October 1st, it's sunny, warm (27.5 C), the beach is sandy, the sea water is crystal, probably a good day to ask the question "Why Puglia?". It's a question we are often asked, by tourists and fellow ex-pats alike and by the locals too.
In fact, there should really be two questions :
Why did you want to leave the UK?
Why did you choose Puglia?
So, Part 1, why did we want to leave the UK? The simple short answer is, to escape the rat race, and achieve a better life style. Having left school just short of my fifteenth birthday and, apart from a short 6 month gap when I had my son, I worked continuously. Making up for my lack of qualifications along the way, I climbed the greasy pole, eventually ending up as a freelance IT consultant. Working away from home most of the time, leaving home on Monday morning (and sometimes Sunday evening), to return on Fridays after a week of long hours, I was a confirmed workaholic.
Not satisfied with the IT consulting where I was at times working on more than one contract at a time, I simultaneously set up my own business, an internet accountancy service for IT consultants. The business grew to a point where I gave up the consulting and concentrated on it full time, and although I was now not travelling for work, I was working even longer hours, 16 hours a day 5 and half days a week, and sometimes more.
When an opportunity came along to sell the business, I decided to go for it. Part of the deal was that I was tied in for two years to continue working for the company after the sale went through. But with the promise of more normal working hours! Unfortunately that just didn't happen. The demands were greater, the stress higher and the working hours just as bad. As the two years came to an end I was looking around for another job and found one, just 2 days before the entire IT department was made redundant! I wasn't sorry to go but it was a sad day for the other employees who lost their jobs.
My new job was a classic 9 to 5, should have been just what I wanted. But I just wasn't happy.
I'd always feared retirement, wondering what I would do with myself when work was no longer my primary focus. But things were changing ......
So restless and unhappy, unable to afford to take early retirement in UK, what were my options?
Why Puglia - Part 2, to follow!
