Practicalities & possibilities

So now to find a place to store the "stuff" we were keeping. Happily we found a large warehouse where we could rent a secure, dry 6x10 room for an indefinite period at very reasonable cost. We let our kids choose whatever they wanted to keep. We would hold a garage sale a week before we moved and whatever didn't sell would go to the Goodwill.

At that time we had considered the possibility of leaving Minnesota and starting again in a new place when we returned from whatever the future would bring. We both loved the sea and the Northwest Coast so that was a tempting prospect. Our plans were fluid and depending on our experiences in Scotland we would stay there for a year or two or, if we didn't like it as much as we expected to, we could live somewhere else in Europe for a while. The future was rife with possibilities. All of a sudden the world was open to us - all we needed was money. Ha!

Meanwhile we would have to sell our car - but we didn't want to sell it until just before we left since we wanted to travel a bit and needed it until then. We kept a bank account in Minneapolis for whatever income and expenses we'd have while we were gone. I had talked to the bank in Ullapool and there was no problem with opening an account there and we could deposit US dollars there with no problem. We could have a checking account and credit card from the Royal Bank so we were set there.

We found that we wouldn't need health insurance while in the UK because health care there is free even for non-citizens. We did keep a small catestrophic policy in force for US purposes. We were making progress!