A friend, a storm & a compost bin

Hello all!

I'm back after some much needed time to sort all of live's obstacles that seem to always get thrown at us during winter time.
First and foremost I owe you an update on Lance; He's doing amazingly well, he's regained roughly 90% of his motion back in his hind legs and is his happy chipper self once again, even if he can't run anymore. Unfortunately The Veterinary industry has completely failed us once again here so I refuse to delve any further with them as all they want to do is extract as much money out of us as possible with very little care on Lance's actual health or wellbeing, my pet insurer Animal Friends had sat back and not only left us high and dry,  refused to pay out on his broken leg from 18 months ago so created a whole lot more stress until the Ombudsmen got involved.
So I highly recommend not getting pet insurance with them and taking you furry friends abroad from now on for pet care as it has become a total racket here.

But I do owe a special thank you to Jenny who is a member on here & a vet who was invaluable and gave us so much help and support during the worst of it, I can't thank you enough.

There's been funerals to attend and now another family member is quite seriously ill...

The van failed it's MOT but with some graft I managed to get it sorted and now I am finally in a position to leave he UK and head home to continue life, also free up my finances that got locked down in Portuguese PayPal, of which the only way to release them is with my Portuguese phone number... that doesn't work in the UK.

OHHH IT'S BEEN A FUN ONE FOLKS!
No, I said I wouldn't rant, dammit.

It hasn't all been bad, I've enjoyed seeing friends and family again, meeting some of you guys randomly! and I also managed to squeeze in a few days up north, flying up to see Ash, Marie and "real Swedish winter" which massively helped reset my mood.

So my apologies for going quiet on you all but this winter really has been a rough one. But you are here for some entertainment so I am back refreshed and ready to provide.

There's a few video's from last year to catch you up on, some more positive updates and upgrades to show you and in that time I will be taking a slower and hopefully more scenic journey back down to Portugal where I hope to take you along and then it's back to it!

Thank you so much for your patience during this time, I'm hoping the year continues to smoothen out and we can settle back into life on the land.

For now here's the late latest instalment.

All my best,
C.J