Newsletter from the (current) home of Cumulus

[steve]

At the end of this month I am taking early retirement from the job I have been doing (in various forms) for the same company for the last 34 years. The first reaction I get when I tell people this is usually "I wish I could afford to retire". The simple fact is that I can't actually afford to retire, it will be a struggle, but I'm doing it anyway. I would rather retire now, poor, and do the things we want to do, than retire in 10 years relatively well off financially and perhaps not be healthy enough to do anything.

We have bought an American RV. Not a huge one, in RV terms, but big enough - 31 feet long. The plan was that we would sell the house here on Sanday, and live in the RV full time, travelling around the UK and the rest of Europe. A number of things have arisen which have put a spoke in the wheel of that plan, including the disappointing outcome of the EU referendum. We are now thinking that we will still sell the house here and buy something much smaller on the Scottish mainland, and use that as a base for our travels in the RV. So if anyone wants to buy a 3 bedroom house with an acre, on a beautiful, peaceful, remote Scottish island, do get in touch. And don't let anyone tell you that it gets a bit windy here, that's all nonsense.

Our first adventure will involve going to the south-west of Scotland for the winter, and living in the RV for six months (October to March). Then we'll take it from there.

So, what about Cumulus, you're probably asking? My initial thoughts were that this would be a good time to call it a day. I won't be running my own weather station any more, so that's one less reason to carry on. I won't have my PC, and I will have a metered mobile internet connection, assuming I'm somewhere that I can actually get a signal. But I will have my MacBook, and I've found a pretty good IDE which I can use for MX (it's called Jetbrains Rider, still in beta). So I've decided that I will carry on, at least for now, and I might actually get back to adding new facilities again. I have no idea whether being retired will allow me more time to work on Cumulus, or less. We'll just have to see how it goes...