01.03.2022: My weather forecast app promised me to have rain all day long! It said during the early morning hours it might rain less. So I decided to get up early and avoid heavy rain showers. Luckily it did not rain at all (almost) during my walking time. When I returned to the van it started with some drops and now I feel quite comfortable sitting in a dry van. Lucky me, what a day! A special Day!
Yesterday I did not do any walking on the path. The reason for that kind of laziness was that I had to fulfill my duties: I had my last day of work …. for a long long time. Exactly 3 months and even more positively expressed „almost 100 days“. That should last to do the remaining 600 miles on the path!
So I chose a mobile office place with a view to finalize my work and do final handovers etc.:
I decided to stay here during the night to be able to start with my walk at sunrise (or whatever it is called, I think dawn). My alarm clock was set to 6:15 but as I went to bed fairly early I walk up before 6am with a good sign: my smartwatch told me that my body batteries had been recharged up to 99% and even after 18km of walking my body still feels like 60%. I like that!
Coming back to my topic of the day: Sabbatical. I decided to take a Sabbatical some years ago and initially I thought of 9-12 months. I had a huge project in my mind which would certainly need that long time or even longer to get a success. The idea was to buy an old Cornish Cottage which would need some kind of deep renovation. The vision: a holiday home and a place for retirement. But due to Brexit things did not work out as visualized. And some years ago I had the chance to do a kind of work and travel. Actually, it was only two days of travel and 10 days of really hard physical work. But I needed that as an office and brain worker. I helped my friend Ben as good as I could to convert an old Cottage. At least I used a sledgehammer for the demolition of the old extension and I used the push barrow several days to bring the concrete and stones behind the building to prepare the foundations for the new building. That experience really helped me a lot to bring my cottage conversion vision back to reality: No, that is not something I want to do for a complete year!
Hence, I re-thought about my sabbatical and the duration. I had the desire to stay in the UK for a longer period, at least 2-3 months. No further explanations. The result is NO COTTAGE but a VAN and a good combination of daily activities on the SWCP and educate myself about all these new media, which I always wanted to spend some time for but always procrastinated, well did not have the time for due to several other reasons.
Now, you should understand why today is a good day, a special day for me. Come on, be happy and enjoy together with me 🙂