round and around

So we haven't moved out of the rented house....yet.

We have agreed with the landlord that we will stay for a while longer but only on a month to month basis.

There has been a lot of negative energy around here about where to go, put simply DH and I do not see eye to eye about future plans. DH wants to continue working for a while until it reaches a natural end., ie until he is given notice. The problem is that the end might be next month or it might not be until another several months. I just don't see the point in hanging around for a temporary job when I am climbing the walls here to get going.  If we had a place of our own here it might be different, but hanging around here in a rented not very nice house waiting for DH to get home all day is really soul destroying. DH says that he wants the extra money and he does not want to endure the heat in southern europe in the summer.

Personally I am suspicious of the delaying tactics. After a bit of interrogation DH said that he is scared of being hot and bored, but he is prepared to go to Portugal in September.

To me September is like writing off the whole year. What if we want different things?

So, it strikes me that I need to up and go myself.

And so I am off to Ibiza for a month, I really cannot wait to go. I will be at our usual haunt in the north of the island. There is plenty there for me to do. I have booked a flight on 14th May to come back roughly one month later.

It seems like a long time until the middle of May.

monday blues

The date for moving out of the rented house is fast approaching. We cannot decide where to go and what to do for the best. There is so much indecision that "it" feels completely overwhelming.

After much thought I have told DH that I do not want to to rent another house while he is at work all day and I am left on my own. I see little point in moving to a high cost of living area for a temporary job. The job could end at any time and then we are stuck with paying for an expensive lease out of pocket.

We are meant to be moving out in two weeks time. I don't know where to go for the best. I think we are going to go on a road trip, perhaps we will put the car on the ferry to Spain and drive down to Portugal. We were very impressed with southern Portugal on our recent trip and we both feel that it somewhere where we could spend time. Money seems to go further in Portugal  than Ibiza, although Portugal is no longer the very cheap place it was years ago.

I don't know if it is a good idea or not but I have to try something different. I MUST NOT lose my nerve this time because quite frankly I am scared. I need to feel that DH is in agreement with this and that I am not constantly dragging him along by his coat tail. DH keeps demanding that I come up with a plan, and well .... I haven't really got a plan.

I am starting to really despair at our situation, or really I am exasperated with myself. I wonder why I have struggled to find contentment, I have never fitted in anywhere, I see things differently to others. I cant relate to the mindless plodding and the banality of modern life. There is no social support for alternative thinkers. Some people may wonder what makes a person this way, what makes a person so that they cant settle that they never find peace, that they never fit, that they wander to here and there, that they have no cohesion to anywhere or anything.

To those people I say lucky you, lucky lucky you.

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.