Desert island decisions

It's been a bit of a funny weekend. No karaoke on Friday evening as my friend couldn't make it due to illness and I wasn't feeling too brilliant either so decided to give it a miss. The visit to our foster daughter we had originally planned for Saturday was usurped by her "real" family (who claimed they spend more on her when they take her out so they should get precedence, besides they didn't want to shift to Sunday as they like their Sunday roast) and the boot fair we had planned on Sunday to try and raise money for a forthcoming break away from home in a few weeks time was rained off. Having spent all Saturday exhaustingly sorting through my stash of craft materials to find stuff to sell, this was exceedingly annoying, especially as there will be few such opportunities before we go away, given my husband's shift patterns.

On the good side of things a) we got our van back, although it cost £130 more than we had budgeted for in repairs and b) a very dear friend is on leave next week and decided to use one of her precious days off to visit me, so there is that to look forward to on Wednesday. And I am now re-learning how to list on eBay, after a gap of some years when my husband has done any listing that needed doing, so the craft stash can be sold off there, more gradually, although not, hopefully, so gradually that we can't get the van taxed before we need to go away, as that would kind of put the kibosh on things..

I am now very much looking forward to the aforementioned break. Thankfully whilst we hang on desperately to the camper van through selling the contents of our home to fund keeping it on the road, it gives us the means to stay somewhere almost as cheaply as being at home, and the target this time is attending a ukulele festival weekend, then moving on afterwards to spend some time with my father and his partner at their home in the Lake District. I had reached the grand old age of 48 without attending a music festival (aside from as a craft stall holder at our local Broadstairs Folk Week years ago now) and it was on my list of stuff to do before I die. Ok it's not Glastonbury... but it's equally exciting to me, especially as it is ukuleles! Yay!

Last but not least in this summary of our last few days, my husband and I had a conversation about the "quinking sicksand of life" situation I wrote about in my last blog entry. When we get back from our break, we have decided that the way forward may be to start discussion with social services about how they might help support our son if he was in his own privately rented flat out in the community (ideally I would like it to be sharing with another person with different learning difficulties, for safety). It might be possible to get this lined up at much shorter notice than a placement, which might make it possible to coordinate selling our home with arranging somewhere for him to move into directly afterwards. As for us, if needs be we could live out of our current camper van and whatever we might be able to get in the way of an elderly dilapidated two-person tiny caravan until the money side of things and a more permanent live-in vehicle solution was sorted.... and of course that would remain local for however many months or years it took until we were well satisfied that arrangements for our son were sufficient, permanent and working, and did not need our ongoing additional support to enable them.

Which has brought me to thinking about what one really NEEDS in life, as opposed to all the stuff we THINK we need. We are going to have to make do with a very small amount of room to live in, in the future... so everything we bring with us into that life has got to be either essential or one of a small group of very limited things there because they are wanted rather than needed. It's amazing what people accumulate in life, and we are prime examples of this... piles of books, cds, dvds, electronic equipment, stuff related to hobbies, stuff related to old past hobbies we have well moved on from but "might just take up again one day", photos, items of sentimental value and souvenirs, ornaments and knick-knacks, clothing for all occasions and weathers and accessories thereto, tools, equipment, furnishings, smaller modes of transport. Reducing this to what will fit into a camper van and small towing caravan will be an interesting exercise in clarity about what is really needed in life, aside from one another, the dog, a few clothes, bedding, pots pans and plates etc and a couple of ukuleles. It's a bit like the old question of what's the tiny shortlist of luxury items you would choose if suddenly faced with being stranded on a desert island  (the uke of course being a perfectly suited answer!)