Spring on the horizon and the Mumbles

We're back in Wales. And, surprise, surprise, it is raining. 

I woke at 6.30am, despite having no children to wake me. My body is trained to wake early and so, after a late night (11.30pm!), I feel groggy, disgruntled that this is my one opportunity to sleep and I can't.

Chris and I are in the Mumbles, while my parents take the boys. 

Our little one is now not so little anymore. He is an excellent negotiator, telling us, "if you won't let me have yoghurt I will put you in the bin!" This week we heard about his primary school place. And in so doing we lock ourselves to this tiny patch of cliffs. The youngest climbs trees now. He is almost 2 and cries out, "Yeh!!" and claps his hands delightedly whenever you understand what he's saying. 

We are still in love with our bit of the coast. It is a sanctuary in dark times. As spring comes it feels ever more glorious, with post-nursery paddling and rockpooling built into our day. 

This week we are also continuing to put in offers for houses. We are ground down by it all. We feel little joy at the offers we're placing, but instead are resigned, eager to be done searching. Longing more than anything to escape RightMove and the fact that our conversations revolve endlessly around the pros and cons of particular properties. 

There's an Arts and Crafts home. Eight minutes walk to a beach - not our glorious, beautiful beach - but it is a beach. It is big enough. It has just about enough South light, or will do once we extend the back. It has 4-bedrooms. It has a cabin in the garden to be used as an office. It's 15-minutes walk to the school along the cliffs. It's an area with families. It is not an insane price. 

We feel sad that it is not on "our beach," but we realise it might offer the boys other things - like families and other children close by, easier access to buses for high school, and a town on their doorstep rather than a bike ride away. 

I can feel our reluctance though. We put offers in under asking, because nothing really inspires us and everywhere prices seem 50-100K higher than they're worth. Estate agents try to gloss over the fact that the market is falling and the housing market boom of post-covid is over. But, we are ready to be done searching and it is hard to tell when you have reached the bottom of the market.  

The world has also become grimmer, darker, harder. With Trump's inauguration we have been flung into executive order after executive order that challenge the global world order. It feels as though this winter we have watched a new world rise. A world where America is no longer an ally. A world where the US puts tariffs on its closest friends and sides with Russia in the security council. A world where USAID is gone, where Britain has followed suit by shifting its development aid budget to defence. Our organisation has felt the change. Our CEO talks about the need to "shrink" still further. After the flurry of redundancies last year this feels tough to stomach. Everything feels precarious, as businesses, government departments and international organisations strip out "DEI" from their websites, just as I've taken on a role with "gender and social inclusion" in the title. But then I look at my colleagues in Myanmar, in South Sudan, in Afghanistan and I just feel so grateful for what we have here. Myanmar has suffered an earthquake. South Sudan is falling apart. Sudan is raging. Tunisia becomes ever more dictatorial. 

And so, the personal and the political also intertwine. Da Berg and I both work in international development. What does it mean for us personally to be buying a house right now? Will we have a job in 5-years? In 3-years? How will AI completely transform the economic order? The workplace? Da Berg tells me I am pessimistic, but then, it is hard not to be. I don't want us to buy our "dream house" - only to find ourselves trapped into mortgage payments that we struggle to meet. 

M, Sh and I met for a couple of days in the countryside last month. It was beautiful and terrifying. Discussions of the world dominated. I left with a chill in my bones and the feeling that M and Sh are "not ok," that any liberal American right now is "not ok." The world is "not ok."

I wonder, is this what it felt like in the 1930's as WW2 brewed?