a break in Portugal

We are moving out of our rented house in South Wales.

We gave the landlord one month's notice yesterday. It is time to move on and try new things.

DH wants to continue to work where he is but he is fed up of the long commute every day. We have agreed to move over the border to England and give it a go there for a while. Hopefully we are going to be in the Cotswold area so it should be ideal for the great outdoors. The area is more prosperous, hopefully the economic market is better so I may be able to pick up some work.

DH does not want to go off wandering at the moment, I have told him that we will move and give it a go for a while in the new place, but I need something for me, I need to decide whether I want to live in one place or whether I want to try a bit of a nomadic life or just do something different abroad for a while.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, The Escape was not about never working again, it was about having freedom from the obligation to work all the time. We always knew that we would have to do some work to top up our income, I just haven't found the flexibility that I thought I would. I suppose I was a bit naive really. As for the escaping Britain well....obviously I haven't done this yet, I have known for a long time that I don't want to settle here, but realistically is there any other choice? We don't have lottery type money to "retire" on, so we have to continue to earn some money and work at least part of the year, inflation can be a silent killer to savings over the years.

I have been suffering with some health problems recently, fatigue, nausea, malaise etc. The GP thinks it could be ME or Depression.  Blood tests all came back fine. I think it could be the side effects of some prescription medication I have been taking, so I am throwing them away. I am so sensitive to medication.

So next week we are off to Portugal for 7 days. We are going to the western Algarve to a place called Lagos. Hopefully we will relax, do some walking, go to the spa etc.

I also want to have a general look around the quieter parts of the Algarve to see if it might be somewhere we could either spend time or live.