Most of us want a challenge in life, challenging ourselves keeps us young, something I didn’t really care much about until this last few years.
Nine years ago we bought a derelict house; we were getting near the end of our travelling having spent most of our retirement nest-egg!
Most things in life are not really a challenge because, we get someone else to fulfil that challenge…it is our idea, but someone else’s effort. I didn’t want this property to be like that, I wanted to actually do everything I possibly could myself.
This was the state of the listing cottage the day we took over the main property in Oct 2009.
It was just an old brick garage that water flowed through every time it rained.
The roof had fallen in, various animals had moved in and I wouldn’t put a sack of potatoes in there, let alone a guest!
And here was that rear garden of ours.
By 2012 Airbnb was just getting off the ground here, it was a vague curio, a bit like brains and walnut sandwiches…something we had heard about, but were not sure we really wanted to try!
On the limited budget I had left, I put the effort in. Sometimes I would spend a couple days to a week doing something and then one night in bed calmly resolve to pull it all down again because, I maybe could have done it a bit better!
Was it worth it?
It has been worth it 232 times over and growing!
I feel really lucky that, like brains and walnut sandwiches I decided to give Airbnb a try. At times the company drives me bloody mad, but my many journeys on the Airbnb Ocean have been journeys of discovery and they have given the latter years of this ol’codger’s life a sense of purpose and filled with many nice memories!
Thanks Airbnb