So, apart from our erm ‘interest’ in the minutiae of public libraries, we are, in fact, just like you.

We like to take a walk in the park now and again, down a swift pint of local ale, tantalise our tastebuds with horrifically smelly cheese, fall in and out of love (or is that lust?), travel, write long letters to people in far off places, practice cycling without holding on to the handlebars, go skinny-dipping in the winter depths of February off the Norfolk coast, teach ourselves new things.

Around about February or March 2006 we had an idea in bed one day. It went something like this:

“If people can’t get to our library, then we’re just gonna have to take it to them.”

Us humans are actually quite rational, logical and scientifically-minded beings most of the time. So, after we had this thought, we then had some more thoughts about how we could actually make our thought happen in reality.

The thought process went something like this:

1. Carrying a library is heavy
2.There is only one of you
3. You can’t carry very much else except the library then (even if you do come from SAS-stock)
4. Better get rid of everything you can’t carry with you then
5. Hold a belongings sale
6. Don’t manage to sell very much? Give it away for free!
7. What do you require in life to ‘live’, aside from the library?
8. OK! Pack and carry that too: sleeping bag, espresso maker, goose-feather-stuffed booties, plastic washing line, several changes of underwear.
9. How are you going to survive without any obvious regular form of income?
10. Downsize life. Stop consuming. Stop buying. Only buy exactly what you need to survive aka minimal food, public transport tickets, tobacco and postage, but do allow yourself a few small luxuries such as a pint of beer a week, or a chocolate bar once on a Thursday, otherwise you will go mad.
11. Pack the bags and make sure you can carry everything all by yourself.
12. OK. Go!

And so, bags packed, belongings sold, it turned out to be near enough the end of May 2006. So, just as we had planned over those last few months, we left.

What we didn’t know at the time was that we’d still be going over two and a half years later. What we didn’t think about at the time, in a huge amount of detail, was exactly why we felt the need to do what we’d decided to do. We just knew, with absolute certainty, that we were doing the right thing. For everyone.

Want to know why we knew this so clearly? Click the next tab to find out...