We're an ordinary couple, living an ordinary life, getting up, going to work, doing stuff at the weekends. It was all good. But in the early days of our marriage we had moved around a huge amount, in fact I have lived in 42 houses including the one we're in now. We've been here over 9 years now and in the area 14 or 15 years, and we've both got itchy feet!
Over the last couple of years we've talked occasionally about moving house but convinced ourselves we couldn't afford it, it wasn't the right time, we couldn't leave our jobs, in fact every possible reason for staying. Then something happened. I did a really difficult job, stressful, complicated, too many hours for nowhere near the right return in a difficult stressful, and potentially dangerous environment. I thought I thrived on this sort of challenge, loved it almost, put in over and above the hours I was paid for out of choice and had some great staff working for me who'd been with me almost as long as I'd been in post. Then someone threatened to kill me at work and they meant it. For want of a better phrase I "crashed and burned" and ended up on antidepressants. I won't bore you with the details as it was far more complicated than that really but suffice it to say that I hadn't been thriving on the stresses of the job at all and it was time to rethink our lives!
So here I sit in my kitchen in my nice house somewhere in Wiltshire writing this because I thought someone somewhere out there might be interested in what happens next....
Last week we flew out to France, not on a whim, but certainly without much preparation, looked at quite a few houses, and have put in an offer to buy one! Just like that!
Are you mad I hear you ask? Well maybe we are, but then again maybe we aren't. Maybe we're just looking for a new adventure, and our lives here in the UK at the moment are killing us albeit slowly and we have to change something. We're not fit young free spirits by any imagination (except in our minds!) with both of being well past 50. We've both given most of our working lives to Government run organisations and have decided it's now our time.
We're going to grab this opportunity and idea in both hands and give it our best shot. So if you want to come along for the ride, I'll tell you all about the joys of finding a house, buying a house, moving to France and what we make of our future. I've no doubt there'll be some French bureaucracy in there along with lots of laughter and tears, successes and failures but one things for sure it's going to be one hell of an adventure.
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