Why fix what isn't broken? The important thing to know from the beginning is that Simon and I loved our lives just the way they were, for the most part - Great family and friends; we did what we wanted when it came to our free time - gigs, festivals, holidays, the list goes on. We were definitely a couple who worked to live rather than the other way round.
We could have kept on going as we were, quite comfortably. We could afford to do most of what we fancied doing whilst keeping up with the mortgage payments, bills etc for our lovely home. We had secure jobs in the Police Service where we knew what we would bring home every month with maybe even a little bit extra after some overtime. Simon as a Police dog handler, me as a detective. We had minimal responsibilities - having agreed that parenthood was not for us we only had to plan for our furry children - German Shepherd Police dog, Studs, and Springer spaniel, Ralph, seen here stamping his authority in the house:
Our background is that we've been together for 9 and a half years; most couples would have married, had kids, maybe even fallen out and divorced by now?! We say it to each other as a joke 'You can't rush these things', life takes its time, but in reality it has stayed that way because we are happy as we are. And why on Earth is this the 'newdeyblog'? He is Newman, I am Cordey, together we are the Newdeys. I know it's childish but it sounds vaguely rude even though it's not, so it's vaguely funny... to us anyway, deal with it.
So we have taken our time with our relationship but on the other hand I know from personal experience that life is too short, having lost both parents whilst still relatively young - we are not guaranteed a long and healthy life. We are all told that us humans are living for longer and we must save for our pensions and long retirement. Not in my experience! So forgive my sometimes cynical demeanour but I really do believe that you can't put things off - seize the day everyone!
The loss of my parents has left me in the position of having received inheritance at an earlier stage than most - an odd situation to have to get your head around as anyone who has had to come to terms with this will have experienced. I am eternally grateful for Mum and Dad's hard work in bringing my siblings and I up and for ensuring our financial stability. But it still doesn't sit comfortably with me to have benefited from such a loss and that feeling will be in my thoughts throughout this adventure.
But not to get too bleak - if money was no object, traveling and experiencing other cultures would always have been top of my list. In 2011 when this became a possibility I discussed the idea of setting off round the world with Simon - but the timing wasn't right with his career and the idea was put on the back-burner.
Fast forward to spring 2016 - we started a discussion about both being unhappy with our current jobs. I'm not going to go into great detail here as this blog is about getting away from it all, but we both found ourselves feeling disillusioned and frustrated in how things had changed within our roles; mostly due to government funding cuts making it nigh on impossible to provide the high level of service you would like to with your hands tied behind your back. But also there is the additional and real risk to the safety of not only employees but the public as well caused by these cut-backs that gives us the 'when' not 'if' sensation that sadly something will go badly wrong. That's it in a very vague nutshell!
We sought for ideas for alternative careers but found neither of us had a specific direction or burning desire to pursue a certain role. Hence, going back to the idea of broadening our horizons and jetting off to... somewhere else, anywhere else? Maybe inspiration would hit us when we least expected it or an opportunity to do the unimaginable may become a possibility? Maybe we would miss our lives and possibly even our old jobs when we'd had some time out? There really was and is no master plan - in fact, our motto is:
'The plan is, there is no plan'.
We were both at stages where our departure would have minimal effect on 'the job' - Studs was already due for retirement & I was done with all my court commitments for now.
The original thought was to consider carefully over about a month whether or not it was a good idea, you know, on a daily basis. However, after a brainstorming session and us getting carried away with various ideas for the trip it very rapidly became clear that if either one of us changed our minds about doing this, the other would feel very disappointed. How could we go back to thinking 'this is our lives for the next twenty plus years, what if we had made a break for it? Why didn't we go for it?' I will keep reminding myself, whatever struggles we have, that we can always go back to 'the norm' - we can go back to a solid job and 4 walls and staying in one place. We know we can do that and be happy. But let's see what happens when we choose to escape from reality.
