new years coming ! has anyone ever taken the plunge and changed their life ?

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lamehorse

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the weather is starting to seriously get me down , its hard with horses in this climate . if its not snow then mud and rain. i cant remember a decent summer that suits me for at least 5 years. i had several sets of aquaintances that moved to france and spain and took their animals . they havnt come back ! so i was wondering if any of you have taken the plunge and changed your life in a significant way or knew people who had and what was the outcome were they/you happy they had done something different or was it a mistake? i always think things CAN get worse and it makes me a stick in the mud !
 
We def didnt get away from the snow but we did make a big change, we moved from home counties to a wild part of Aberdeenshire. I was fed up with limited and not very safe hacking, rude and stressed people and traffic, and wanted the horses at home as was paying over £1000 some months for 5 day livery.

Now have a cosy wee house (it was derelict when we got it), 40 acres, lovely new stables and pretty unlimited outriding. On the downside, we can have snow for 3 months solid so riding is more of a 3 season affair, but that doesnt worry me too much as Im not competitive and the horses dont seem to mind.

Much quieter and more friendly up here, lovely neighbours and views to die for.

I would do it again and if anything would have done it earlier.

Edited to add coming up here meant resigning from very well paid job and giving up company car etc and now I just look after the animals (we have 26 sheep and also geese etc), but dont regret that either.
 
I moved to London from Australia and as much as the weather is completely rubbish in this country, I am not looking at going back! It took a while for me to get on my feet, but now own a beautiful horse and still manage to go travelling regularly - travel out of Australia is a luxury as its so expensive! I also find the quality of riding much better and more competitive over here so cant wait to get out and compete. Apart from the riding/traveling side, it depends what you want out of life - for me, I am still sort of young, so I like to go out and socialise and whenever I go back home, its like a big country town to me (that includes the heart of Sydney). So a big thumbs up for the move to London!
 
lamehorse said:
miss paris i would LOVE to live in austrailia ! the grass is always greener a ? bet you go back one day though :D
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Australia is a wonderful country.. if it only had Spain's location ;) Just really depends what you want in life - I think if you are starting a family or want a quieter life, you cant beat Australia but of course, I am slightly bias!
 
We looked at France but decided against it. I know several people ho have moved to both France and to Spain and found it to be a huge mistake. However, that doesnt mean it is not for everyone. Do your homework, for example both F and S have very different laws and tax regimes to Britain. It is not at all the same as just moving from one area of GB to another. Things you have never heard of , or thought of will be there waiting to trap you. So, contact the Embasseys of the country and buy a book about their laws/taxes/customs. Dont just speak to ex-pats. i found many of them said all was rosie but on much further investigation you tend to discover things are not necessarily so. do your homework well before taking the plunge.
 
We looked at Spain and France about five years ago. The idea was to sell the house, then put everything into storage and buy a horse box with living; we were going to drive round Spain and France until we came to a place we thought was 'home' :D. Sadly all the people who wanted to buy the house couldn't sell their own, so we gave up.

Giving it another go now, but will stay in the UK this time (or maybe Canada).
 
yes... my mother decided to get divorced about 6 years ago lol!!

other than that - every new year makes me want to change my life (move house) but i know i cant for another 2 years (uni) then who knows!...
 
I had two years in France, and two years in Italy. I always wanted to come back after that! Its true that the grass is greener - but when you get there, you realise all the problems in the other countries exist too!

I work for an airline, so get my sunlight and travel fixes while living here.

Australia is great, but its SO far away from everywhere else. When I work the Oz flights in December I find them really sad - they're always full of grandmas going out to visit family, who don't think they'll be able to manage the journey much more, or children of divorced parents, travelling alone, who only get to see one of their parents over Xmas... As Miss Paris said, it would be wonderful if only a few hundred miles away, not several thousand!

After twenty years of living abroad, and all over the uk, I moved back to where I grew up, and absolutely love it. People have the same mentality, and I find it so much easier! I now wonder what all the last 20 years were about!! Home was where the heart is for me, with family etc around me!

You've got to follow your dreams and your heart while you're young. If you go and don't like it, you can always come back, but if you don't you'll always wonder...x
 
Yes - am currently in the middle of a big decision to move to Switzerland. The weather got me down here as well, and I am completely fed up of the lack of facilities - which is a big downer when the weather is crap. Everyone I know has been unable to ride due to the weather conditions, road conditions, and frozen or snowed-over schools. Lunge pens frozen, paths too slippy to turn out the horses, so horses have been standing in for weeks now. Bit of a safety hazard when you finally go to get on the beastie!!

I have two second interviews coming up in first week of Jan, and I hope to move over to Switzerland by end of Jan. Yes, there is a lot of snow over there, BUT, every yard has a massive luxurious indoor school with mirrors (for less than what you pay in Home Counties for non-existent facilities), and you can ride until 10pm at night (great for people who work). Plus, the standard of tuition is excellent, think German-standards, and there are competitions going on all the time - with a huge turnout of competitors.

If I get offered one or both jobs, I'll be hot-footing it over there just as quickly as I can.
 
thank you all for your replies. was looking last night at places to rent and in spain you can get something reasonable for 500 and for 1000 there was a house with stables and pool ! and guest house ! oh and some sun ! looks sooo tempting and countryside too ! the horses wernt all covered in mud in pictures and the hacking looks brilliant ! i spose i can dream :rolleyes:
 
In 2004 I interviewed for a job in Sydney - the interview was a complete shambles but I was offered the job. Once the offer was accepted I had six weeks to pack up my flat in London and move to Oz! I did it, alone.

The first three months were hard, but I ended up with the bestest (is that a word?) friends I have ever made in my life. Most, but not all, were single english girls working in banking like me. And through them I had the biggest social circle I undoubtedly will ever have.

Two years later I came home as I started to worry a bit about my parents, and co-incidentially I was offered another job in London - and also I felt the time was right.

Most of my best friends are back in London, but they followed me two years later and now have their Oz citizenship! and for those that aren't, I try to fly to Sydney every other year to see them (if they can't make it over).

It was the best decision I ever made, and also the best decision to come back home too. :)
 
Hi, just to add in my two pennorth!
Notjustforxmas sums it up perfectly I feel.
Four years on, in France, we are perfectly happy, would agree about all the unknowns though.
I have personally heard that some parts of Spain can be too hot for horses and both sets of folks then came to SW France.
In hindsight I also feel that native horses cope better with the heat and flies.
Good idea to rent first and leave somewhere in uk to go back to.
Otherwise as others have said, go for it, best of luck
JC
 
Hi, well I moved to Spain 6 years ago with my 2 horses, daughter, dog and NOW ex hubby..lol...

and Ive never regretted it, I love it here and would never move back to the UK, though I am coming over in 2 weeks for a few days.... but the weather does vary depending where you live... here up the mountain (and baring in mind, im only 70 mins from Benidorm) I get highs of 40'C+ in summer and snow in winter, 18" last year, and temps down to -15'c... and plentn of rain in spring and autumn... BUT the field do dry out fast.. but on the whole hte weather is FAB

if you are think of coming to Spain, there are now new laws on regarding keeping horses here, where I am, you have to have a permit, and your land has to be over 2500m2, though it may be different in different areas... im in the process of getting mine now... and all horses must be passported and microchipped.... though how many Spanish will follow these rules is a different matter....
 
I love the UK and I would never leave but I managed to change my life to suit our ponies and children instead. I wound up my own business and went back to uni to study creative writing. It was a gamble and I am sure a lot of people thought I was being completely unpractical in my career choice but it paid off. Now I work in the evenings, have the mornings with the ponies and the afternoons with my children. We are on a great yard with an indoor as well as an outdoor school and an hours off road hacking. If I want to use the roads to get to public bridlepaths I can choose to go when all those rude, stressed out people are at work! Life is pretty good and I just had to make a sideways step rather than leaving the country altogether. I really do love this part of the world.

Just wanted to add I'm not competitive either, our ponies are for cuddling, hacking and schooling on. If you have to competitive at work (which I still do) it takes a lot of the pressure off not to have to be competitive in your hobby. Our youngster is too young to be ridden and the kids pony is happy enough as long as she has turnout.
 
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Ooh I can contribute here.

4 years ago December just gone we moved to Canada. Came for adventure having lived all our lives in the same town and see where it took us. Bought a house then a horse, enjoyed experiencing the differences and learnt lots. 2 years later we bought our own acreage, just 8.5 acres split into 4 paddocks with a barn that had 5 stalls. Did a bit of livery to help pay the bills and get to know more people. After just one year realized that the people round here just had a horse for status and never came to ride (barely paid their bills on time) So I just concentrated on my own.

But I never felt as happy as I was back in the UK. I love the outside and here it's horrible. Snow on the ground from October to May with temps dipping to as low as -45, average temp winter is -25 here. Then as soon as the snow melts the wood ticks arrive (in their thousands!) so coming in from being outside means first declothing and deticking oneself. As soon as the temps get above 10 the mosquitoes arrive and makes riding unbearable especially if you decide to cut across some pasture. So you end up just riding on the grid roads which are very boring! Not forgetting the tornadoes warnings you constantly seem to be under as soon as a cloud appears. Then before you know it the snow has arrived again.

So March 2nd (providing I can get tickets) the kids and I are hopping on a plane and heading back to the UK for good leaving hubby to finish up selling.

So my advice is if you want to do something life changing first move to another part of the UK and try it there first. Great Britain isn't called Great for nothing you know!!!

On a side note haven't regretted our adventure we got what we wanted out of it and it's something we can talk about for the rest of our lives. So do what you want and never look back and think what if!
 
I was born in Canada but always felt like I was in the "wrong" place ever since I was a little kid. My family moved over from Wales in 1956 and my grandmother to her dying day in 1999, HATED Canada. Anyways, moved here in Feb 2000 and felt "right" as soon as i stepped off the plane!

People moan about the UK but as livingsky says, the weather here is NOWHERE as near as bad as it is elsewhere.

livingsky, I found that mentally towards horses when I was in Canada too. Especially with hunters which I was into, I could only just barely afford to take lessons and be able to ride other people's horses. I could never afford my own in Canada.

Here, I have my own field, a good horse and side saddles (which are hard to find in Canada!)
 
I moved to the UAE in june 2009 prior to which I spent 7 months working in Moscow. Have got a lot out of being here, but am now looking forward to coming back this summer. Now I'm much more open to change and this is making me consider a total change of career after I return.

Have no regrets at all. Living in a different culture teaches you a lot, plus the whole experience kicked me out of a rut or two.
 
sidesaddlegirl said:
I was born in Canada but always felt like I was in the "wrong" place ever since I was a little kid. My family moved over from Wales in 1956 and my grandmother to her dying day in 1999, HATED Canada. Anyways, moved here in Feb 2000 and felt "right" as soon as i stepped off the plane!

People moan about the UK but as livingsky says, the weather here is NOWHERE as near as bad as it is elsewhere.

livingsky, I found that mentally towards horses when I was in Canada too. Especially with hunters which I was into, I could only just barely afford to take lessons and be able to ride other people's horses. I could never afford my own in Canada.

Here, I have my own field, a good horse and side saddles (which are hard to find in Canada!)
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Which part of Canada did you come from?
 
I moved from the UK to Ireland in 1995 and from Ireland to central Portugal in 2007 - about an hour north of Lisbon. It's a fabulous country, mild (although very wet!) winters, hot but not unbearable summers, low house prices, wonderful countryside, almost no crime and very friendly people. In this area there is a lot of interest in horses from both the Portuguese and the (small) Brit community - mainly centred on dressage but there are some show jumping yards as well. Golega, the horse capital of Portugal, is about 30 mins drive from here.
 
Sarah W said:
I moved from the UK to Ireland in 1995 and from Ireland to central Portugal in 2007 - about an hour north of Lisbon. It's a fabulous country, mild (although very wet!) winters, hot but not unbearable summers, low house prices, wonderful countryside, almost no crime and very friendly people. In this area there is a lot of interest in horses from both the Portuguese and the (small) Brit community - mainly centred on dressage but there are some show jumping yards as well. Golega, the horse capital of Portugal, is about 30 mins drive from here.
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any place with a horse capital sounds ok to me :-)))
 
I am very much a 'Home is where I lay my hat' sort of person and am a bit of a gypsy, always getting itchy feet and moving on when the fancy took me.

We emigrated in 2006 from Wales, although moving to Wales from England in 1997 was almost like emigrating in itself!

I loved my little part of Wales, I just couldn't take the rain and gloom any longer, we were there 9 years and it was making me ill, not to mention the SAD for 6 months of the year! No achy bones or depression here.

Although there are many things I miss about the UK, nothing enough to make me 'homesick' though. I absolutely adore Canada and I have no intention of ever returning to the UK for more than a flying visit, if I have to.

No regrets,

whatsoever,

not for a single minute.

:D:D
 
I come from Australia originally but have lived in the UK for many years although it still doesn't feel like home. I prefer the Aussie lifestyle but I don't like the isolation of being so far from the rest of Europe and the riding is better here too but I do hope to get back there one day for good.
 
Back in January, I applied for and got a job as stable manager on a 60 plus horse yard. Absolutely terrifying, and I still wonder if I did the right thing (worse when I run out of antidepressants lol). But hopefully summer's coming and things look good!
Hoorah!
 
Honey08 said:
Australia is great, but its SO far away from everywhere else. When I work the Oz flights in December I find them really sad - they're always full of grandmas going out to visit family, who don't think they'll be able to manage the journey much more, or children of divorced parents, travelling alone, who only get to see one of their parents over Xmas... As Miss Paris said, it would be wonderful if only a few hundred miles away, not several thousand!
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Hard isn't it! My OH is a kiwi, I'd always said if he wanted to go home I'd go with him, but older I get less keen I am. Its a fantastic country, but cost of living is very high and we'd more than likely end up living an 8 hour drive from his family anyway. Either way we have to live with the fact if we have children that one set of grandparents will miss out.
 
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