Final Camp

I'm quite sad, really to realise tonight is our last proper night living in our tent. Its kept the worst of the weather off us for the last months, and its been brilliant. Our stove has kept the temperature nice and hot when needed, and cheered us up in the cold and damp (and in the frost back when we started)- which fortunately hasn't been that often. I've been mulling over if we have one item that's been priceless, or something to really shout about - but I can't choose! Would it be our handy kitchen units? The hanging shelves ( thanks Sue!) our beds? our sleeping bags? The wellies that have lasted Big One more than a few weeks? The van that's taken us everywhere with hardly a grumble? I can't choose- I'll  mull it over and come up with reviews some other time.On other things.....

Our budget has gone completely to pot, and to put it bluntly, we've run out of money. We have money due in next week, but until then we're watching the pennies. I was wondering how we got in this situation- because it really has snuck up on us!
However, with a few hundred extra pounds for tires to pass the MOT, a few hundred pounds of lovely things like a kelly kettle, some interesting books and Austrian scythe(before these extra costs came to light!), another few hundred pounds for a replacement fan for the van, another £500 for extra storage for the stuff we didn't sell (our mistake-we forgot the 6 months would be up before we returned), and an extra 2 weeks campsite fees (yes, another £200) for not going back to a WWOOF host. With extra time not working we've done more driving around Scotland, which has been another four hundred pounds not included in our budget. I thought we had a pretty healthy contingency fund of about £1000 ( when our entire budget was only £4000)- but all our extras have got to nearer £2000. Oh well. Thankfully we've had tenants in the house and at the moment we'd be really stuck without that income.

Tomorrow we pack up and head to visit family for a few days- a relative has been diagnosed with breast cancer and gets some results this week, so we want to be around for them. We have our final WWOOFing 10 days at Lower Shaw Farm, our first ever hosts,after that, and we're really looking forward to it. They have somewhere for us all to stay, so that's how tonight is our last proper tent night. Sob!