My Story

Life – my life. It has been amazing, really. And sometimes awful, really! It has been ordinary, really! With a sprinkling of unordinary!

Most of all, I have been blessed!

But I knew I wanted more, it was the dreams, the dreams, which really made me stop and think. Dreams are wonderful, and I am a big dreamer. Daydreaming, as well as nighttime sleep dramas, are complete with screams and wails.

But I am talking about life dreams – things we say we will do, imaginings, with intentions, but no hard plans attached. All the dreams and imaginings will never be real unless we set the big wheels in motion.

Just do it.

It was a Summer Day when we walked along ‘our’ beach, a bright and sunny day in 2021. That was the day we decided.

I imagined myself in my seventies, sitting in my rocking chair with a tartan blanket, thinking of how I never did get around to living my dream. It would be too late then, and it would be a regret. How my chances were missed, how work took over, family commitments could not be adjusted, someone too young, someone too old, and no, we couldn’t; it was too wild.

What would ‘people’ say?

I would be one of those people who talked about ‘one day’ – but that day would never come. Or actually, it did come, and I let it go. I just was not bold enough.

But what I wanted to do was not really so outrageous. It was not. I remembered the stories of families who uproot their young kids and go live in a Bus in the New Zealand Bush – that was bordering on outrageous!

People selling up from comfortable suburbia and going to live alone in a remote corner off the grid.

My dream was simple – but with a dose of the wild!

I still remember my first visit to India post our wedding – the buzz and life of New Delhi just infiltrated me – the through and through Dundee girl merged with Delhi – and I recall saying that ‘we must do something about living here’.

I knew then that one day we must do more than a ‘holiday’.

It is a dream I have given safe harbour to for the past 30-odd years – and it now seemed time to set sail.

So that day, on our beach – we decided – it was not a long, complex, hesitant discussion. In around 4 or 5 sentences, we had decided - it was time to live our dream, both wild and simple!

We would both stop working – that was the biggest step!

More on that when I am in the mood to tell that story!

My 87-year-old dad (known famously as Pa!) told us with all sincerity to go off and enjoy ourselves!

He would be fine, and we had plenty of folks who would keep an eye on him!

My babies were far from being just that; both had flown the nest, living in Edinburgh and Glasgow. They had gone off, living their lives – we were a text, a phone call away.

The ‘what if’s presented themselves – but I decided that for any problems, we would find a way around.

When the large rock sits in the rush and gush of the river, the water can not go through it; it goes around it – and that is what I decided – we would work around any challenges.

So, after working for 44 years, counting my first ever job (trampoline attendant – yes, I was!) I was ready to step into my dream – I was ready to LIVE my dreams – Wild or Simple.

6 months in India – not a holiday. Living our Life.