I've been nagged by a few folks who have noticed that there
has been very little in the way of updates about progress on our new life for a
while. I guess that’s partly because
after a couple of years a “new life” has simply become a “life” albeit a very
different one to the one we were living before we moved up here.
As things are now taking off for me professionally I need to
walk a fine line between giving a “warts & all” account of starting over
and painting a saccharine vision of living in one of the most beautiful parts
of England and earning a living doing what I love. There have been some tremendous highs and
some extraordinary lows, so let’s start with the bad stuff first so we can end
on a high.
One of the biggest challenges over the past couple of years
has been building a network of friends and business contacts. During the first year in particular I felt
incredibly isolated and lonely on occasion and during those periods I relied on
my wonderful network of virtual friends to get me through. I also got off my backside and joined clubs,
groups and social gatherings; basically anyone who would have me!
There were some false starts and some groups were definitely
more welcoming than others, but I now have a lovely group of new friends up
here which is growing all the time. What
I learned from the experience is that most folks are just as worried about new
encounters as you are and a smile goes a long way to breaking the ice. I also learned not to stress over the less
welcoming groups, if I don’t happen to be someone’s cup of tea for whatever
reason then so be it; smile and move on.
Financially things remain frugal but work is now picking up
at such a rate that I can’t see it remaining that way for long now – there’s
finally a light at the end of the tunnel and I’m pretty sure it’s not the
headlights of an approaching train.
Luckily I’m not someone with expensive tastes and a glass of wine and a
good book are still my idea of a great night in, though a few more nights out
would be rather nice.
The plans for work on the house are currently on hold on
account of the fact the builder’s quote is double what the architect said it
would be, but we still have some cash set aside so maybe we’ll do it a bit at a
time and learn how to do some of it ourselves; getting my hands on a large lump
hammer and knocking chunks out of a wall does hold a certain appeal…
On the positive side the writing work is now starting to
come in nicely with several really interesting (and more importantly
profitable) writing commissions in place over the next couple of months. We’re also in the exciting but very early
stages of launching our own outdoors product, I don’t want to say too much just
yet but obviously, as it’s me, we’re trying to do something a little bit
different. The test runs have surpassed
our expectations and the feedback from everyone involved is glowing. We are lucky enough to be receiving the most
amazing support from a wide variety of professionals and hope to be in a
position to launch something around mid October so, as they say, “watch this
space”. (Seriously, watch this exact space; we’ll be making all our launch
announcements on this blog.)
And that’s about it really, no major dramas, well there was
the incident involving a pair of children’s undies finding their way down the
toilet and blocking our drains to the extent that the basement walls began to
ooze raw sewage, but other than that it’s been a pretty quiet week.
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