change – Live The Life You Love

I have a list as long as my arm of things I want to and will do during my eternity leave: learn to kitesurf; do a handstand at Everest Base Camp; learn to play the guitar; write this blog; go ski-touring with Tiggy; have a lot of fun with friends old and new; keep an open, curious and playful mind – and so it goes on.

I’m also conscious that there are a barrel load of cliches that I could fall into if I’m not careful. I’m sure you know what I’m mean – middle aged woman goes travelling and comes back having found the Meaning of Life whilst cleaning toilets ten days into a silent retreat at an ashram in India (with humble apologies to any of the toilet-cleaning ashram goers amongst you).

Now, this list of ‘Shan’ts, Can’ts and Won’ts’ is clearly completely and utterly subjective – one girl’s trash is another girl’s treasure and so forth. So do take the list below with a pinch of proverbial salt, although I hereby grant you complete permission to keep me honest on them.

Get a tattoo
I’m writing this on the assumption that you, like me, are a staunch believer that David Beckham is one of the most beautiful people on the planet. But even he, I fear, is in danger of becoming over-inked. (And isn’t it interesting how VB appears to be zapping hers as fast as DB is adding his.)
It’s not that I’m against tattoos, far from it in fact, some are undoubtedly incredible works of art. It’s just whenever I think of middle aged women and tattoos, images of Pamela Anderson’s barbed wire, Cheryl Cole/Tweedy/Whatever’s bottom and Sporty Spice’s crucifix all pop into my mind. Please don’t tell me that none of them have had buyer’s remorse. I change my mind five minutes after a cut and blow dry, so heaven only knows what I’d be like after acquiring a permanent fixture.
I’m also totally squeamish, a complete wimp and hate the sight of blood. Ergo, I think I’m pretty safe on this one. I had a lovely gold foil one in Ibiza once which lasted a perfectly perfunctory three days.
Hire a vespa
And ride it in shorts, a t-shirt and flip flops. I had a Vespa once, it was lovely; in dashing plumb (I know, surprising, not pink), with a top box and hand warmers (I feel the cold). I used it to commute when I worked in north London. At the time it was very practical, my daily scoot took 25 minutes compared to 40 minutes on my bicycle and an hour on the tube – it was a no brainer really.
I haven’t ridden it since 2008 after I fell off going three miles per hour on the pavement outside my house and hurt my leg. And there it stayed, mainly functioning as an adventure playground for spiders, until it was uprooted to star in a Jack Wills autumn window display.
So, after an ‘ouchy’ in the form of a badly bruised thigh, I’m Captain Sensible when it comes to all things scootie now. Bare skin and gravelly tarmac at speed are never going to be friends, and for us, it’s two feet and four paws or four wheels on terra firma all the way.
Obsess over what I miss from England and whinge about foreign alternatives
The only allowable exceptions are: Tetley tea (I’m safe on this one as I bought 500 bags with me) and my friends (again, also safe as that’s what Facebook, What’s App and Insta are for). Although I do like a splash of milk with my tea – WTF is it with foreign milk?
Try to be ‘cool’
I’m 45 years old, I’m really quite square and I’ve never, ever been cool. Personally I don’t think there’s anything more cringe than someone trying to be something they’re not.
Examples in my list include: braiding my hair, taking hallucinogenic drugs, getting anything other than my ears pierced and wearing any of the below:
a) dungarees
b) indigenous knitwear from Nepal
or
c) tie-dyed, floaty kaftans from Tarifa (with accompanying jangling necklaces, bracelets, toe rings etc).
Buying lots of stuff
I love shopping – especially clothes and shoes – and even after a huge clear out I probably still have more anyone really should and certainly more than I need. I really hope my god-daughter grows up to have size five and a half feet, otherwise there’s a beautiful collection of eye watering-ly expensive footwear going to go to waste. So, my golden rule is – only one thing a month – no local tut and no going over my weekly budget. The only exceptions are purchases genuinely required for my pursuits – kitesurfing, hiking in the Himalayas, guitar paraphernalia and ski gear.

This is just my list, I’m sure everyone’s would be different. Have I missed anything? Remember, at the end of the day, the world’s going to judge you no matter what you do, so you may as well live life the way you want to…

Choose happy!

Love, Sophie, Tiggy and The Beast X
P.s Paws for thought
Tiggy has added two criteria: no going on the beach when the Sand in Eye factor is above 5/10 and when the wind is gusting over 30 kts can everyone please stay on their leads so they don’t get blown away. Thank you 😊

“Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.”

Dr Seuss

On a crisp and bright Monday morning six months ago, in a sun drenched office and in the very briefest of conversations, I was made redundant. It was a total shock and completely out of the blue; one minute I was on a packed commuter train, running late for an early meeting, the next I was in an empty carriage homeward bound, more than a little dazed and wondering what on earth to do with myself for the rest of the day, let alone the coming weeks and months of my gardening leave.

The first week was taken care of as I spent most of it having a minor meltdown – panicking about what on earth to do next, especially as I was on the verge of signing up to a huge new mortgage to buy a very small mews house in Notting Hill. I also really missed my team – they made a reasonably stressful job utterly delightful, and I hadn’t been able to say goodbye to any of them. It was a bit like being dumped by a boyfriend and knowing he was still going to see all of your friends, all of the time, but without you. My heart was tinged with sadness.

After a little over a week of wallowing in self pity, drinking lots of tea and fixating over motivational quotes on Instagram (which, let’s face it, simply gets rather dull and far too worthy after a while), I decided to take the bull by the horns and use this opportunity to completely change my life. I just didn’t feel ready to throw myself back into the corporate world and all that it entailed, in fact I felt queasy at the mere thought of it. Sometimes, I thought, you just have to throw everything up into the stars and see where fate determines you should land. And lo and behold, the cards slowly started to move in my favour. The headhunters I spoke to didn’t really have any enticing jobs on their books and citing Brexit, the buyers pulled out of my house. This transpired to be the perfect turn of events, as being shackled to a huge mortgage would have scuppered any financial freedom I had and forced me into finding a meaty, salaried role as soon as my gardening leave was over. So instead of selling my house, I rented it out and reassigned my stamp duty savings into my newly formed Adventure Fund.

Then came the next big question – if I wasn’t going to get another ‘big’ job then WTF should I actually do? I had worked pretty much non-stop for the last 23 years. And I liked working, I was good at it, I’d always had jobs I’d really enjoyed and I liked earning a lot of money and spending it. Rightly or wrongly my job was an important part of who I was a person, it defined me. So, if I didn’t have a job, then who would I be? What would I stand for? Could my ego cope with not saying ‘I’m the CMO of…’ when asked?

An old personal trainer used to really wind me up by telling me many times over that “great things never come from inside your comfort zone”. Oddly enough I never found it helpful to hear that when I was puce with exertion, my thighs screaming doing ‘only ten more’ reps. But, with this in mind, I consciously chose to see my redundancy as the expiration date of my old life and the turning point to set my sails on a different course for my future. I made myself a promise, that I would live a life worth living according to what was important to me, as opposed to merely making a living.

It only took fifteen trips to the tip, ten trips and countless boxes to the charity shop to de-clutter sixteen years of stuff from my home. But hey, I had time on my hands to do it. At one point, every dress in the Trinity Hospice shop window was one of mine, which filled me with a mix of pride, satisfaction and a tinge of regret (damn it, I wish I’d kept that Pucci dress).

I had a digital de-clutter too and, not without a heavy heart, unsubscribed from a plethora of marketing emails. Bye-bye Matches Fashion, Net-A-Porter and J Crew, hello budget.

I have had one self-indulgent splurge on a fully renovated 1969 Series IIa Land Rover, called The Beast due to the fact that he’s so heavy to park. (Toned arms, it transpires, are an added side benefit of a two and a half ton landy with no power steering.) I did a half-day mechanic course on his internal workings – I know where he needs water, oil and can locate the manual diesel pump and battery. And I purchased curious sounding things like a bottle jack. (Not that I intend to use any of my new found knowledge as, much to the relief of my course teacher, I have paid for comprehensive European breakdown cover.)
The Beast, proudly sporting a black and silver GB sticker on his bottom, feels safe – he can’t go more than 60mph and is remarkably easy to drive once underway, which is handy as we’ll be driving on the wrong side of the road for most of the year.

So where to go and what to do? First stop, Tarifa, via ferry, Santander, Salamanca and Seville. Why Tarifa? Well, I have friends there and I’m not yet quite brave enough to go somewhere where I don’t know anyone at all. Plus, it’s simply lovely.

For the keen cartographers amongst you, Tarifa can be found at precisely 36 degrees latitude. It’s a beautiful, old, Moorish walled town and is the southernmost point of Continental Europe, where the Mediterranean collides with the Atlantic, and looks across the Straits of Gibraltar to Africa. The Costa Del Crime or “No Carbs Before Marbs” scene it is absolutely not. It gets very, very, very windy and is the kitesurfing mecca of Europe. And conquering kitesurfing is what I’m going to do. There is a stunning, five mile long, sandy, crescent shaped beach for walking Tiggy, the restaurants are very dog friendly and a decent glass of Rioja costs a mere two euros.

It’s Einstein who said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing, time and time again and expecting a different result.

Who am I to argue with such genius? Making a big life change and walking away from the corporate world (particularly the salary) is a bit scary, but you know what’s even scarier? Regret.

And what will I say now, when people ask me what I do? Well, I’ve had six months of gardening leave to practise. “I’m on eternity leave”, I shall reply, which is completely and utterly impossible to say without an enormous smile.

I hope you’ll enjoy reading about our adventures as much as we’ll enjoy living them. For more pictures and fewer words, please do feel free to follow us on Instagram @sophielovespink

Love,

Sophie, Tiggy & The Beast X

Tag: change

This is it, adventure awaits…