Max Stafford's Kennel

Today has been a beautiful day down here in the Debatable Lands, as has the last few days in truth.
It really has been a fitting end to the best summer I can remember in ten years. The beginnings of change are there though as house martins circle and swoop, building themselves up for their long migration flights, the days are very noticeably shorter by comparison with even a month ago and the leaves on trees are already showing signs of turning.
Even on a personal level there is a sense of changing seasons afoot as I reach the age of fifty next year and take stock of where I’ve been and where I’m going. I’ve been in the same house for not far short of fifteen years and when you consider that makes for close on one third of my life it kind of slaps you in the face a bit! Similarly, I’ve been in the same job for 21 years and though it’s been reasonably lucrative I feel it has about served any useful personal purpose now. Both these factors are converging in a way that will probably make for big changes in my life over the next year and possibly beyond.
I’m not a materialistic individual as a look around my house would probably betray. You won’t find a state of the art telly, flash car, gadgets or the like. My models, books, two guitars and two pedal bikes are the only real material things I have any true attachment to, so money is not a true driver in my life.
I’m going to look at the situation next year and as I was lucky enough to join a good occupational pension scheme before they went hugely out of fashion with our enlightened Neoliberal employers, it may be that there’s enough in the lump sum pot by now to clear the mortgage. If there is I’m out of the rat race and leaving the ‘hands-on’ stuff to the young men!
Somebody else can do the weekend and nights while I get my health and energy back, hopefully working somewhere with better hours and less responsibility.
With no mortgage to worry about, I hope that work will become more a matter of choice than necessity as remuneration will be less important than it is when your primary need is to keep a roof over your head!
The next aspect of transition will be to sell up and move back to Scotland; not that far away in practice and preliminary observations suggest I’ll be able to find a place suited to my needs for no more and hopefully even less than the worth of my current abode without travelling too far.
And that’s where this piece starts to fit into the more common framework of my blogging.
One very important consideration of this move is modelling space and I’m looking at somewhere that has sufficient garden or yard space to construct a purpose-built modelling/layout shed or outbuilding.
Finally, with concerns about overloading the loft of this place out of the way, SERIOUS thought can be given to construction of a layout.
Hopefully there will be space somewhere in the house for the bikes and a tumble dryer, and with luck somewhere to put a wood-burner too!
After what seems a good few years in a holding pattern it’s good to rediscover a sense of direction and purpose.
How this is going to manifest itself in terms of my modelling output will start to be outlined in my next entry.
If you haven’t already nodded off, thanks for staying the course on this one! 😉