I Burned My Bra
18 September 2021
Stuart Letton
Well, we both did. Figuratively speaking that is.
We've been "liveaboards" or voyeurageurs, as I prefer to call us, (Def: sailing around peering into folks' front rooms, checking out their eating and shopping habits and generally gawping at their lifestyles) - and doing all that for over ten years. So, after renting our house for the years our little darlings weren't camping out Chez Stuart for free, while saving for a deposit on their own houses, we decided our future, wherever that may take us, was not going to be in Bridge of Allan. It's lovely there but, having spent most of our years in the sun kissed tropics, I think my blood has thinned and Scottish winters can be cruel. Consequently, we're now homeless. And, even more cruelly, unable to claim my first Winter Heating Allowance.
A friend asked us the other day whether all this was a liberating experience. I said at the time, "not really". However, this morning, our final day of house ownership after some 40 years or so and with a complete blank canvas in front of us, on reflection, it actually did feel quite liberating. We can spend some time looking at what's over the horizon, testing out a few geographic options courtesy of AirBnb or, look out, unsuspecting cruising pals....."Thanks for having us. We'll only be here for about a month".
If you live in the likes of Ventura, Salt Spring Island, Avalon or most places we visited in the Antipodes, you might be getting lodgers.
Right now, we're awaiting the arrival of a stork, bringing in GK5. Once we've air-kissed his tiny forehead, in a Covid friendly fashion, while hoping to avoid being seen as making an unseemly, and indecently hasty departure, we'll be on the next Corona Express back to the Seychelles. Antifouling, seal changing and launching await, prior to facing the rigours of the remains of the Indian Ocean, Mozambique Channel and a wheech round the Cape of Good Hope - of course, originally known as the Cape of Storms before the marketing boys rebranded it to avoid scaring away fearty seafarers.
Like us.