MOVING ON…

I was off for my usual walk the other day and who should come wandering down the street…..

We have been searching for a community where Luca can wander to and from mates places or go to the library, school, dairy and on adventures etc without having to rely on us to transport him or having legitimate safety concerns that meant he could not.

Here in this tiny village in Otago we have found that.

We were close to getting it in Costa Rica, but others things were out of balance…..speaking of there, I had a message this week with this attached….

Totally forgotten we had left this on La Casa de Edwin’s house keys! People we know from Costa Rica have moved into our old home and sent this to me. Nice to know a little of us remains there 🙂

Saturday morning Football routine continues, Luca and Ted are in the same team and bit by bit the team is becoming more cohesive and getting better.

Luca has also nailed bike riding, and has gone from saying he will never do it, to how much fun it is – HA!!!!

We went out recently to our local, a restored pub, dating back to 1874, really a gorgeous example of a Victorian Hotel…

Talking of food, Rich has really nailed the bread making!!!! Luca and I are so impressed, the kids devour it, it never lasts long, so he is having to bake it regularly. Luca has declared it one of the best breads he has ever tasted! He is right!

The kids are on holiday for 2 weeks and it is science month in Dunedin. The university, museum and local council put lots on, perfect for Luca! He has busy days and restful evenings…:)

As you know we have been looking at properties since deciding to settle down here for an extended period. Dunedin prices are rising rapidly and we soon realized that big compromises would have to be made to get the lifestyle that suits us. With this in mind we made a list:

We want to stay close to Port: Luca loves this school and his friends and does not want to move until high school, (when they all move). This village really suits us, the convenience of everything you need day to day within walking distance, and the freedom this gives Luca is something we really value. The beach and mountains are so close, is a hard combination to beat. The bus timetable to Dunedin is regular and affordable, meaning we don’t have to buy another car and it also gives Luca more options. It has been a long time since we lived anywhere with a regular convenient public transport service out our door. However finding something here is extremely difficult, people tend to buy and stay, for obvious reasons.

We want land: We are just not city folk, we miss having animals, growing a lot of our own produce, being more self sufficient, having space to roam and Luca to adventure and build huts with his friends , not having to worry about disturbing neighbors.

We do not want a big mortgage: Makes us too anxious even thinking about one 🙂

With these in mind we knew we would be buying something few other people wanted. It would be a major reno/build, much like all our other properties, we all agreed we think we have one more in us 🙂

We have found it! I can see it from our current lounge window, across the other side of the village:

It is essentially tiny house living, a converted skyline garage that is open plan except for the bathroom, we will need to add bedrooms in time. In the meantime it is all going to be very “cosy”, good thing we are used to living closely 🙂

This is the entire inside…

So here we go again, the next journey on our path. Barring any complications and it all proceeding as planned, handover is the 6th of September, Pica arrives the week after, we are all very excited, if a little nervous of what we have taken on 🙂