Moving thoughts

Click to enlarge

I have been reluctant to blog about my anticipated move - it has felt too much like tempting providence. However, I need to make it more real to myself, and that means writing. Fear of making changes, of taking risks, has already kicked in, but that's never a good reason for continuing an unsatisfactory status quo.

My main reasons for moving are:

• Living Space: I need more, particularly for the massage work. I can't afford to buy bigger in London.
• Stagnation: Time for a change. Fourteen years in the capital is way long enough.

I hope also that I will be happier, healthier, more creative, more environmentally active, more involved in the community, less stressed, more fulfilled, find it easier to lead a balanced life, meet more like-minded people, etc. etc. But I am not leaving myself behind in London. On the contrary I will probably continue on occasion to worry, get stressed, feel like a fish out of water, have anxiety attacks, be slothful and isolate. Overly high expectations don't help.

With that last point clearly understood - and you will have gathered I'm talking to myself here - I am starting to look forward to this new beginning, in spite of my significant apprehensions. Apart from anything else it will be wonderful to have more room and, above all, a garden, yes a garden!

Here's a link to the town, or rather city, in question. My new home as of next year, if all goes according to plan. It is a proper working community, not just a tourist attraction - picturesque though it is in parts - and unlike a good many similar places it hasn't already been overrun by alternative practitioners. There are enough businesses to provide other work, at least at the outset, and the local economy seems healthy enough. For off-duty times, it is in a beautiful part of the country with many wonderful walks, a couple of old friends live nearby, and rather surprisingly the town still has a cinema. Communications are good: it is on a railway line that is unlikely to be axed and it is bicycle-friendly. If I start to pine for big city life, Birmingham is about an hour away and Cardiff a little further.

It also lies close to the boundary between Wales and England, and I have always felt at home in the energy of border areas - I like marshlands for the same reason- neither totally one thing nor the other, but an unsettling yet intriguing mixture of both.

In the last few days I have started going through drawers and cupboards and throwing things out I won't be needing to take with me. The challenge in the next few months will be to embrace the process of transition, to keep the momentum going, to plan ahead but not project, to look forward but also to live fully in the present. No-one is going with me so there will be no-one to chivvy if I don't meet deadlines, or to jog my memory about what I need to do. It's down to me - which is why putting it out there on the blog may be a valuable tool.

I was going to finish here, but I have two questions:

- Is being in the right location important for growth and fulfilment?

- Or is it all an inside job and do we have actually have the potential for contentment wherever we are?

For what it's worth, and paradoxically, I think the answer to both is Yes.