https://wwoof.org.uk/The pics on the website are all very jolly and the sun always shines, but that's not real, nor is it real on your own smallholding either. You don't have to have long hair and you don't have to be young. The quality of accommodation varies greatly so check it out first. As a way of seeing smallholdings great and small, poorly or well organised, successful or not, WWOOFS can be a good first step.
On the other hand, there are many holiday cottages on farms where you can see what goes on and talk to the owners, without committing yourself to an amount of work. Either is worth trying, or both, although we can't know when travel and distancing restrictions will be lifted enough for the WWOOFS scheme to continue. Nor can you go to look at areas and properties just yet.
Use the time for your research. In fact there are people here on TAS from all over Britain (and some from overseas) who may be happy to share information about their areas and how they work their smallholdings. Some might even invite you to visit.
For me, my circumstances sound fairly similar to yours, in that we are older, our children have left home long since, and we do not have to make our smallholding turn a profit. We moved here in our mid 40s, 25 years ago, both still working, but each of us was hit by sudden severe ill health and we have had to adapt our smallholding and our dreams to accommodate the changes caused. Fortunately we have both survived, so far, and we were able to be flexible, but as a caution, remember when choosing where to live, not to be too far from medical services! Also remember that smallholding is a whole lot of hard work, especially in the set-up stage, so I always advise to start slowly and learn how much work is involved in each area, bit by bit, rather than diving straight in, buying in animals willynilly then becoming exhausted.
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