It is said that moving house is one of the life events that cause us greatest anxiety. This might be true for many people and having just completed a house purchase and long distance move, I can agree that it does create a lot of work. There were many 'firsts' involved in our recent move - obtaining a mortgage, finding a suitable property, and then the usual logistics and ensuring non-interruption for our business clients. As for being one of the most stressful events; for us it was a relief. There can be few situations that cause greater constant aggravation than living next door to a nasty, greedy individual, who will stop at nothing to drive you away.
It is so easy in these situations to dig in your heels and say 'I'm not moving', but it's necessary to 'think laterally'. We bought our piece of paradise with cash from the sale of our very large, heritage building in England which we had rescued and renovated. We aggravated many developers in so doing, as the building was city centre, and soon to have all protective building restrictions removed, making it a prime site. However, we knew none of this when we saw the perfect property for our business needs and set to work, lovingly restoring and renovating this historic building. To give you an idea of it's size, when we decided to move to Canada, we sold it to a developer who built four town houses inside it!
It seems that we stepped on the toes of another greedy developer with our purchase in Canada. He didn't expect us to stay in our wilderness, lakeside property and became very frustrated as each of his increasingly nasty attempts to re-acquire our land and rights failed. We spoiled his plans. Eventually, having 'ignored the whispers' we had to 'listen to the shouts' (Stuart Wilde), we decided that we would not continue to live with the constant campaigns against us and to move away. We haven't attempted to sell the property, how could we possibly put anyone else into the hands of this lunatic. We are happy to let it continue to increase nicely in value, whilst the Universe decides what to do about the protagonist and we enjoy another of Canada's beautiful and vastly different regions.
The difference this decision has made to our lives is immense. Strangely, one of the hardest things to leave was the soil we had rebuilt, creating good hayland and pasture and beautiful gardens. The locals would often ask to bring their visitors to see our 'amazing gardens'. It's distressing to see those gardens overgrown, even though we have someone 'keeping an eye on the place', it's a hugely time consuming task to keep it all in trim and nature works much faster than we did!
It wasn't easy making the decision to leave our seven years of loving work behind, but success comes from moving out of your comfort zone. It stretches you in ways you can't foresee and ultimately, increases your personal resources. Thankfully, we attracted the most incredibly dedicated professionals to assist us in our house purchase. It's impossible to overstate the qualities of our mortgage broker, Dara Fahy, who was always supportive, caring and effective. Only after we completed did we learn of his non-business philanthropy. Visit Dara's Facebook Fan Page to see what this extraordinary young man does to help those in need: Mortgages For a Cause.
So, having neglected this blog for the month of June whilst unpacking and rediscovering our cherished items which haven't been seen since we left England, it's back to business as usual!
My Cat and Mouse Game in the Old Ranch House
2 months ago
