How did we get here? #1

The Unadventurous Traveller

Hi! Let me introduce you to my family and I – Dale, Dalton, Brooke and me - Catherine. We all lived quite happily in the UK until my husband started to get itchy feet. We started to wonder….

• What if the life you have, and everything you have achieved so far, is the very best you can do with your life?

• What else is out there?

• Is there any other life we are destined to live, if only we make the right moves?

Appearances can be deceiving

I must admit, I was EXTREMELY comfortable in my little life in England. We lived in a lovely town on the south coast of England. My mum lived at the other end of the town, my son went to the local school, we had friends, We had recently had another baby and I had returned to work part time. Everything was great, everything seemed great.

But to be honest deep down my husband had been frustrated with his work for years. As an industrial roofer, he left very early in the mornings, worked incredibly hard and physically, for good money - yes, but he had reached the point in his life where he was constantly thinking - ‘What is the point to my life'? So after much deliberation he gave up roofing and followed his passion to be a wildlife photographer (he really is a very good photographer and has a lot of patience to get that perfect shot! You can see some of his images here: http://www.hsfnature.co.uk/).

This in itself wasn’t a huge problem, it did mean that my earning capacity was now all the more needed. However since returning back to work after having Brooke, my employer gladly had me back and under the hours I wanted, but I was now in effectively a telesales role. This was do-able but still not anything taxing, enjoyable, or anything I wanted to do long term. I felt incredibly trapped. I needed the work, it was local, with part time hours I wanted, I could do it with my eyes shut, my employer was lovely, but the actual job didn't require a brain, my 13+ years experience or my degree. What to do???

Dale had been searching on the internet for many years for property in France, I had always played this down as this was not my dream at all! I was hoping he might move on to another idea that was more my ‘cup of tea’. He finally found a property which he loved, we went out to visit the place and fell in love with it! It was a large farmhouse with two large barns, very rural and with a large (super large) garden - perfect for the kids. So that meant we had to sell our place in the UK to afford this dream. I’m summarising a lot here, as this process took over 6 months, but eventually we found a buyer, negotiated to get as best a price we could for our house – and sold up! We lived at my mum's house for 3 months whilst finalising the sale of the house in France and then in 2013 we moved to the Limousin, France.

Life in France

I don’t want to summarise this part of our lives away too much, needless to say, we lived quite happily (mostly) in the Creuse, department 23 in France, for 5.5 years. So many funny and interesting things happened to us while we lived in France; from learning the language, making so many friends with our neighbours and the locals, getting ourselves in to the governmental systems and its bureaucracy and all the funny episodes in between. I am sure to re-visit this chapter in our lives, which has had a significant effect on us, particularly our children (Dalton is still fluent in French, Brooke thinks she has forgotten it all now, but still has friends there).

We had a beautiful house that the locals called the ‘Chateau’ and lovely friends, a comfortable life. And we gave it all up to move to Spain.

Many people told us it was impossible to make money out of your french property when selling, and that it takes on average a good 3 years to sell a property in the Limousin region (possibly just an old wives tale? We didn’t know).

Essentially with Brexit coming we considered:

• Do we want to be here, in the centre of France for the rest of our lives in this huge, quite cold house during the long winters of the Creuse?

• Would our children be able to find fulfilling employment here?

• Can I live through another winter at -8 degrees with the occasional -16?

The answer to all of the above was NO!

Why did we move?

Good question. There were many reasons I could list them all with conviction but these questions are something we have asked ourselves several times since moving to Spain, as we have questioned this a lot! To generalise very quickly, all the contributing factors were:

• Brexit was fast approaching – we needed to be entirely happy with our home abroad as we would likely be stuck with our decision for a long time,

• Future job prospects for our children were not ideal in La Creuse.

• The long winters in Creuse versus warmer climate in Spain,

• We had interest in our home and could potentially make money on it.

• Returning back to England with its rain and lifestyle was not an option!

So we sold the house in 6 months (this is a hilarious story in itself!) and Dale found a new challenge in Catalonia,Spain. An old Chapel and Hermitage with no roof, barely any walls due to the Spanish civil war and years of neglect, no water and no electricity. It did have its own olive trees and beautiful view. What a challenge this would be!

❓ Did we speak Catalan or even Spanish? - No! I had never even visited Spain before.

❓ Were we incredibly foolish to make this move, to follow my husband's 'dream'?

❓ Were we making the right move? I hope so, there was a lot depending on how we got on: The

childrens' education, our ability to support ourselves throughout the build, building a beautiful house for us to love in, our own sanity!

Spain here we come!

The move was on and so was the next chapter of our lives. Onwards to Spain!

If you would like to read more about our travels, adventures and happenings then you could join the facebook page for updates: The Unadventurous Traveller

All photos featured are courtesy of Dale Sutton, more wildlife images can be seen at: hsfnature.co.uk

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