In 2015 Kevin (🇿🇦) and I (Lottie 🇬🇧) moved into a caravan and spent the next 2 years slow traveling our way around South Africa, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Botswana. We fell into this off grid lifestyle simply because we wanted to travel, to live life on the open road and go where our hearts called us. It wasn’t an intentional decision, it was a whim based on one of us saying “let’s pack things into a caravan and explore”
What neither of us expected was to feel like we’d found our way home, a way to fuel our wanderlust and to break free of societal expectations and constraints, to deal with a lot of shit from the past few years, and to really get to know ourselves. And each other.
This time allowed us to conjure up dreams, to think big and to prove that we really can live life to the beat of our own drums. We found ways to work online before working online was the norm, took on projects, got involved in local communities and went where the wind took us.
Our desire to live a life that sets our souls on fire was born.
In 2017, we switched #vanlife for #boatlife and fuelled our wanderlust by bobbing around England’s waterways. This move was part of a 5 year plan that culminated in us moving back overseas to buy property. Our vision was to create somewhere that combines all our passions: travel, meeting people, community development, music and entertainment, tourism and tiny homes. An eclectic mix of passions 🤦🏼♀️
We’ve spent 4 years onboard Hamba Kahle (pronounced humber gartley and Zulu for ‘Go Well’), our floating home. We designed her from scratch and purposefully made a home that didn’t fit the very typical image of narrowboats that so many people have. She stands out from the crowd with her tribal artwork and inside the reverse layout means our kitchen (with wine cellar is at the back, living space in the middle with an open plan office that converts to a separate room with bunk beds, a bathroom (with the world’s smallest washing machine) and then our bedroom is at the bow of the boat.
As continuous cruisers, we moved every two weeks and got to see familiar places from an all new perspective as well as discover all new places.
But, almost 3 years into our 5 year plan everything changed…
In March 2020 the world ground to a halt as a tidal wave of chaos and uncertainty consumed us. In April 2020 this little lady turned our world further upside down.
Long days and weeks of Kev being absent because of work meant a constant struggle with loneliness and isolation – both made worse by the pandemic. Lucky not to be furloughed for long, he ended up missing so much family time not being able to say no to work.
We knew something needed to change – life felt so far removed from the life we’d designed where we lived on our terms. Suddenly boat life was a strange mix of being nomadic but also stuck. It felt lonely, isolating and a little dull.
Added to that, mum, like so many others, spent 2020 tied to a screen. Working long days guiding Guildford through the pandemic in her role as leader of GBC, slowly took its toll and a lighter lifestyle started calling.
On a bit of a whim I started looking at properties that would work for us to create the life we’d imagined at the end of our 5 year plan, but earlier and closer to home.
Soon the idea of ‘escaping’ the daily grind, creating a slower pace of life, taking a step back, spending less time online, and being closer to nature, consumed all of us. Hours were spent pouring over maps and property listings, making lists of things we’d like in a property, ideas of what we could do when we found the place.
Our vision got clearer and clearer and we started taking steps towards a massive lifestyle change…
But, while I was adventuring and nomadding, No31 was my home and safe space.
Mum and I moved there in 1988, when I was 6, and she turned the old Victorian house into a home (#GlenlocharHouse isn’t her first renovation rodeo!)
“When I moved to Guildford in July 1988 I promised myself that I would give my daughter a safe and comfortable home. This was after several years of frequent moves, and the prospect of concentrating on making a Victorian house into a home was a great distraction. The cellar was still full of coal, there were gas mantles around the house, a copper in the kitchen for hot water and a gas geezer in the ‘modern’ bathroom that shook and gurgled as if it was about to explode, delivering a mere dribble of hot water.”
Not only did mum make No31 home, she made Guildford home too. Affectionately nicknamed queen of Guildford, mum had been a GBC councillor for 15 years when she stepped down in March 2021.
I didn’t think mum would ever want to leave Guildford, or that if ever be ok selling No31! But as we talked more and more about our plans, I realised mum is as ready for a new chapter as the rest of us! In fact, the whole concept of selling No31 and us all making this change together, was her idea. It’s true that you can’t contain an adventurous spirit!
Life in Glenlochar is going to be very different to life in Guildford town centre – no popping to Waitrose for the forgotten milk, walking into town for a potter about, no bumping into eleventy hundred people you know every time you leave the house.
I’m proud of, and incredibly grateful to, mum for wanting to embark on this adventure with us ❤️
And we’re excited to share our journey with you as we restore Glenlochar House to its former glory as a family home.