Dawn Punter

It still feels slightly strange writing that.

In August 2013, we sat on Southsea beach eating pizza and watching the sun go down, as colours of gold, pink and purple filled the sky like a blanket gently being pulled over our last day in England.

Later that evening we’d be boarding the ferry from Portsmouth Harbour to France.

Only a week earlier, I’d finished a four-month notice period at my job as a management and graduate consultant. My husband had already left his four weeks prior.

At the grand old age of our late 40s, we’d decided to take a gap year. 😂

Our old car contained pretty much everything we still owned: some clothes, camping equipment, personal photographs and a few pieces of sentimental jewellery.

Everything else had been sold, donated or given away.

Our house was empty and rented out for the next twelve months.

So as we sat there looking across the water, it suddenly felt very real.

We’d both given up good jobs and stepped away from the fairly conventional life we’d known, without having much idea what would come next.

Officially, we were taking a year out.

We told ourselves that if it all went horribly wrong, we could always return afterwards.

But I think, deep down, we both knew we probably wouldn’t.

I still remember standing on the ferry that night and watching the lights of England disappear behind us, glittering like stars waving goodbye, until eventually the darkness engulfed them and the real stars above took their place.

We had no grand plan to emigrate.

We certainly didn’t know that thirteen years later we’d be living in a little cortijo in rural Granada, surrounded by fruit trees and our own tropical orchard.

There would be years of travelling first, plenty of wrong turns, several different versions of life in Spain and a lot of figuring things out as we went along.

But that evening was the beginning of it all.

At the time, it felt as though we were simply taking a break from our lives.

Looking back, I realise we were actually beginning a completely new one. ❤️