Ayse's 'Occasional Blog'
Thursday 3rd February 2022
A New Start
It's been a while since I posted anything at all to my website. A case of inertia coupled with a decent dollop of indolence plus the fact that both I and my wife have had a very busy few months from August until now. It was in late July that we finally made the decision to move from the house that we had lived in for over 27 years. With both of the boys having finally flown the nest, it was too big for us and we had been talking for years about either moving to somewhere new or spending a lot of money on the old house to do it up (it needed a new roof for starters) and that was going to eat up a big chunk of my retirement pot. So we finally made the decision to find a new home. Neither of us are getting any younger and something smaller with a more manageable garden fitted the bill.
We sold our house very quickly (and for more than we expected) and started the hunt for our 'forever' home. That proved to be more difficult than we expected, the boom period resulting from the stamp duty 'holiday' had passed and estate agents had relatively few properties on their books. After viewing quite a few properties, we went to see a nice bungalow only about 20 minutes away from our old house and immediately fell in love with it. It was very well appointed inside, with a great kitchen and bathrooms - and no stairs. We would have to get used to having less space as we would effectively be losing two rooms - although it did have a rather nice cabin in the garden! After a few false starts, we finally moved into the bungalow on 14th January. Getting stuff to storage and then packing up took a long time but the moving day went off without a hitch. We still have boxes everywhere and a double garage full of 'stuff' but we're in and delighted with the decision we made. We have ideas about some alterations we want to make, but all of that will come in good time - or tomorrow, if Jayne has her way.....
So, a new chapter home-wise hopefully also leads into a new beginning as far as Le Mans is concerned. Le Mans 2020 was exceptionally hard for me, having made the decision to miss it for the second year running. James F and Tony made the trip and by all accounts (and lots of photos and video) they had a great time, largely unaffected by Covid. They even managed to get into one of the restaurants on the Mulsanne to watch the test day, an experience which left me very envious! Even though the state of play with the Omicron variant is still causing concern, I've now been triple jabbed and feel that I can safely commit to going back to Le Mans this year. I'm not sure if I could deal with missing it for a third year. In all seriousness, I would start worrying whether I was ever going to get back...
So as we speak, tickets have been purchased by James F, ferries organised and hopefully rooms at our hotel booked as well. I guess I don't feel as excited about it as I normally would at this time, because I've been in this position before and the last couple of years have shown us that we can no longer take anything for granted. I have plenty to do with the new house to keep me busy and my New Year's resolution is to lose a decent amount of weight, a process which has started, albeit gently, thanks largely to the exertions of shifting boxes and furniture around over the last month or so!
With a bit of luck, I'll be updating the site more often over the coming weeks and months, as the entry list starts to firm up. I also have a number of tickets that I've acquired recently to scan and upload, so keep looking in for more news....
PS. After putting together a 'story' page for the 2020 event, I have decided against doing the same for last year's race. What I will do, however, is post a selection of the photos that I was sent by James F and Tony, plus those from Toby, who was there again, working for G Drive (Algarve Pro).
