We have now been on the road for one week and are gradually settling into our temporarily nomadic lifestyle. So far we have spent nights in Northern Ireland, Dublin, near Stratford-upon-Avon, Portsmouth and a few nights in two different towns in the Loire region of France. Our original plan had been to stay in a different place each night as we travelled down through France from Normandy to the Dordogne so that we could just do a couple of hours’ driving each day and explore the country we were passing through. However, Tuesday saw a change of plan……
We spent Monday night in the car park of Portsmouth ferry terminal so we could get the early crossing and we had a restless night and an early start. When we arrived in France on Tuesday at lunchtime it was hot and as we drove South the temperature and humidity kept rising. By the time we arrived at our campsite after nearly 4 hours’ drive, we were all a little frazzled. It was one of those days when I was sweating as I sat still never mind putting up the awning and getting ourselves unpacked. The dogs were hot and stressed too. By the time we got set up for the evening, Eoin and I were, quite frankly, f**ked! All the busy-ness of the last few weeks, getting used to motor-home living, travelling with the dogs and finding our way around new terrain had finally taken its toll. We sat down under the stars for dinner that night and decided that we all needed to take the next day off and just ‘land’ in France. So we stayed for two nights and moved on yesterday but again, this morning, we both really felt the need for stillness so we are staying another night in the lovely campsite where we are right now. It has been a great decision just to take things a little easier on ourselves and to have a couple of lazy days in one place without having to pack up and move on. This afternoon it is raining heavily so we are putting our feet up and making the most of the enforced rest.
Tomorrow we have a reasonably long drive but the reward at the end of it is that we are dropping Samson and Delilah off with our friends in the Dordogne who are dog-sitting for them for the rest of September. We love the fur babies but they are just too big to travel around with in Mirabelle and it is also very unsettling for them. So this will be best for all of us.
I guess that we are still in the process of unwinding from the sale of our home, possessions and car and all the work that we had been doing in the background to simplify our lives before we left Northern Ireland. Even at a combined age of 109 years old, we both have great energy levels which are helped by our healthy lifestyle and excellent nutrition but we definitely had underestimated how tired we actually were.
Tomorrow is my 49th birthday. In a lot of the spiritual circles I move in people talk about the importance of the number seven and how our lives flow in seven year cycles. Today is the last day of my seventh seven year cycle and the significance is not lost on me as I arrived in France yesterday to start my new life here.
We left all that is familiar to us 48 hours ago and drove out of our home in Northern Ireland for the last time in Mirabelle, our new motor-home. I am writing this on the ferry from Dublin to Holyhead having spent our first couple of nights in Mirabelle – one in a layby near our friend’s house in Newry and the second in a campsite on the beach just outside Dublin.
Then today I made the radical decision to burn all my old Vision Boards. I have been making a Vision or Dream Board every year for the last 10+ years and, as Life Coach and Law of Attraction Coach, I used them as evidence for my clients and students of just what can manifest when you get clear about what you want. As I looked through the Vision Boards today I realised that nearly 90% of the images and words on each of them has become reality which is pretty amazing. 
On 25 August 2017 my partner Eoin and I leave our home in Northern Ireland for a new life in France. We have sold our home, sold one of our businesses, are selling or giving away most of our furniture and buying a motor-home to live in until we find our new home. We think this will be somewhere in the Dordogne but we aren’t 100% sure yet!