Storm Amy has just passed and now I am sitting in sunshine looking out towards the golf course, slightly sheltered from the wind with the little hill between me and the sea. I am always amazed how people on the island whinge when there is a storm and trees fall down as it takes the department of infrastructure a few hours to re-open the road…. yes you read that right, a few hours! I don’t think they realise that in the UK that would be a few days for rural roads!
I have not long been back from my mini trip which I wrote about as I could not get on the plane… and ended up dragging my mum to Manchester and then taking her to Reus with me to look at houses. The trip was a success though as I found a fair few houses in really nice areas that I like so my friend Anna (ex work colleague) is helping me sort out what I need in order to make an offer on one of them. It was actually nice with mum, we ventured to lots of places and had lovely meals out and explored Salou where 30 years earlier (almost to the day) I had visited when Porta Ventura opened and rode rollercoasters with my sister and mum. We had planned to go to the park but just did not have enough time to see houses and spend a day at a theme park!
The return trip from Reus was a quick stop in Birmingham where I put mum on a train to Sheffield and I then took a train to Manchester and jumped on a plane to Amsterdam – I did not even manage to stay in the UK a day (which is good for tax purposes).
Amsterdam was work, visiting a conference to meet some people but I extended the stay and went and ventured out to see Amsterdam. I had not been there in many years and it was really nice to visit again, was just as friendly as I remembered. Following the trip to Amsterdam I ventured down to Brussels which reminded me why I have not been to Brussels for many years… definitely a place to visit but not for too long as the prices are really high with not great quality! Following this I ventured down to Lille as I wanted to use my French skills more, this was super fun. Lille has problems surrounding immigration and begging but the Gendames are on top of it and the French just do what the French do and ignore it. I thought to myself as I saw the deluge of people begging that if we think we have an issue in the UK then people should come and visit Lille and Paris!
Days were chilled seeing architecture, visiting markets and drinking lots of coffee – I do love Coffee when in Europe, always tastes better than in the UK! Was very relaxed… and what I needed. Weirdly I had a session with my Shrink while in Lille and Nick was saying that I never seem to be in one place and just seem to have a backpack and travel – he is right, I am living my life to the fullest!
Following this I meandered down to Paris where I did more sightseeing before getting a flight back to Manchester and IOM.
It’s been so nice this past year having as many holidays as I have had (think I have had about 14 so far!). I forget how lucky I am that I can work from anywhere. Shedding the constraints of the business and Birmingham have been very empowering. It does feel as if I have got my life back and returned to my less stressed, tolerant self. In the Isle of Man there is nothing much to stress you…. the off 3 minute delay in traffic now and then… or the Tesco running out of a particular item… but they don’t really stress you, I am used to it and just accept it. There is a lot of “anti immigration” rhetoric on the island which I kinda get, but the immigration here is people coming wanting to work so I don’t really understand why people are up in arms about it. Especially given we need people in healthcare and social care which is where we are seeing people filling these gaps. I suppose the big difference here is the people coming seem to fit in more as they have to get involved with the community given that it is very small. As such this does not wind me up like it did in Birmingham where most of the crime I was seeing through my little business was from certain communities.
I am just debating my next holiday… my tax on the IoM has been filed and I have 24 days holiday left to use before December… and an extremely healthy bank account. I have a few annoying things to do which I have been putting off like moving my stuff from Birmingham and Barnsley to IoM… having two storage units filled with my stuff is probably not a good use of my money, but the one in Birmingham I have been reluctant to go back to for obvious reasons. I do need to tackle it and return about 4-5 boxes of stuff to my ex and move the rest to IoM…. or do I wait and move it to Spain?
Choices, choices…. 🙂