A Year Away from Home

Another year came to a close back in 2018 and I sat down with my wife, as we do, to see how we were doing with our 6 month check up. Its kind of a “thing” we do every so often to make sure that the kids are still ok in school, that my wife is still happy in her work, that the business is going where we wanted it to.  And it all was wonderful !  The kids loved their school.  My wife was happy in teaching, and Pure Design was growing.

But something was missing.

We’d recently visited friends over in Nicaragua and that experience kind of changed the way we looked at everything.  So we reviewed our situation, asked many, many people, made some brave decisions and here we are, 12 months later on the beautiful island of Dominica in the Caribbean.

We are following the French education system for the children (CNED), my wife is organising ZOOM video calls with her students and I am managing work via remote.  Being 5 hours behind clients in France does actually allow me to get through more work and be more reactive to urgent situations.

Since making the move though, it seems like we’ve avoided some horrendous situations back in France.

In November 2019, Grasse, our home town was hit by the “cryptosporidium” parasite in the water supplies, making people very poorly and not able to use the water for many months.

In December 2019, the whole of the Alpes Maritimes, south of France was put on Red Alert due to the storms and weather warnings, not only once, but twice.

And now the Coronavirus (COVID-19)… within just a few days, never mind weeks, the world has changed from a free-moving, carefree society into a scared, anxious earth, most of which is under lock-down.

Dominica had been virus free up until Sunday.  We watched the world panicking thinking that the island was untouchable.  But it got here on a plane, and the world has exploded around the people of Dominica in a huge way.

We are trying the balance the positives and negatives of coming back to the UK or France, and for the moment we’re staying put. 4 weeks to go until we’re due back….if they let us out….if they let us in.

Its been fun, but I think the year 2020 will stay on our minds for some very different reasons…