These adventures have been fantastic, but by God they have been hectic at times! Moving country is no mean feat what with all the admin, house buying, car changeovers, setting up businesses, finding work, learning languages, and so much more. Then there are the actual moves, organising them, moving furniture, selling stuff, facilitating storage, in fact it was only the beginning of June this year when our move to Ireland became complete.

Since we started this adventure in France in March 2015, with a permanent odour of cat shit in the car on my seven hour drive, to current times I would say the only time we really had ‘Time Out’ was in the summer of 2018. But even then we worked as jobs came in, and the worry about money was always constantly there.

Since January 2020 I have worked away from home on a number of occasions, getting trapped on the Island of Jersey for three months when Covid hit in 2020, and spending a total of over five months there out of ten. When I came home to Montaigu in the October after my final visit I hit the floor running, as we were packing up our house which had sold quickly ready to move to Ireland.

Having these adventures have brought with them huge learning curves for us, from people to places, to finding the Tao and understanding so much more that most people will never see.

In the last year providing palliative care to our beautiful girl, knowing that the family we had created was coming to an end was in itself both distressing and exhausting. In fact I have recently reviewed some of my first blogs, when we had five cats and one dog in 2015 and by the Spring of 2016 we had five cats and two dogs. Now only three of that furry family remain from those initial members. Life really is worth cherishing every day, and yet every day we forget….

Now we are both at work, and grateful for it. Having regular money coming in without worrying where the next job is coming from is a gift. But neither of us are getting any younger.

Perhaps the adrenalin has finally dropped.

Today we both finish work in time for RD’s birthday, and we have sixteen days off. We plan on visiting some places, taking Harley to the seaside with Elfie, showing her the sea for the first time. Perhaps we will even visit Derry if we can get Elfie to walk on a harness. Puppies do like to impersonate mops when you first put them on a lead!

We’re going to watch some movies, and us being us we’re going to paint the outside of the house. (I know we just can’t stop ourselves sometimes!)

But more than anything we’re going to breathe, and regroup, and find ourselves again.

It’s time.

Rosie