cyprus calling

We are off to North Cyprus next weekend for an exploration trip.

We want to explore the area and get a feel for the cost of living and potential areas for a six month winter stay. It appears to be virtually impossible to get a flight from the airport direct into North Cyprus. The only other alternative is to fly into Turkey and then transfer but we only have a week so its a bit of a rush. So we will fly into Larnaca in the south where our hosts will pick us up and drive us the one and a quareter hour journey accross the border. We will be staying in Bellapais. We have a week so I want to try and get a good look around but at the same time get some relaxation in too.

I am looking forward to the break. After all the stress and busyness that the flat sale brought it now feels like an anticlimax. I think perhaps we should have just escaped straightaway after we sold the flat but now we are signed up to a six month lease so thats the decision made for us really.

I will report back:)

Sold!

The flat has SOLD!!!

I think it is just sinking in. The relief I feel is amazing. I feel like a huge monkey has climbed off my back.

We found a buyer last September and we only completed yesterday! Its been quite a stressful four months what with one thing and another. At times I wondered whether the sale would actually go through. I started to think it might never happen. I feel slightly duplicitous not sharing the news earlier but I wanted to announce it when it actually happened.

So whats next? Well now we are still living in the urban jungle but only for several more months and then we are out of here. We are still on track to escape in the autumn so hopefully its just a matter of putting things on automatic pilot.

Now I am completely debt free and I dont owe any one a single penny. I've been debt free for years in terms of consumer debt, ie credit card, loans etc but of course when you have a mortgage you are never really debt free.

I can almost feel the freedom.

Fraught

Well the last few weeks have passed like a whirlwind.

There have been some significant developments in the escape plan. But sometimes I feel that the machine has its jaws clenched tightly around me. So tightly that it feels like my are efforts are sometimes in vain.

I finally feel like I am doing instead of just talking about the escape.

I have developed all sorts of strange health problems, painful throat, pulsating eyelid, headaches, acid stomach etc. I think I'm stressed.

There is a little voice inside my head that whispers pessimistic thoughts about the escape plan. It tells me that I will be unemployed, that I will have no money, that I will be rootless that my restlessness will continue that the escape is a mistake and I will be sorry. But I have come to realise that this little voice is part of my social conditioning. Yes, even me in my rage against the machine, I too am socially conditioned. I have come to understand that the presence of social conditioning can be very subtle.

But I feel in my heart that I must embark on this journey and I can almost smell freedom!