A Prologue

A prologue

I would firstly like to say thank you for reading and I hope that you find this to be at the very least an interesting read and that you enjoy hearing about our exploits over the next few months. I would love to hear from any of you regarding it. Unless you’re going to be cruel, in which case you are dead to me anyway. ;-)

I guess that the only place to begin is at the beginning;

In October 2013, Jane and I returned from a brilliant holiday in Crete which had fully refreshed and rejuvenated us from the daily grind of our office-based lives. It was upon our return that we decided on our next holiday for 2014, we would go both further afield and for longer than the wonderful week that we’d spent in Greece and quickly, Southeast Asia became the place that we wanted to go and began to make plans for. However, despite only starting a new job in March 2014, I had grown extremely restless, unfulfilled and tired of the monotonous and repetitive office life that seemed to encapsulate my existence. I, like a lot of people, wanted something more.

Thinking of our planned trip for Asia, an idea had taken hold of me and for weeks after I had pestered Jane with one sentence; “Let’s move out there”. I had no idea how we would do it or how we would even begin to think about planning it, all I knew was that I wanted it. Jane admits that for these first few weeks she was certain that I had been joking, unable to take me seriously whenever I attempted to raise the subject.

One day she decided to believe me and was instantly on-board (I am grateful to whatever triggered it). All of a sudden it was happening, there was a driving force behind the dream and it was Jane who had taken over the wheel. It became clear that we would have to give up everything that we had, our home, our car and our social lives yet these things seemed so trivial alongside the thought of the adventure and the lives that we could make for ourselves. We soon realised that we could do it by teaching English as a second language (something that we’d both considered several years before) through the organisation TEFL. Within a matter of weeks we had given up our home, sold most of our possessions and moved in with family so that we could save money and embark upon this adventure of a lifetime. Thank you so much to both Jane’s brother Brian and also to my parents for giving us a home whilst we prepared for our adventure. At times it did become extremely stressful due to many factors, but I guess none so much as the fact that within 10 months we had moved home 3 times. Jane deserves immeasurable credit for tolerating me through all of this – I was a bloody nightmare at times and I’m thankful that as I type this, she sits alongside me on the train to Kings Cross.

I have decided to write this blog as a way in which to try and process the things that we will do over the next few months/years but also as a thank you to Jane, for both believing me and believing in me.

I hope that you enjoy it.