In my picture at the top of the blog are two books by Patrick Rivers.
When Patrick and Shirley Rivers moved to an almost derelict house on steep overgrown land in the Wye valley, they were already nearly 60 years old and found some of the work really hard. Often just as they were on the verge of despair something or someone would turn up to help. Later, when he researched the other book, he spoke to many people who had also found that if they had faith in themselves and the way they were living simply, things often happened at just the right time. He called it The Flow.
That's how it's been for us. We've never sat back and waited for something to happen but when we've worked hard and trusted in ourselves to manage, everything usually turns out OK. All the house moves we did to work our way towards a smallholding always went well, we never lost out but we had to work hard to improve the properties.
When C had the heart problems last Autumn he wasn't able to do the 3 day-a-month council job but then the unexpected extra council work when he was well again in December and January filled a gap which would have meant dipping into savings.
When Council cuts in this new tax year brought his work with them to an end our income fell but our neighbours' gardener has now retired so C will fill that gap to do her grass cutting for her, which means a
regular job with no traveling.
With Easter being late this year our April income from the campsite has been a bit more than usual, which will help us through until we start to sell our produce again.
Last year the irrigation work didn't start until June but we had the Sizewell Outage men on the campsite early in the year before our opening time, which was an unexpected bonus that saw us through.
My part in this Flow thing is to manage the finances and make sure there is always enough for what we need. And also to do as many things as I can for ourselves to save us money.
I'm sure I've written about this before but I make no apologies for repeating myself because if it works for us it might work for others too.
