is so much we miss on our doorstep xx
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There really is isn’t there? We get around quite a bit but have still hardly scratched the surface.
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Seems to me you fill your days quite nicely and enjoyably. Lovely pictures! You really have been to some lovely towns and villages on your travels.
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Thanks Liz, yes we do get around a bit and try to explore as much as possible. So much to see everywhere. Hope you’re keeping well?
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And some poor souls never retire because they don’t know what to do with themselves. Just keep on enjoying life guys.
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Doing our best to make the most of each day. It’s a tough job but someone has to do it.
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Perfect! Now that we’re both retired people sometimes ask us that question and our answer is “whatever we feel like”. It’s heaven.
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Exactly, thats the honest answer isn’t it? We can do whatever we want. Brilliant.
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Everyone will tell you that they’re really busy all of the time but given the choice I know what sort of busy I’d prefer and that would be what you’ve got mate. Busy by choice doing exactly what you want to do and when you want to do it. One day!
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It’a a hell of a life but going very well so far.
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It’s sounds like you have a really good balance, not too much of any one thing.
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That’s the secret I think, mixing it all up and having a variety of things to do.
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Your days sound very full and contented! And I’m with you on daytime TV. I get the ‘ What do you do’ now and again as a housewife. I’m not sure what people imagine I do 🤷♀️
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Daytime TV just seems a little dangerous and we only give in to it if we’re unwell.
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Sounds like you are keeping very busy and as you say there’s always somewhere to explore. Trying to eke out Peaky Blinders, one of my favourite programmes and have just sadly finished the last series of The Last Kingdom such a brilliant series
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Peaky Blinders is great isnt it? Not sure about the new series yet but still better than most things on TV.
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🙂
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I think your lifestyle sounds absolutely perfect. There’s way too much emphasis on “doing” instead of just being and enjoying where you are. Which clearly is what you both do well. Keep on enjoying, walking and making the most out of life. Love all your pics too! 😊
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Thanks so much Miriam. We do try and make the most of every single day.
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Because I only work three days a week (by choice!), I’m often asked the same question. It seems like work-minded people can’t comprehend a life that isn’t filled by work, but I’ve always been very much a work to live rather than a live to work person, and certainly wouldn’t do it at all if I didn’t have to! I have absolutely no trouble filling up my days with things I enjoy far more than working, and it sounds like you’re the same.
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