My last post was in January and here we are nearly at the end of May. Time just seems to fly by and I have already been in my new place 9 months now which seems to have gone so fast.
One of the downsides to living in a townhouse is being close to the neighbours which for first 6 of the 9 months has been a nightmare with a barking sausage dog right next door to me. We have 7 dogs in 8 townhouses so we are all very dog friendly and have no problems with dogs.
We understand dogs will bark from time to time however the townhouse next door had a sausage dog that barked night and day. Everyone complained for many months and finally the tenants were asked to leave at the 6 month mark so life has been very peaceful since then thank goodness. The main problem was they were out all day and the dog was left outside and just constanly barked. I also had never heard them call the dogs name in that whole time which is so weird ie they never told it off for barking or called it inside. Life is very peaceful again and I'm thankful they were tenants and not owners.
Look at my cute dogs face, little Teddy.
On the downsizing front, my single garage still has lots of boxes to go through but I'm taking my time because there's decluttering and there's decluttering. I have a whole china cabinet of stuff in 2 large boxes which I haven't even unpacked. I sold my china cabinet from my old house as there is no room in my small living area so there's no point getting those things out of the boxes as there is no where to put them. I don't want to donate all of it because they are my things that I love so for now my single car garage is my storage area. It's a process and over time I'll go through them again but for now I'm giving myself grace as it was a huge year in 2025 getting the house ready for sale, getting rid of 90% of my furniture. Also moving to a smaller space takes time to rework where things can go and adopting new storage solutions in a small space takes some creativity.
The back garden has grown heaps and is lovely and green and I've finally planted my Glen Large Garlic which I got a couple of months ago. I've got seedlings to plant however I've run out of space so I'll have to remove a few of the summer basil and rocket in order to do so.
As you know I love photography but haven't done much since the kids are now young adults and it's been a big part of my life that has been missing which brought me so much joy. I'm not really into food photography as in styling for food photography even though I take pictures of things I bake. Recently I came across a youtube channel of a Street Photographer called Mike Chudley and I would like to try of this out at some point. I love the way he talks about his street photography like it's a lovely way to get out of the house, getting a good coffee, getting in your step count for the day and if you get some good pics it's a bonus. He says if he didn't have a camera he wouldn't be at some lonely seaside town in the rain looking for things to photograph. He said he has visited lots of places because he has a camera and he gets out and about to explore places he otherwise wouldn't. I love this way of thinking and would have to agree.
For the last few months my friend and I have been doing a little iPhone project sending each other a photo a day. I pop them side by side in a little grid with the date and send it back to her. It's so simple and a lovely way to keep in touch daily without the need for a full on phone conversation in between coffee catch ups.
Another thing I have had to downsize is my camping equipment as we are no longer camping as a family. We had a 3 room tent which I sold before I moved house and I also sold 4 large stetcher beds that were really heavy and took up a lot of space. I have now bought a Coleman Northstar Instant Up 6 Lighted Darkroom Tent which I love. My friend and I are going to start going camping and we went in March to test out the new tent.
It's weird to me that the camping industry still measures tent capacity using the absolute maximum number of sleeping bodies that can physically fit on the floor — not how people actually camp. The rating system came from lightweight hiking/backpacking logic, where saving weight mattered more than comfort. Manufacturers kept using those numbers because bigger capacity figures sell better. Ideally you half the number so a 6 person tent in reality holds 3 people and in our case one stretcher on one side, one on the other and a walkway between the two with Teddy in between at the head of the stretcher.
I was going to go for the 4 person tent as it packed up smaller however the inside measurements would only fit the stretchers and there would be no room for a back pack at the end of the bed. I'm super happy with what I got because it's a good internal size and it comes with strip lighting on the ceiling that you either pop batteries in the battery pack or use a USB power bank which is very handy having lighting already installed. Also it has darkroom technology and I swear when your eyes were open or shut in the tent it was the same darkness so makes it easy to go to sleep at night.
I also bought a small stretcher which packs up to 28cm so it all helps with having smaller items to store in the garage and having smaller items to pack in the car to go camping. Here's a few photos from the first camping trip in about 5 years.
Our camp site set up.
