Those who have followed our adventure ,especially last year as we made our decision to leave France, will know that it was not easy. I read this post that I wrote on our last morning in our old home and it made me cry, even though I am happy and know we have made a good decision in moving to Ireland.

Montaigu healed us, it was our sanctuary in a place that could be so difficult. I loved our French friends and neighbours but, with the exception of very few, I detested the English. I have written about it often, and over the last almost six months I have realised how a lot of the time we lived there we lived in our ‘Montaigu bubble’ because it was the place where we felt safe. That is not a way to live, and as change and new adventures often do, we can see that now. Although our memories of our home will always be poignant.

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Last summer I wrote about how were still deliberating about our move and how we both wrote lists about what we loved and what we hated. On the hate list for me was the lack of work available to me in France and how I wanted to go back to work, it was part of my idyll for my new life. It’s something most of us will think will be great: retirement, but not for me or RD. Work gives you structure, gets you out into the community, something essential when moving to a new country. It teaches you about where you live and so much more. So for us both, going back to work was essential.

Now I will write about RD’s search for work in another post, because it really was a ‘life shows you the way’ example, but this post is about my experience and that is I have a job! I started two weeks ago, a lovely part-time job four days a week, I love it!

During my search many dilemmas were sent my way. I had applied the same train of thought as last summer in that both of us wrote what our idyll where work was concerned would be. We have found this to be a failsafe system in keeping us focused on what’s important to us. Where work was concerned that meant not just the salary.

For me that came in really handy, because I was asked to go back to work in the UK in my specialty from my career in a previous life. I am not going to lie the excellent pay opportunity was tempting, but ….. I would have been in London for four months, away from RD and the furries, and having done that before I knew that whatever the pay it wasn’t enough to take me out of the ‘here and now’. None of us are getting any younger, and when temptation is before you it’s so easy to forget that and look to the future, the one the doesn’t actually exist. So I turned the job down. I thought about how I had moved to Ireland to make a new life, embracing the culture and my community, how was I going to do that in England?

I was then asked to work from home, again in my specialty, and again the money was excellent and again I was tempted. But by then I had also had a fabulous interview with the two lovely ladies I work with now. There aren’t many interviews I’ve been to where you feel as if you are talking to friends, laughing with each other, and I had been offered the job.

I realised that I was considering the ‘working from home’ job because of the money, when in fact that is probably about the third most important thing on my list now, considering my age and the fact that I have no debt. This job offered me part-time work, ticked that off my list, it offered me work in a workplace, meeting new people, structure in my day, a new focus, all things ticked off my list. I declined the job working from home and took this one.

I feel that I have learned my lessons well.

This week I was paid a salary for the first time in six years. To know I have regular income has reminded me how important that is. I sleep better, I don’t constantly worry where the next job is coming from where RD is concerned, even though my current role may only be temporary, because I know that life has a plan, I just need to keep following it.

Sorry for the lack of posting, there will be more to come.

Rosie