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Nicola Shares Stories Of Starting Over At Sixty

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Empty

art-packing

Four weeks to go.  Sarah’s turned into a relentless house clearing trojan who, over the last week or so, has made it her full time work to “git ‘er done”.  Cupboard by cupboard, drawer by drawer.  She says she doesn’t want to be doing it at the last minute and I can understand that, but she’s a woman on a mission.

Just as well, because I’m resisting it all rather, I’m finding it quite difficult emotionally to let go.

I have managed to let go of my need to pay to store a few sticks of furniture, crockery and the like.  I’m only keeping a few sentimental bits & bobs to be stored by my daughter and long-suffering ex-husband, plus a very few pieces of quirky art, collected when I owned the hotel in Worthing, The Acacia.  I’ve sorted out the two cupboards in my bedroom and my book / office cupboard in the dining room and that, pretty much, is that.  I’m not a hoarder, really, and having started all over again in 2010 – 2011, I haven’t accumulated much clutter.

I hate how different and bare it all looks now but I have to show willing, Sarah’s working so hard, and I’ll just have to get used to that.  I’m a last-minute merchant, me, so I’d still be hanging on to the familiar look and feel of my surroundings until about 2 weeks before we are due to depart.  Funny how just a few unnecessary things going makes all the difference though.  A coffee machine and set of knives from the kitchen, a wooden bowl that we used to keep fruit in….it all adds to the “lived in” feel.

She’s mostly selling it off via the local Facebook Selling Pages, it’s not making a fortune but it’s adding up, where I’d probably have paid a house clearance person to take it all away, due to not being able to bear spending my every waking moment clearing, photographing, listing and then answering the door incessantly.  Oh, the chit chat, I’m out of practice.

I came back from getting a haircut yesterday to find my work desk (her old glass dining room table) being cleaned and photographed, ready for sale.  I’m camping out now on my old Ikea folding table which we are going to be leaving for Heather (our middle sister, whose house it is) as a wallpapering table.

This is why you’ve not seen a blog post from Sarah yet.  She’s very solo focused and if there is anything, anything else to do first, blogging just comes last on the list.  She writes really, really well, so you’ll have a treat when we get to Stoupa and she joins in with the blogging too.  She takes a great photo so that’ll be a welcome addition.  Not my strong suit really, graphics and pictures.

I’ve told her that she’s got to write her first blog post by Friday, as that’s the day that this new blog’s URL is announced on our podcast “Own It! Your Business & Your Life” but I’m not holding my breath.  As I say, she needs to clear the decks before she can turn her attention to blogging.

I’ve notified all the utilities of my date of vacation and my new UK address – we are too early for the electricity and gas, it has to be done within 28 days apparently.  I’ve checked on my one-year multi-trip travel insurance and it’s valid only for the first 45 days after leaving the country, so I’ll be checking out WorldNomads.com for my ongoing health and gadget insurance after that.

My podcast co-host Judith and I have just had a very dark but quite funny conversation on Facebook Messenger about whether life / health insurance is worth it if you are single, as presumably if you drop down dead in foreign parts and nobody claims you, they’ll just dispose of you locally.  But I don’t want my kids to be burdened with the worry or with funeral costs, here or abroad, and we both agree that we would quite like to be medi-vac’d home to good old Blighty’s and the NHS if we got really sick or hurt somehow.

Judith’s sanguine about her chances, but Steve’s sudden departure has made me realise very forcibly how fragile life is (he died of a heart attack in his sleep).  It’s especially made me question the unspoken assumption that you will wake up again each and every morning.

And if I don’t, it would be worse for those remaining – locally or here – if they had to make arrangements of any kind in foreign climes.

Cheery, eh?

Actually, I’m feeling quite a bit chirpier of late, the scent of travel and adventure always does that to me.

Judith’s been camping out in her flat in London for five months now, in spite of having a buyer who didn’t involve an estate agent.  She got rid of everything in the confident expectation of exchanging and completing fast and due to admin hold ups, has been sleeping on a sofa bed while working from a garden chair, ever since!

Only 4 weeks to go.

 

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Doing Nothing

stoupa-harbour-from-pefko

One of the reasons I want to go and live in Stoupa is to learn how to do nothing.

When I talk about doing nothing, I’m not talking about hobbies, like walking the dog, or to the theatre, or art galleries  I’m not talking about going hiking, or to films or live gigs, or seeing friends.

I’m talking about doing nothing in the way that one of my favourite comedians Micky Flanagan means, when he talks about doing nothing. Well, he doesn’t actually word it like that – it’s a strong language alert!

(I tried unsuccessfully to find a clip on YouTube for you but you’ll just have to watch his whole “Out Out” tour to find out what I’m talking about, I think it’s when he talks about women that he covers the whole concept of doing nothing).

It’s the kind of doing nothing that you do on holiday, or perhaps it’s just me?  Sitting there with a drink in your hand, just chatting.  Or reading.  Or staring at the sea and thinking.

I do wonder if I’m capable of it.   It’s been so many years and my brain still goes at 90 miles an hour most of the time.

When we discuss this on the Own It podcast, Judith talks about enjoying doing nothing and I have NO IDEA what she means.  When pressed, she mentions watching films or reading or cooking or just sitting in a chair, looking at the garden, thinking.  Doing nothing, for Judith, sounds like a real activity, that has to be made time for and worked at.

You could argue that by that definition I could learn to do nothing in Shoreham just as easily as in Greece, but it’s not the same. There’s not much to do in Shoreham, except sit in a pub, especially out of the house for 90% of the year because of the rubbish weather in the UK most of the time.

I’m hoping that, if I can put some sort of ring fence around my working hours, in Greece it will be brighter than the UK, not raining all the time.  That I’ll be tempted to go out of the house more, to put a cardigan on and walk down the hill to one of the tavernas still open looking onto the sea, drink a coffee, read a book, perhaps even swim if it’s still warm enough in October.  We’ll see.

I’m looking forward to the easing off of the subtle invisible pressure of all those things I could be doing, with Brighton just down the road and London just a train ride away.  All those people to have fun with, to get to know, my potential future friends.

That exciting, sophisticated art and music filled life I could have, but am not ready for yet.

Six months of no expectations (not least from myself), of reflection, reading, swimming, thinking, blogging, building up cushions and reserves of both money and energy.

Then when I have painted a brand new picture of my future, that does not now include a little house in the country somewhere, with dogs and cats and chickens and a garden full of home grown vegetables and even the much discussed foster kids, perhaps then I can come back to the UK.

I have glimmers of a vision of a bright modern open plan flat at the top of a new block in Brighton’s Lanes, a short walking distance from the art galleries, coffee shops and restaurants, from the live music and comedy, but there’s nobody living there in my mind yet.

Especially not the woman I might become, the slightly eccentric one, dressed all in black with a sharp bob and bright red lipstick.

She’s not living anywhere yet but she might just appear in Greece, given time and space.

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Why Move To Stoupa

Why move to stoupa? Sarah and Nicola discuss out in the garden

Nicola and Sarah talk about why they’ve decided to move to Stoupa in Greece for 6 months in this video recorded live on their Facebook page.  Like the Swagger And Soul Facebook page to be notified when they’re next on air!

Here’s the transcription:

Nicola: Hi everybody it’s Nicola Cairncross here and

Sarah: Sarah Cairncross (I am allowed to say my name!)

Nicola: You are indeed yes, you are indeed. What we’d like to do today is just explain what’s happening to us and how it’s come to be in the form of an introduction to Swagger and Soul which is a website, a podcast and it’s going to be a book one day. So Sarah, do you want to take over from here and just start talking about how it all came to be?

Sarah: I just want to explain we are in fact sisters

Nicola: Yeah, if you hadn’t guessed just in case you wondered. I’m the older one, you wouldn’t have known that though would you.

Sarah: Basically I’ve been house and pet sitting for the past.. what is it now? Since 2012 actually and I was on a sit locally and I just thought, do you know what, I’d really quite like to go somewhere for like six months or so and settle in one place for a while so I started looking at house sits for six months or longer and quite a few were coming up in the south of France they were beautiful I must say, and I was chatting to Nicola about it and you said well you might be
up for an adventure too, didn’t you?

Nicola: Yes because I live in Shoreham-by-Sea at the moment and you come and stay with me and we’re renting off our other sister and I’ve lost a friend called Steve just recently and I think I need a change of scene because it’s been six months now and I’m getting…

It’s been a summer in the UK and the summer has definitely helped a bit – being able to come out and sit in the garden under the olive tree but winter is coming now and I know that it’s going to get more and more challenging to be on my own in the house in the rain because I work from home as well, so I don’t see many people during the week and I just thought, yeah I really need a change of scene.

I don’t know how I’m going to put my life together now after Steve’s gone and the kids are all grown up so they’re off doing their own thing so it’s really a big turning point in my life. And so when Sarah said do you want to come and stay somewhere in the South of France with me I thought, well that sounds good and we sort of looked at a few places didn’t we?

Sarah: Yep.

Nicola: So what were we looking at? There was that one where they wanted you to shoot rodents [laughing]

Sarah: I did laugh because Nicola went on a road trip across America.

Nicola: That’s right.

Sarah: And you got to practice
your firearm skills didn’t you.

Nicola: Well I’d only ever shot a gun once before but I went to a range with a bunch of my mates who I  was driving across across America with. I turned out to be a crack shot. So when this is house sit came up in the South France and one of the requirements was you have to be willing to learn to use a shotgun to shoot these big river rodents… So yes I quite liked the sound of that one.

But then we sort of thought about it in a bit more detail and yeah you know while France is nice, in the summer particularly, unless you go to the south of France it’s not much sunnier than being in the UK so if I’m going to uproot myself and and pack the house up and you know, just generally change my life, I don’t want to go somewhere where it’s just as miserable and rainy and horrible as England but with nobody around that you know. It just seems like, seems completely pointless.

So then we started thinking about where else and my friend Yvonne, who actually is my cleaning lady, she bought a house in a place called Stoupa in the Peloponnese which we love. I love that place, I’ve been going there for years it was me that told her about Stoupa and she actually ended up buying property there with her friend Noreen and I was thinking, I wonder if they’ll be using it much over the winter and it turned out they weren’t planning to, they were planning to just close it up for six months. So then we had the idea to talk to Yvonne. Yvonne talked to Noreen…

Sarah: No, Nicola. Nicola says ‘we’ a lot – it’s a bit like the Royal ‘we’. Yes Nicola took it on herself to…

Nicola: Yeah…

Sarah: You got all excited without me even knowing anything yet really.

Nicola: Well I didn’t really because I wasn’t.. excited is not the right word because it’s a big step. It’s a huge step. And I’m actually a bit.. you know at that stage I was a bit worried about it and afraid, generally. So you know I’m just.. I’m a great believer in feel the fear and do it anyway and just see what happens.

So what I did was I emailed a friend who lives in the village and she works with a guy called Elias who owns Pefko Taverna – anyone who has been to Stoupa will know Elias and Pefko – and he’s got lots of properties but the problem with his properties are they’re very much geared towards summer lets and I have stayed in one of his houses before, and out season and it’s quite bare only because you know in the summer, when everything’s hot, you don’t need as much stuff. But Yvonne’s house is furnished as a home which will be a lot cozier for a longer term stay.

So I put the word out to Stella. Yvonne was actually at her house in Stoupa at the time, so Stella walked down the road and said to Yvonne, “Did you know that Nicola is thinking of coming and staying here for the winter?”.  And I’d only not said anything to Yvonne at that stage because I’d texted her and the text didn’t go through for some reason, I don’t know why not. And so anyway, now she knows. She came back, she came to do my cleaning and she said, “Are you thinking of going to Stoupa? Why don’t you stay in our house?”.

So then we went to see Yvonne and Noreen didn’t we

Sarah: Mmhmm we did. Noreen wanted to see the whites of our eyes.

Nicola: Yeah. See the shady characters that we are. Yeah. But you’ve been police checked and everything so you’re not as shady as me [laughing]. So yeah we all got on and at the end of it we sort of walked out of the house and said it sounds like we ought to do this. And I was still , still trying to prevaricate but at that point it started to feel a bit more real, doable, achievable, whatever. So..

Sarah: So what was the fear? Main fear for you?

Nicola: Well there’s about a hundred of them Sarah, where do I start?

Sarah: The main…

Nicola:  Well giving up the house and not having anything, anywhere to come back to. But that’s weird because the whole reason I want to go is to change things around anyway… and force myself, if you like, into a situation where I have to change things. So yeah lots of fears around insects, scorpions, spiders sleeping with the doors open at night, because that’s what they do in Greece when it’s hot. They don’t have little windows, they have doors.

Lots of things, I’m scared of lots of things. I’m not a very brave person although a lot of people think I am.

It’s really quite interesting. I’ll do anything; I’ll stand on stage, I’ll do Facebook Live quite happily but you know I’m scared of lots of things.

So how did you feel about it at that stage?

Sarah: Umm my main worry about it.. I mean, the south of France felt comfortable to me. It is easy to get to and from the UK. Now, I’ve got a 19 and 22 year old and you’ve got a 19 and 21..

Nicola: He’s 18, and 21

Sarah: Yeah so we’ve got kids similar ages and to be honest, you know they don’t really need us at all anymore which was…

Nicola: Well that’s not true, they do need us psychologically but they don’t need us to be there all the time do they

Sarah: No, but I sort of like was thinking was Stoupa is, it can be a real pig to get to and from the UK if necessary

Nicola: Yeah it’s not easy out of season, the planes run until November [to Kalamata] and then start again in April so for a lot of the time we’re there, the nearest way of getting in and out of Stoupa is a 45-minute drive to Kalamata and then a coach or drive from Kalamata to Athens and then a plane from Athens so it’s a two-day trip to get there really, because…

Sarah: Don’t say that or they’ll never come visit us

Nicola:  It’s not.. you know you can you can get an Easyjet crack of dawn from Gatwick or somewhere, Stanstead to Athens and then you can get on a coach to come down and you get, by the time you get to Kalamata, it’s sort of early evening and then…

Sarah: How long does it take – do you know?

Nicola: Four hours

Sarah: Oh right, they way you were talking I thought it was going to be more…

Nicola: No, but but going back it’s more tricky. It’s alright, you can do it in a whole day coming down to Stoupa but going back is more tricky because if you go to Kalamata to get the very early coach you’re quite likely not to have a flight waiting for you at the other end because all the cheap flights go in the morning so you’re probably gonna have to stay overnight in Athens just to be able to go back. I have done it in one day but it was really really really tight and stressful. So I think, you know, most of the expats that live out there generally do it in two days going back.

Sarah: Yeah, yeah just cause it’s easier

Nicola: So that was your worries, the fact that you can’t just drive across the channel?

Sarah: Yeah.

Nicola: And drive back again and that’s the other thing is we are going to have to give up our cars which you know the only other option was to drive down to Greece and that apparently takes five days and costs a thousand euros what with the stopovers and then everything… although Google maps does say it can be done in 36 hours non-stop.

Sarah: Yeah but we would kill each other [laughter]

Nicola: So yes, so the other thing that made me just stop a bit and think about it a bit was the broadband situation because I work online, you work online, we’ve got to have good broadband and there isn’t any at the house at the moment. And although I took my dongle out there last time I went, it only works in the village it doesn’t work up on the hill. So Yvonne and Noreen are going to put in broadband. They wanted to anyway but they were only going to do it for the six months next year but are now going to have to do it for a year because they want a smart TV there because they go out for long periods of time, they want to watch TV. So that’s sort of that out of the way.

There’s still a little bit of urgh about that, because they’re Brits through and through and they’re gonna have to go into Kalamata and go in to one of the shops there and get the broadband put on. And when I did it last time, you know we were in the shop and he didn’t speak English. But apparently there are people now in the telephone shops that speak English, so, fingers crossed for Yvonne and Noreen on that one. They’ve got a month to sort it out and even if it doesn’t arrive for a week or two after we get there, I can improvise with my dongle.

Sarah: Yeah?

Nicola: Yeah, well if it won’t work up the hill, we’ll have to go down to a taverna or something.

Sarah: Oh, what a shame!

Nicola: Yes, so anyway, so there you go, so that’s the adventure starting really, that’s the… Tell, tell them a bit about why you want to go and live somewhere. I mean…

Sarah: What do you mean?

Nicola: So, is there no sort of other reason that you want to go apart from you fancy staying in the same place for six months? Because you’ve been here for six months haven’t you? Coming and going.

Sarah: You know I just want, I want to… I don’t know, I suppose I just want to have an adventure. It’s like you know, do I want to be in the UK?… Dark, cold gray UK for… you know, the next six months, or do I want to go somewhere that’s more pleasant umm… different foods errr, you know.

Nicola: Yeah, the food’s good it’s very simple food out there but it is really good.

Sarah: I just need a change of scene you know

Nicola: Yeah we are so bored with our lives

Sarah: Yes. So bored. Basically it’s a lovely day today as you can see but that’s an Indian summer kind of day. But it’s not even just the weather it’s like just being stuck in a rut. It’s..

I’m coming round to thinking again, what is it I want? What do I want to be experiencing and where do I want to go with my life?

And it was funny because I was on a delayed flight recently and got talking to a lady there and she’s buggering off to Tenerife for three months and she said… “Maybe longer, maybe not”. So it seems to be a bit of a thing for women of our age. Children are old enough to fend for themselves and sort of thinking, Well, what do I want? What do I like? Where am I going with my life? There must be MORE than this, basically, is what sums it up.

Nicola: It is very easy when you’ve got somewhere to live in the UK and you’re in a little town, we’re in Shoreham by Sea, which is lovely.

Sarah: We’re just down the road from Brighton.

Nicola: Yeah so you know it’s very easy to get stuck in a rut isn’t it and it’s like it’s a cross between a midlife crisis. With me it’s the grieving process as well. You know I’ve never lost anyone like this. It’s coming to terms with the grieving process which I’ve never experienced before, and it’s empty nest, it’s stuck in a rut.

The other, of course huge benefit of house-sitting, is that you reduce your overheads to nothing because you house sit in return for living somewhere for free effectively and although we’re going to be paying a little bit of rent, it’s minuscule compared with what we pay here, so that will be a good chance to get a cushion of cash behind us which I’m looking forward to. Yeah.

And just have the freedom for me to choose the clients I want to work with. Do Facebook ads and funnel building for
people. And sometimes you take clients on you shouldn’t because you need to, you know you’ve got overheads and you need to pay the bills so, it’d be really good for me to be able to do a few more experimental projects where perhaps I’m in partnership with someone rather than having to, you know, just take the clients on who’ve got the money to pay you… Perhaps they’re not quite the right kind of client, is the thing. So..

Sarah: That’s a biggie actually.

Nicola: Yeah, it is, it is. So yeah. Lots of positive reasons to do it The only negative reasons not to do it is the wildlife [laughter]. We’ll have to knock our shoes out before we put them on because apparently scorpions are very fond of…

Sarah: Really?..

Nicola: Yeah I’ve never actually seen one myself but apparently they are out there and so yeah it’s an adventure and we’ll see what happens and we’re going to be chronicling it along the way on the podcast and on Facebook Live if we can get a connection up the hill.

Sarah: Yeah, real and raw as well it’s going to be what’s really happening.

Nicola: Yeah we’re gonna try and be as honest as possible about it – good stuff and the bad stuff. So join us next time, next episode,we’re going to go for weekly episodes like this. We’re also going to be blogging individually, aren’t we Sarah?

Sarah: Yep, I haven’t done my blog yet, Nicola’s already started.

Nicola: Yeah, I’ve started churning them out and then yes, so, so keep up on the blog SwaggeAndSoul.com and subscribe to the podcast and subscribe to the page on Facebook and we’ll be back next week.. Bye!

 

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Stuff Makes Us Feel Real

I’m starting to throw out nonessential stuff from cupboards as I go now,  You know, the cluttery stuff that gathers in corners of drawers and cupboard shelves.

There’s usually one “junk drawer” in every house and it’s usually in the kitchen.  Is that a global thing, or just the UK?

Half finished makeup, unused carrier bags, old elastic bands, pencils with broken lead, bits and pieces of old toiletries, spent batteries, old emery boards and nail varnish, shower caps from hotels, bendy straws and plastic shot glasses from parties long gone.

Ah, are the last two just my house?

I’ve just found some Beechams Flu Remedy tablets that must be at least 10 years old, judging by the state of the packaging.

Why do we keep this stuff?

I’ve been thinking about it a lot now as we are clearing out everything and I’m struggling to let go of the strangest things.  You may have seen the Gardening Gloves post!

When Steve died, because he never got around to making a will, his Mum was his Executor. His Mum and Sister had to go and clear out his flat, so they could give notice to the landlady.  They kindly invited us around so we could have our pick of his stuff, anything that meant something to us.  It was not a fun occasion.

I remember being struck by how little is left when a person dies.  It’s their personality and soul and energy that makes a person present in a place, not their belongings.  When all that leaves, there is just stuff left.

But still people buy things, things that are not worth a hundredth of what we pay for them.  All my books, bought over the years and carted round from house to house, originally costing £7 -15, now worth between £0.00 and £0.10.  Tragic.

All those people with houses stuffed full of antique furniture.  Big heavy furniture from days gone by.

My “oldest best” friend Kim’s houses are always beautiful, usually quite large with gorgeous old furniture and objects anyone would desire.  She makes them beautiful for herself, for her own pleasurein her surroundings, not to pass on to her kids.

But most people live in little flats or houses, with modern furniture, not antiques.

So why DO we keep so much?

Steve was a total minimalist, everything in his place was white, or black, or brown.  Very neat.  A right “lad’s pad” it was.

Everything meaningful was online where Steve was concerned.  So no shelves of books, no piles of DVD’s.  Just a few great cook books, one tiny folder of personal possessions like a couple of birthday or christmas cards, a couple of certificates, a few very old photos.  He had his clothes, some golf clubs and a bike.

Much as we loved him, we struggled to find anything to take away to remind us of him, that we would actually use.

My son Nelson asked for a silly stuffed moose that sat on his office window-sill.  The return of said moose had already been requested by it’s original owner, so he could give it to his children to remind them of Steve.  Fair enough, we all agreed, so Nels got a nice chunky silver necklace that Steve wore rarely, but Nelson now never takes off.

Where HAD that necklace come from?  That’s lost in the mists of time…

My daughter got the Jeremy Hoye chunky silver bracelet I erroneously bought him one early Christmas (Steve hated Christmas with a passion and that bracelet nearly as much!).  She also chose some kitchen utensils as we remember Steve being at his happiest in the kitchen, cooking for everyone.  We nearly blew ourselves up with his coffee maker the other day, using the wrong kind of coffee in it.

But at the end of the day, there was very little there, now Steve was gone.

Think about all the stuff in your cupboards and corners.  The photo frames, the ornaments, the stuff lurking in that cupboard under the stairs or in the spare room.

Why do we keep it all?

As I see it now, the small clutter, I’m just scooping it all into a carrier bag and throwing it away.  Every time I do I feel a little bit lighter.  A bit less “here”.

There’s the clue.  I think that’s why we keep stuff.

It makes us feel more real, somehow.  Less likely to just float away.

Our stuff makes us feel more substantial.

Grounded, tied to the earth with the weight of it all.

Do you think that perhaps deep down, we all have this real sense that we are all ethereal beings, here on earth for a very short time indeed?

Perhaps ultimately we know that…

“We are of the Earth, constructed from a ready supply of chemical elements, forged in the stars” Professor Brian Cox, “Forces Of Nature”, BBC.

And that, someday, we’ll all be going back there.

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One Suitcase Or Two?

four stacked suitcases - should I take one suitcase or two?

When I went to Greece last time out of season, I took one tightly packed suitcase and one wheely bag with my big leather handbag on top.  I largely took summer clothes with a few cardigans and I wore my coat and scarf, it being February in the UK.

18th February 2010, in fact.

Steve’s birthday.

We were seriously NOT talking at that time.

He’d moved out in the July the year before, on my request after a particularly gruelling trip to my therapist but I always suspected afterwards it may just have been serious PMT.  I regretted it immediately but he was glad to go, we were fighting a lot.  He was only around the corner so he could carry on spending time with Phoebe and Nelson, but it felt like a lifetime away.

I arrived in Greece, heartbroken, having lost Steve, my house, my car, even my wonderful kids had gone to live with their Dad while I tried to pull things together.

I cried my way to Greece and then, having left my new iPhone on the plane seat, I cried even harder for most of the coach journey from Athens to Kalamata, heaven only knows what my fellow passengers thought.

So, in retrospect, I was pretty ill equipped for the changeable weather of February but I don’t remember it being THAT cold.  My friend Elias put me in a lovely but rather bare house, usually let out in summer.  I did have a fireplace and Elias kindly delivered logs so I remember a few cozy fires in the evenings.

But I’ve just been reading a book called “100 Days Of Solitude” by Daphne Kapsali (excellent, highly recommended!) and she was on the same longitude as Stoupa (had to look that one up!) and while December was changeable, cold one day and warmish the next, apparently January is seriously grim and you can see snow in February.

However, nothing could be colder than that awful apartment we stayed one night in, at Easter in Malta last year, 2015.

I originally wrote “a couple of years ago”.

Only last year?

Really?  Seriously?

That is sobering.  It seems like a lifetime ago.  What a terrible, wonderful, terrible year it has been, for sure.

Sarah and I went for an old mate’s Easter wedding, three days in we were both dying of nicotine poisoning due to the insistence of everyone of smoking incessantly inside.  Then a sudden spring storm with howling wind and lashings of rain made us even more miserable.

I’ve never been so cold, sick, uncomfortable and miserable in my life.  We hunted for an AirBAndB.com but nothing was to be had for love nor money.  We just had to go home!

However, I was glad to get there as by then, Steve was showing some signs of not being very well at all.  I was worried sick about him and rightly so as it turned out.

So I’m thinking now perhaps two suitcases, to allow for cardis, although that will cost an extra £21 and four suitcases in total will be harder to get in the taxi picking us up from the airport.  Three people, four suitcases, hmmmm.  Depends on the taxi size.

Perhaps Sarah and I could share the extra one?

She doesn’t have many clothes but she wants to take her juicer!

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Gardening Gloves

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Yes, I must definitely take my gardening gloves.

That was the random thought that swirled into my head this morning. I’ll obviously need them, even though the garden in Stoupa is largely mature trees with some gravel and paved areas.

There are things living in the undergrowth that will bite me, sting me, crawl over me if I don’t have gardenings gloves on.

And I am such a dedicated gardener, too.

I kid you not. I am going mad, the gardening gloves are proof of it.

As a woman who lives fairly minimally, I’m not worrying too much, most days, about turning the contents of the little two bedroom house in Shoreham I’ve lived in for four years, into one suitcase or two, with some basic furniture and kitchen equipment in one tiny storage container somewhere local.

For when I come back, you understand.

I want something to sleep on, sit on, cook with.

No, I can’t let go of all that, I can’t just say I’ll get rid of it all and buy it when I come back.

I feel complete and utter panic at that idea.

Also, the frugal me can’t bear to spend £10 per item to rebuy on all the basic stirring, squeezing, straining things a half decent cook needs.

Insecure, scarce, delusional about my gardening proclivities.

These are not good emotions, I must journal immediately.

Oh wait, I’m blogging instead.  That’s even better, I’m not just getting these negative thoughts out of my head into my journal, I’m getting them out into the world.

I haven’t actually started packing or clearing anything out yet, you understand.  I’m just thinking about it while reading books about other people who have moved to Greece.

I’ve taken a load of books out of my big book cupboard.  Yes, the very one that features so frequently in discussions about clutter in the “Own It! Your Business & Your Life” podcast I co-host with Judith Morgan.

That’s it.

I might clear out all the “never used” toiletries from my bathroom cupboard and shelf in my bedroom cupboard.  That would be an easy job.

No emotional attachment there.  Just the “just in case” factor to contend with.

Cuticle cream? Really?!

Dream on.  I wear gardening gloves!

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Decision Day

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Sarah and I are thinking of moving to Stoupa in Greece for six months, maybe longer.  Or moving to Greece, then moving on somewhere else perhaps.

I can work from anywhere with good internet, in fact I’ve been working towards such a goal for a long time.  I had a different companion in mind as you will discover…

We’ve been looking at long term house-sits in France and there are some really lovely ones available, but the thought of the pets and gardens requiring looking after daunts me.

Although, to be fair, Sarah would probably mostly deal with the pets, I don’t really do animals, since the last fish were despatched to their new home back in 2010.  I can garden a bit and do watch Gardeners World avidly, which would have surprised my late Nan, who had to endure my younger self endlessly moaning about how boring it was.

Sarah is a professional house-sitter.  She’s been police checked and everything!  With that certificate of upright citizenship and many great testimonials to her name, I think she must be a good bet for any nervous home owner, to look after your empty house.

When you house-sit you live for free, largely.  In these houses in France you have to pay for logs and in one particularly lovely option, you get to use a shot gun to keep large river rodents at bay.  Very tempting especially since I found out I’m a crack shot, on a strange day in Louisiana last year.

Sarah’s off now in Goring for 3 weeks, house sitting for Gaile and Matt and looking after a trio of pleasant cats and a demented Romanian terrier nicknamed Dex The Dastardly, who is so terrified of everything it manifests itself in very loud barking towards people, things and other dogs.

(Sometimes I know how he feels.  I feel a blog post brewing on the topic but I’ll leave that for another day).

Lucky for him, Gaile and Matt love him pretty much unconditionally and, when house-sitting,  Sarah can cope with the solitary walks at lunchtime and mid to late evening.  These are necessary to keep Dastardly’s fear and stress levels to a minimum.

The thing about France though, while I love the food, could learn the language and it’s a mere drive away from England, so we could take a car / our cars, it’s not really much sunnier and hotter than England.

If you are going to uproot yourself completely, I think you need sun and a bit of warmth to make it worth it.  So it’s the South Of France or nothing really.  I’m not holing up in a strange house in the middle of nowhere just a few short latitudes lower than England.

There’s another option.  Going to stay in Stoupa, my favourite village in the Mani Peninsula in Greece, where my cleaner co-owns a house.

There are other options, as I have a friend called Elias who owns Pefko Taverna but also lots of properties in and around Stoupa.  I stayed in one last time I ran away to Stoupa back in 2010 when my world fell down around me along with the global credit crunch and ensuing recession.

Except I’m not running away this time, I’m changing my environment to help facilitate some much needed change in me.  I don’t think I’ll last another British winter, working from home, now Steve is dead.

Those three words.

I say them, I write them, but I still can’t believe them.

Turns out, long silences, fights and all, he really did light up my life.

I have no idea what to do next.  How to keep going.  NO IDEA.

OK, stop. Deep breaths.  Don’t start. Move on.

As I say, I have to make changes.

Reboot.

Sarah has decided to come too.  Sarah is my sister, 9 years younger, who appears back in Shoreham in between her house and pet sitting gigs.

I think she’d prefer France as it’s nearer and we could, in theory, pop home easier but she has been to Stoupa a couple of times.  She’s not been out of season, I’m worried it will be too quiet for her.  I don’t mind quiet, I want quiet, I crave it right now.

She’s not seen this house and I deleted the photos of the interior a while ago in an ill informed space making purge in Drive.  So I can’t show her where we’d be staying.  She has only my word that it’s a really lovely house, cosy in a way that one of Elias’ holiday rentals out of season would not be, only needing Broadband to be perfect.  Here’s the view from the balcony.

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Today it’s Decision Day.

After talking to Yvonne, my much loved quirky cleaner of nearly 10 years, who’s somehow has managed (with her friend Noreen) to buy a house in my favourite village in Greece, thus usurping my own laptop lifestyle dream in a most unexpected way.

We are now going to meet Noreen.  Sarah and I think they want to see the whites of our eyes, not being internet types.

If they like the look of us (and why would they not?) we will tell them definitely, whether we want to go and live in their house and look after it over the winter.

I’ve been to Greece in February & March before but never been in October and especially never stayed until April.

I’m terrified, I feel like I’m going mad for even contemplating it, but the thought of staying in rainy Shoreham for the next 6 months, wrestling with my grief mostly alone, is too horrible to contemplate.

I need shaking up, shocking to find signs of life, jolting out of my solitude and sadness.

So today we go to North Lancing, to meet Yvonne and Noreen, to make a most momentous decision.

Will we move to Greece?  Secretly I think I already know the answer.

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A Bit Of Background From Nicola

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From, my personal blog at NicolaCairncross.com | 11 May 2016

My “Own It” podcast co-host Judith Morgan has been nudging me to write my “Laptop Lifestyle” dream blog post over the last couple of days.  We’re running a blogging competition for our Virtual Summit and have to show willing even though, obviously, we can’t win!  Judith’s own Dream Laptop Lifestyle post is predictably excellent, well, she does love to write!

I’ve been resisting.

Actually I’ve been resisting blogging generally actually for the last couple of years.  I felt like I’d burned out on the blogging front, having done a weekly newsletter and at least a weekly blog post if not more, on The Business Success Factory since 2010 and previously, on The Money Gym website from 1998-1999.

(O yes, we were blogging back then, before the name (or the software) had even been invented, in the form of archive ezines, building up multi-page websites with 100% original relevant content, naturally seeded with key phrases that told Google what our sites were all about).

Since we started the “Own It!” podcast and I’ve been outsourcing a lot of my admin, my blog and from there, my own social media platforms fill naturally with content derived from the various sections of that podcast.  Specifically the podcast episodes, the transcribed “Client Challenge of the Week” and “Business Words of the Week”

But I do feel like I need to show willing, by joining in to write a post about my own Dream Laptop Lifestyle.

So here goes….

Except I haven’t got one right now (sound of nails on screechy blackboard!)

Ooops! Sorry….

Here’s how it went down.

The Mani Peninsula, Greece

Once upon a time, there was a young(ish) couple called Nicola & Irving, who lived in London and worked hard and had fun but yearned for a “getaway” holiday.  Irving loved the Greek Islands but Nicola didn’t like the sound of the water shortages in the late afternoons!

They saw an article in the Observer on Sunday, about a little known part of Greece called the Mani Peninsula.  Famous only for having been the part of Greece that produced Kalamata olives, where the Spartans came from and due to the fiercely independent are war-like nature of the inhabitants, never having been invaded by anyone, from Genghis Khan down to Hitler!

There was only one picture, of a grizzled old man sitting outside a taverna, but the article promised unspoiled Greece, where tourism hadn’t leaked it’s spoil, where the houses were no more than two floors high, where you could still get a good traditional beef stifado.

It’s absolutely beautiful, in a rugged yet hot and sunny, blue sea Greek kind of way.  You can check out some of my pictures from my last visit with Steve and Phoebe here and then with Sarah here.

Irving and I went and spent an amazing two weeks there, starting in Kardamyli where Patrick Leigh Fermor lived and wrote “Mani: Travels in the South Peloponnese” and tracing a path from village to village every couple of days, using the local bus for transportation.

That was an adventure by itself, as there were no such things as bus-stops in those days, there were only two buses a day going in each direction (very very early in the morning and around lunchtime), the bus timetable was impenetrable and the locals instructions on where to wait and what time to arrive to catch it, even more so.

Add to that it was August, boiling hot, we had rather large, heavy bags (not the wheelie kind either) and you might be forgiven for thinking I was mad to agree to this.  I thought I was mad to agree to this.  Experience of a lifetime and my first taste of independent travel.

We went back about 10 times over the next 15 years.  We absolutely loved it.  Our children Phoebe & Nelson learned to swim in Kalogria Bay.  We took anyone who would come too!

I’ve always wanted to buy a house and live here, that’s been my dream ever since.

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Close But Spain Won Out

We got close in 2004, when I’d bought the hotel in Worthing “no money down”; my Dad and Eileen were living in it and running it and my wealth coaching business was flying, having launched my “signature programme” and able to host my own workshops in my own hotel.

Irving and I packed the kids up and headed for Greece for a month before moving, against my better judgement, to Andalucia in Spain to see where we most wanted to live.  Greece got my vote every time but Irving pointed out it would be better for Phoebe and Nelson to learn Spanish than Greek, a fact I couldn’t argue with (but wanted to).

The desire to live there lingered on…

You know when you meditate and they tell you to imagine yourself in a happy, safe place…well, mine was floating in the sea at the wonderfully stone & seaweed free Kalogria Beach, looking up at the Taygetos mountain range, often with snow on it’s peak even as the water is warm enough to swim in.

When you were asked to imagine your ‘ideal Tuesday’ from start to finish, where were you, what could you see and hear, who were you with, what could you smell etc.

Well, I could feel warm sunshine on my skin as I pottered in my garden waiting for the next batch of guests, I could hear cicadas and the happy cries of children playing in the shallows of the lapping waves of the three idyllic bays of Stoupa, I could smell bougainvillea mixed with souvlaki and chicken on the grill at the Five Brothers Taverna and taste the rough country rose wine, served so charmingly in frozen pink metal jugs.  I could even hear the contented cluck of the chickens I would undoubtedly have in my garden by then.

Those were my ultimate dreams for a very long time.

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Further Away Than Ever (Or Was It?)

In 2010, everything came crashing down around my ears, when the Money Gym had to close so suddenly due to the recession AND a credit crunch at the same time.  Steve had moved out previously, then the kids had to go live with their Dad, Irving, because I suddenly had no income, no house, no car, no direction, no future, no clue what to do next.

Sarah offered a bed in her house, the problem was, there wasn’t one.  Me sharing hers would wear thin very quickly, I knew.

Stoupa was the very place I ran to, on the 18 February 2010, by way of a cheap flight on EasyJet then 17 euro coach ride from Athens across the Peloponnese.  I knew you can rent a house in Stoupa, out of season, all-in, very very cheaply indeed.

The goal was to stay for a couple of weeks initially to ‘reset my mind’ which drew out into a couple of months as I learned to be happy in my own company but my mind refused to be reset as easily as that.

But I discovered that it’s all very well living in paradise but if the people you love aren’t there, paradise it ain’t.

So I came home and started to piece things together again but I longed to go back when my life was put back together again, a process that took a rather prolonged few years.  That says more about my state of mind than anything else, my confidence was shot to pieces.

Exactly five years later, I was so happy that I was able to take Steve to eat at my favourite fish restaurant, the world famous Taki’s at Limini Bay (pictured below), before he died so suddenly of a heart attack just 6 months later.

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Spooky, Spooky Weirdness

In the meantime, backtrack to around 2005/2006 when I’d told a friend, Yvonne, all about Stoupa and shown her some pictures of the place.

After 2010, while I wasn’t in a position to employ her again yet, Yvonne had holiday’d very enjoyably in Stoupa several times with her closest girlfriend, who turned out to have quite a lot of money, even more so when her late husband sadly died and left her some investment properties.

They, like many people before them, had been dreaming of buying a holiday home in Stoupa – but now they were in a position to do so!

Yvonne announced on her next visit that they had, on their last visit, bought a house in Stoupa!

Not only that, but it was a lovely little house not 3 doors down from the one Irving and I and our two kids had rented for the month when we stayed there back in 2004.

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And it had three bedrooms, unlike many in Stoupa that only had two, for holiday rentals only needed the two.  They bought all the furniture and fittings from the outgoing owner too, so they had a turnkey, ready to use, idyllic holiday home in my very favourite village.

Astonishing!

Yvonne announced that they weren’t going to rent it commercially but that I could go there whenever I wanted for a nominal sum to cover costs only.

Not only did this little house fit my needs perfectly but now, I didn’t have to buy it or look after it myself!  The house is just out of sight on this picture, but this is the one Irving and I stayed in when we lived there for a month.

I can visit whenever I want, several times a year and, in fact, I took Steve and Phoebe there last year, we had a wonderful, wonderful time.

The only thing it’s lacking is broadband but I think Yvonne is sorting that out soon, as while Yvonne doesn’t need it, her friend’s relatives are requesting it apparently.

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My Original Laptop Lifestyle Dream Is Gone!

So what do I do now?

What do I dream of now, when I think about the laptop lifestyle.

I know I don’t want to live in Shoreham full time, especially as my two get ever more independent.  Phoebe is quite a mummy’s girl, lives round the corner and around at my little cottage a lot at the moment, whenever she’s not working or hanging out with her mates, but she’s off to Bali for a month soon, followed by Ibiza for two weeks.  I only see Nelson once or twice a week as he’s so busy with college, his job and his social life.  And that’s just as it should be.

I could divide my time between Shoreham and Stoupa I suppose, with a few work trips and ‘purposeful holidays’ (like painting or cooking in Italy) thrown in but I’ve got a bit of a taste for more travel recently.

I did quite a lot at the beginning of the year, thankfully before Steve died so suddenly in March, including cruising in the Caribbean on the Internet Marketers Cruise, then driving across the USA in open topped Mustangs back in February, then visiting Manly Beach, Sydney for the SuperFast Business Event.

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Could I Become A Digital Nomad?

I’m quite interested in the Digital Nomad movement although Justin & Chaunna’s tales of the indoor Bali wildlife have put me off a bit.  I hate insects and coming face to face with super-large Huntsman s-word type creatures in particular would scare the living daylights out of me.

Ay, there’s the rub, I’m quite a timid solo traveller.  I don’t mind when it’s 5* hotels and known quantities like that, but independant travel, on my own?  Not for me.

I’m not like one of my mentoring students Jaqueline Butler who LOVES it.  So much so she’s created a website – WeGoSolo.world – to enable her to meet up with other travellers for dinner and drinks while she travels solo.

So it makes sense to look for things where you are not only a bit more looked after, but not solo travelling necessarily.

With Digital Nomad resources expanding fast, with sites like AirBandB.com, NomadList and Digital Nomad Jobs becoming commonplace, some more alternative solutions are popping up apace.

There’s one thing that sounds quite interesting, RemoteYear which is a year of living as a Digital Nomad as one of 75 people, who move from place to place globally en masse, but you have your own private room.  You have to commit for a year though but that would force you to stick it out.  A bit like “The Island With Bear Grylls” but much more comfortable.  Take a look, if only to see one of the most beautiful simple websites I’ve come across in a while.

Just reading their About page and the travels by all the people involved in RemoteYear made me feel deeply inadequate but I have to remember that when I grew up in a working class background in Worthing, home of the national retiree, the only way most people thought they could travel the world was to become an Air Hostess!

Then there’s the very interesting concept of ROAM.co, described as “a network of global communal living spaces that provide everything you need to feel at home and be productive the moment you arrive. Strong, battle-tested wifi, a co-working space, chef’s kitchen and a diverse community”.  You can book a ROAM space for a flexible week to a month or more, it’s very competitive against having a home base and and they are expanding their locations fast, but encourage people to stay for a while to build community.

Perhaps I should start with combining enjoyable work trips to events with ‘purposeful holidays’ learning how to paint or cook, while also going to Stoupa more often?

The first place to start might be blocking out holiday times on my year planner, like Chris Barrow (interviewed for the Own It! Summit this week) does at the beginning of every year.

I could do this now as I’m designing my business to run without me at least occasionally, building a strong team led by my sister Sarah, who’s proving to be a stalwart in learning how to do Facebook Ads the ClicksAndLeads way, while caring reassuringly deeply about customer service.

OK, I’m open to ideas on how to move forward with this.