We got here by accident.
We bought a house with a little land 8 years ago with the idea we could put the horse on but it wasn't enough so the horse went to livery stables. Then we noticed that we were surrounded by houses that also had a bit of land and so we gradually got to manage about 8 acres in 6 different ownerships. The horse came home with a companion rescue pony, I lost my job, we took in lodgers and sheep beat mowing. OH got into bees and chickens along the way of planting an orchard which now produces loads of fruit
I now work for myself and our quality of life is immeasurable improved but I have to work quite hard to keep it all going, There will be a point when I don't get enough work and we have to move to a smaller house, and we're hoping that coincides with wanting to do less because we both get pretty tired some days.
We used to think that we could retire into smallholding but it comes with a lot of physical work.