How it all started

After a couple of years at work feeling like I'd lost my enthusiasm and having reached 40, I felt I needed to do something different with my life.  I'd been thinking for a long time about alternatives and considered changing jobs or careers, but in the end someone (I can't remember who) suggested some time off, such as a gap year.  Some friends of ours had done something similar a couple of years ago and they'd travelled to Sri Lanka, China and other places doing volunteer work.  And although these ideas seemed exciting and exotic, I knew that I have a tendency to get homesick when I'm away and I'd be miserable moving about from place to place for too long.  I thought it would be nicer to have a permenant base and then do some travelling from there. Have a place to call "home" and somewhere to come back to.

Having older parents that could need me at short-notice and being reluctant to give up on the niceties of life (I'm too old for hostels and backpacking!), we thought Europe would suit us best.  My husband suggested Slovenia!  We'd had a lovely holiday there in June 2007, and thought Lake Bled was charming and the country unspoiled.  After considering it, I thought it sounded like a great idea to settle there for a bit.  It is central enough to be able to travel by train to lots of beautiful places - Venice, Vienna, Budapest.  Close enough to get home if needed and for friends and family to visit (about 2 hours from Stansted to Ljubjana airport), and although often it seems to be called eastern europe it is more like western europe in it's infrastructure.  Good roads and public transport, wide range of shops and a lot of the people speak english (in case I struggle with the pronounciation of the slovenian words!). It is in the EU so no problems with how long we stay, with the added benefit of we could try and get some work if our language skills allow.  All in all it seemed like a sensible choice, whilst being a place we knew we liked and everything we might need.