End of March Update

April heralds the end of our fixed rate mortgage and hence we are now free to sell the house and start realising our dreams.

Bad stuff first - our chain-free perfect buyer for our house pulled out and we have had to put the house back on the market. Until it sells we will not have the funds to put all our plans into motion. We have arranged a three month payment holiday for the mortgage, as we have both now quit our jobs and so have no income coming in!

I know some people think we are slightly crazy - what happens in three months if we haven't sold the house? How will we carry on paying the mortgage? Shouldn't we have carried on working? I guess the only way I can explain it is that we both have full acceptance of uncertainty. No one knows what will happen in the future and so there is no need to worry about what hasn't happened yet. We believe that whatever happens we will be resourceful enough to deal with it together. For the first time in years I feel like my life belongs to no-one but myself which is an amazing feeling. 

Now the good stuff! We have had confirmation that our Australian Permanent Residence visa has been granted! We have until February 2013 to enter Australia. It's very exciting. We applied on the 30 May 2011 and the grant came on 30 March 2012 so it has taken exactly 10 months. The estimated processing time on the visa website when we applied was 18-24 months so it's been much quicker than expected. 

The camper van is practically finished - Nick is just finishing off some final electrics and before we set off we will get it all serviced.

So at the moment everything is ready to go and all we are waiting for is the house to sell. The longer it takes, the more our plans get shifted back, so we are keen to get it sold as soon as possible.