One year to the day

Ok, so it's actually the 18th June today so not quite one year to the day, but forgive me a little creative licence in order to make it sound better!

What have we done in our year? We decided not to return to La Plagne to do our third winter season (just as well, as the chalet sold!) because other than having a generally fabulous time and earning a bit of cash, it wouldn't really offer any new experiences - something which we were really looking for (click here to read about our previous seasons as chalet hosts). So we planned instead to go and teach English in Asia, as we both have TEFL certificates. First we though Taiwan, then South Korea, then Japan. Finally we settled on 'any of the above'! We made headway into our applications and were even offered one or two Skype interviews. Quickly, however, we were realising that the TEFL jobs market in Asia was highly competitive and the majority of people ended up working in big companies, whilst we would prefer to work in smaller schools. Anyway, we cracked on with our research/applications as it was still worth a shot. 

Meanwhile, we both managed to secure part time jobs in Heswall which was handy as it meant we could both walk to work rather than drive Agatha (she'd quickly become a nuisance in a staff car park, I think!). Ian went back to work in a restaurant where he'd worked when he was younger and I worked in the local Boots store. Perfect little jobs, for the time being, as we planned to be away again at the end of the summer. 

As the summer weeks ticked by, we somehow had a change of heart and decided that going away to Asia was also not the right thing for us to do. It all started with a conversation about where we saw ourselves in the next few years and we agreed that we'd both like a family and that we'd both like to make a permanent move to France (this part was something we'd already discussed, not as out-of-the-blue as it sounds!). We discussed this over dinner - and wine - with my parents who confessed that they too would love to retire to France but wouldn't feel comfortable/equipped to make the move themselves. And so a new beginning was born...

After several further discussions - without wine - it was agreed between the four of us that moving to France was a viable plan for us all. As my mum has just reached retirement age, she was the one really keen to make the move soon (yesterday, if she could!) but at that point we still had plans to work in Asia and earn a decent bit of cash that we could then take with us, and my dad was a bit hesitant too as he is six or seven years away from retirement and still has a lot of "earning potential". Plus the fact that we had huge amounts of research to do, and finding/buying a place can take as age too, so a rough timescale of "a couple of years" was decided upon. 

We continued to plod on with our (increasingly dissatisfying) jobs and our (increasingly fruitless) TEFL job search and I slowly came to the realisation that Asia is an awfully long way from France, which would make research trips quite a challenge, plus how much brain-space could we spare for research when starting a new job in a completely different country? That put the final nail in the Asia coffin and we started on making a new, closer-to-home plan. We sound awfully fickle, don't we?!?!

Because we now intended to be back in the UK for considerably longer than the summer we knew that we had to find somewhere new to live, as Ian's mum had kindly put us up in her house as a temporary measure. Lovely as it was, and it certainly helped us financially over the summer, it wasn't a long term solution. We started to look for "proper jobs" and a new place to live, settling - quite randomly - on Manchester. When people asked "why there" our answer was "why not?", for want of any more truthful a reply!

So this is where we are now... We have ourselves a nice apartment that we've slowly made our own, just a few miles from Manchester city centre. We have nice little jobs - I am temping in offices, and Ian is a part time Mad Scientist doing after school clubs for kids, and also has several irons in the Sports Science fire. 

Couldn't be further away from our previous plans, but we're happy!

As we now have our own space, I can start to get back into/start new hobbies and so I'll be posting all about my crafty/culinary successes (or otherwise!) very soon! 

How time flies...

It really has been a long time since our last post - around six months in fact!  So here is a really quick catch up of what we've been up to since then...

We finished our trip in New Zealand (something which I hope to blog about in more detail at some point, with pictures!) and returned to France and to the farm where our beloved campervan was waiting for us.  Fortunately we managed to avoid jetlag (again), as two days after returning to the northern hemisphere we started our second winter season in La Plagne.  This time round was a little different as there was a new addition to the Ski La Roche family in the form of little Fynn, Dan and Becky's baby.  He's a superstar and fitted into the whirlwind of a winter season more smoothly than anyone could ever have hoped for (an inspiration for anyone who may be considering a winter season with a little person in tow).  We also had a different apartment higher up the mountain and actually piste-side - we had a balcony too!  Other than that, the season went just as wonderfully as the first... lots of snow (LOTS and LOTS this year!) so plenty of off-piste riding, some park sessions and a generally terrific time on the mountain.  The chalet was busy and we were all worked pretty hard - which was rewarded by some bumper tips!  Towards the end of the season we discussed with Dan & Becky about coming back for our third - and final - season in 2013/14 so that we could close up Ski La Roche all together as a team (the properties were up for sale and so it would be Dan & Becky's last season too).  It was agreed as a provisional plan, on the basis that it didn't get sold during the summer!

So, off home we went.  Agatha was packed up with all our stuff and we said goodbye to the mountains once again.  Before catching the ferry across to Blighty we paid a quick visit to the Auvergne and our friends Pete and Janita at the farm.  After two lovely relaxing days playing games, cuddling our animal friends and a bit of spring gardening, we set off for the ferry.

Which brings us back to the UK and summer 2013.  If you can call it summer.  Again, the British weather hasn't failed in it's ability to be totally rubbish.  Anyway, enough of that - at least the gardens are getting watered!

So here we are, back at home, making plans for the next six months and beyond. 

Exciting times! :D

Why we think we're different!

I've been reading through a few travel blogs recently, for inspiration I suppose.  Inspiration for ideas on where our travels could take us next (not that we need any more options in the mix!) and inspiration for where to take the blog.  Originally we started to write this just to keep our friends and family up to speed with how our move to France for the winter season was going.  It's just sort of grown from there really, as have our travels!  It seems that we're probably going to be doing this "travelling thing" for a bit longer yet and so I've decided that I'm going to move the blog forward and try to develop a proper webpage, hence looking for inspiration.

There are myriad travel blogs out there on the world wide web, unsurprisingly - career breaks, gap years, digital nomads, and RTW trips are pretty standard for a lot of people these days.  But there was something different about all the blogs I was reading compared with our own story.  For us, there was no long drawn out decision about whether to make the break, no years spent saving, no big sell off of all our wordily possessions - we just went.  From realising in the June of last year that we fancied doing something different and discovering that we both felt the same about giving a winter season a go, we applied for chalet jobs in the July, got the job in August and left in December.  There was no time for a big saving plan, and we didn't really have any worldly possessions so a couple of carboot and eBay sessions easily sorted that out.

I suppose the fact that we were just supposed to be going to do a winter season made it all a lot easier as we didn't actually have any plans to make and we didn't really need any savings either.  Everything was sorted for us - we just turned up and were given our apartment, lift passes, insurance, food and even our travel to the Alps was covered.  Oh, and were were getting wages too!  It made an easy break for us - it cost us nothing to go and try it out, if we didn't like it we'd be home in five months and we could pretty much pick up where we left off.  We would have to have found jobs of course, and that's probably easier said than done these days, but we're both quite well qualified and experienced in what we do and anyway, we wouldn't have been picky.

From there everything just sort of… happened.  We loved the winter season so much that we arranged with our employers to return the following year and that then gave us a summer to fill with, well, whatever we wanted!  This is where a savings plan would have come in handy!  We didn't have much, and what we did have we spent on going back to the UK, MOT'ing the car ready to sell, buying a campervan and then getting back over to the continent.  We also had a weeks holiday in Holland booked, so that needed cash putting aside for too.  Anyway, we managed to spend the whole summer in Europe, floating around places - mostly France - and we've even made it as far as New Zealand, where we are now.  Okay, so we've had a little help along the way - we spent ten weeks doing Workaway, which helped us not spend money, and we're lucky enough to be able to stay with friends here in NZ so our hostel bill is not going to be so big that we'd need a mortgage.  Oh yeah, and Mr Mastercard helped out with the flights!

Even though we've scraped through the summer with practically no money, we've realised that we don't actually need to spend much to travel. I guess that travel means different things to different people and maybe if we had been somewhere very far from home (culturally I mean, because NZ is pretty much as far as you can get!) we'd have taken it more seriously.  Perhaps if we'd been in China, Peru, or Namibia we'd have spent a lot more time researching the place, finding sight seeing tours and experiences and of course safe places to stay.  As "first-timers" to this whole new game we'd have needed a plan.  Europe for us was safe and not too different from home.  We knew that we could get around by ourselves and we felt safe parking up and "wild camping" wherever we felt like it.  After we'd seen one city and visited one museum all subsequent ones more or less merged into each other to the point of us crossing off cities from our priority list.  Don't get me wrong, cities are great -  we both have a lot of fondness for Paris, for example - but we both get a much better feel from the natural aspect of a place.  We love the sea and the mountains, we want to see the birds and the marine life and to see how different the countryside is.  And that, of course, is free.  Having done things this way might seem to some like we've missed out on some of the great things Europe has to offer - we didn't go to St Tropez or Amsterdam, despite them both being more or less on our route.  We didn't go to the Mercedes Benz museum or Wilhelma Zoo despite them being in Trip Advisor's top 5 for Stuttgart.  But what we did do is gain experience, and more importantly, confidence in our ability to make it around on our own.

Whilst I really love what we're doing and want to be a "traveller" for quite a while longer, I'm keen not to be branded with one of the titles I mentioned at the beginning.  Not that there's anything wrong with being any of those things, but I've never liked feeling like a tourist, and backpacking round the world following tour guide after tour guide, ticking off the "must-do's" for each country and city seems a lot like being a sheep to me.  Following the route predetermined by everyone else.  A lot like the expected route of "go-to-uni, get-a-job, buy-a-house, settle-down, 9-5…, hate-Monday's"...

And isn't that the one thing we left to get away from…?