Has it really been seven years?

I need a holiday.

A proper one.

Seven solid years as a workaholic without a decent break has taken it’s toll.  Some time away is in order.  Time for rest, recuperation, and to mull over what I should do with the next stage of my life.

I can’t really take a huge amount time off.  After all, I am still too paranoid about my ‘baby,’ my all-consuming business.  But these days all I really need to function is a laptop and an internet connection. ‘A change is as good as a rest,’ as the saying goes.  So it was decided that a 3 month working break was in order.  But where to?  And what to do? The world is a big old place, and this world is currently my oyster 🙂

Living in Asia as I do, and being accustomed to Asian customs, prices and weather as I am, I toyed with the idea of 3 months in Bali, in Singapore, and even in China.  Each had their appeal, but none really filled me with that spark I needed.

And then a very dear friend of mine unsuspectingly gave me a much better idea, albeit one that shocked me at first. But as I sat at my computer and thought about it, the smile on my face grew wider, the storm inside me started to subside, and I knew it was the perfect choice.  I had made my decision within the day. No, that’s not true, I knew it was the perfect choice from the moment the possibility started to form in my mind.

I would spend the summer in Paris….

A little background…

(…for those of you who don’t know me so well)

My life has been fairly evenly divided between 3 continents.  I grew up in a small town in England, forever longing for the bright lights of the big city. I spent my 20’s in San Francisco, as bright a city as they come.  In a complete turnabout, I lived out my 30’s on ‘a small heap of sand in the Pacific’ as my mother quite correctly calls it.

The tiny island I live on in the Philippines has a total landmass equaling that of your average UK supermarket, but without the convenience of microwaveable chicken tikka masala. It is devoid of the comforts of life we take for granted in the West.  When you turn on a light switch, you expect light, right?  When you turn on a tap  you expect clean, even drinkable water?  Not so here.  My 8 years on ‘The Rock’ has been a life bereft of modern amenities. Never mind a 21st century lifestyle – I am just happy to enter the 20th century.

Thankfully things have gotten better over the years. Twenty-four hour electric and air-conditioning have been a big bonus. One of my top comforts is a hot shower.   Recently we have even acquired a necessity much greater than electric or water – a decent internet connection; ‘decent’ these days being gauged by the ability to load facebook without going into a boredom-induced coma. But although I can now tweet and post to my heart’s content (as some of you may have noticed by my recent perhaps over-enthusiastic posts on fb), it does not change the fact that I am living in the back of beyond.

It is time for a change.

I have to admit that I am a little nervous.  Although I have lived 15 years of my life in big cities, I have been hiding in an isolated corner of a developing country for so long, that moving to one of the world’s major cities is sure to be a culture shock of massive proportions.   I suspect the experience is going to be a little too epic to post about on facebook, so I have decided a blog will be the order of the day.  My previous travel stories and my crude ‘blog’ about my first year in the Philippines seemed to entertain my friends and family, so I hope that my re-entry into civilized society will similarly appeal.  And it will also give me something to do during my anticipated endless afternoons spent loitering in Parisian sidewalk cafes.

Although – hold on a sec –  did I just say ‘civilized’ society? Is that a suitable adjective for the French?

Only time will tell.

My itch is about to be scratched….