Where would you like to see yourself

in say 5/10/15 years time.

Just got to thinking about helen54 thread about moving, and thought where we hope to be....what would you like to be doing.

I'll start.

Well Pat and I are lucky in the fact that our mortgage is near the end, and we have had serious discussions about buying a small holding, which we have been looking into via estate agents.
so for us hopefully a bungalow or cottage with land, so I can have a couple of goats, more chickens, a couple of more dogs, some sheep, pigs etc.,
and hopefully an alloment at my back door.
abit of the ''Good Life''

OK your turn

In 15yrs time I hope that we are still in this house, we bought it to retire (I'm 56)we have a 4bed bungalow and about 1/3rd acre not huge but plenty of room for the dogs (5) and 4 cats and anyone else who wants to come and stay. Admittedly, if we could turn the clock back 20yrs and we had the finances to back us then we would have bought a small holding. But we will just have to make do with open views across the fields at the front and a livery yard at the back and a big veggie plot, no traffic noises and the local pheasants use our drive as a runway ........................ we love it and we are not going anywhere

Sounds good to me hun xxxxx

in 5 years time, so long as we don't add to it, our mortage will be paid off...yippeee

Can't wait. I'll still have to work but we'll be able to do things like taking posh holidays, doing up the house etc.

Haven't really thought further ahead than that.

Of course, if we should win the lottery within that time, I'd like to buy a small estate - i.e. the main house with a few acres, a barn and a couple of cottages. I'd set the cottages up as dog friendly holiday lets and the barn as in indoor agility/dog play area and ideally there would also be a loch or burn too.

Book me in for one of your first holiday lets then

Jeanette

Well, for me the next 10 years will revolve around Mia but in that time I would love to move, dont want anything fancy but at the moment I am squished in a one bedroom flat and Mia has the one and only bedroom so, a house where I can have a room of my own, with a big enough garden for my furries would do me nicely.

If dreams came true then a nice cottage in the country with a bit of land and as many animals as i could fit in!

If you'd asked us 2 years ago We would have said something similar to yourself Steff. Our mortgage is paid off, I paid off and has been since I was 40. So money isn't really the issue for us. We looked in earnest a couple of years ago and couldn't find anything to make me part with either my current house or more money. My youngest at 21 still lives at home and I'm in no hurry for him to leave, my OH is only 48 so still wants and needs to work. They both work fairly locally. Finding something to keep everyone happy was impossible, houses with land in close proximity to london are horrendously expensive and are usually in a bit of a time warp, bought 30 years ago and still have the same decor. I like doing a house up, I enjoy it but think that should be reflected in the price and rarely is. Houses with land are in huge demand locally and people will pay stupid prices and then spend a fortune doubling the size and value, I can't compete with that. I'll have a rethink when my youngest makes a move and in the mean time I'm happy with what I have, I love the house, I should do I've done enough to it and I love the area, the garden is fairly large just not as large as I would like. I do have neighbours but not too close and only at either side none to the back so the garden is secluded. I live in OAP central so not really any hassle from the neighbours, those I can hear are actually several houses away but the kids do have big gobs. My only real issue is as the OAP's pop their clogs or move in with family etc, the houses are being bought up by families so it probably will get noisier with time.

Funny you should ask this Steph, coz Dave has been on and on about it lately (he's been sorting out his life insurance policies etc.) and he said whereas our age difference never really mattered to him (I'm 10 years older!) it does now???!! I won't tell ya what I said to that one though

Anyhoo, he is now getting worried about "a life" he wants before he dies, but he's also worried about the fact that I should be having some of that now, being the 10 years older, and what he doesn't want, is for when he finally downs tools and decides to enjoy this new "life" he wants, I'll be unable to get up off me chair to go with him!!!! Sooo, that's one of the main reasons, he thinks we ought to downsize a bit now, go somewhere hopefully a bit secluded and quiet, so I can enjoy some of the taste of what we're going to have in our retirement, get out of this rat race a bit, all that traffic about when you want to go anywhere, all the noise, blah, blah, blah.

What worries me, however, is the fact that whenever I suggest doing something, something different, or a trip out somewhere, he always seems to come up with some excuse, either "we can't leave the dogs/put them in kennels/get a dogsitter in coz Zena's too young" or "I can't get the time off work" and then when I find something that we can actually TAKE the dogs with us, he then comes up with "don't mean to be funny about it, but to me, that's no holiday, I'll be stressed out all the time worried about leaving them somewhere if we had to" I can't seem to win, so I then turned round to him and said "considering you keep banging on about this "life" you want when you finally retire, what exactly does that consist of then, this "life", coz to me, you don't seem to want to do anything apart from work anyways" So I really don't know, because quite honestly, he has also said he doesn't want to retire coz he doesn't think he could stand the boredom of "doing nothing", whereas me, I couldn't wait to sit here on my a*se doing just that!!!

I think for me, it will be a case of I'll take the reins as per usual, knowing that as long as it has a garage where he can tinker about, and a nice big workshop where he can also tinker about, then he'll be more than happy, together with his big, comfy recliner in front of his 50" plasma watching his American diy'ers hard at it, he'll be happy as Larry! I'll be keeping the conveyorbelt running with cups of tea inbetween playing and walking with the dogs, so that'll make me happy too, I only need my dogs and my friends at the end of the phone or here on the puter, I'm easily pleased!

I'd love to do the holiday lets somewhere, but again, this would be a complete no-no for Dave, because we've kind of done that most of our lives, having had lodgers in whilst I worked full time when we were first married, just to keep up with the mortgage repayments and to have a better way of life (I didn't care how hard I worked back then), and again with the Rest Home and then the Guest House, we've always had other people living in our home apart from this house, and we'd never want to do that again, even if it was further down the garden in a field! That's probably why he wants such seclusion now, and also why he doesn't like people much, he says he has to deal with them all day long and wants a bit of peace from them when he gets home.

Considering he never wants to do anything apart from diy or play with cars, he's in for a real shock tomorrow coz...... I booked him a flight in a glider!!!!!!!! Oh what a laugh I'm gonna have when I blindfold him to take him there!!!!!!!

Can I book a cottage hun........sounds lovely
I'll have a chat to the dream fairy for you

You are lucky with the peacefulness. Obviously we are in a built up area/main drag only 20 mins by car to city centre. Although I have spent all my life in brum, and so has Pat, we are now looking at being in more peaceful mode in a couple of years.

Hummmmmmmmmmm looking a Pat ie size etc I somehow don;t see hand glider and Pat going together, also he isn't not ahppy with heights.

We've disgusted the retirement thing, as I have other pensions plus whatever the state give, Pat will move and but he wants to continue doing Bus driving Part-time.

We like the Scottish Borders (thats our first choice), and have had a number of things to look at around places there, we also like Shrewsbury and Devon. But Devon wouldn't be a small holding....that would be a very large garden.

We had details of 14 acres of land in shrewbury £120 thousand, plans for a 3 bedroom house have been passed.but obviously then you have to build yourself/or get a house built to live in.

I also like Wales, pats abit more picky with Wales as he only like certain places there.

Two years back Pat was very similar to Dave attitude wise though....so I wouldn't be surprised if Daves attitude changes and he'll get that '''life'''