Everything was real now, the house was on the market, friends  and family were aware of our decision. This was it. We met with the head master and relevant teachers of Rico and Tiana’s school and they completely endorsed our decision. To quote the head master of the school: “If you have the opportunity to do this for your children, it’s the best education you’ll ever give them” Relaying this to my dad, still didn’t convince him….but you can’t win them all. Our plans were met with surprise by a few but mainly respect and admiration and a bit of envy. There was no turning back now.

I’m not a great sleeper in general, but I was waking up frequently  with panic attacks wondering what the hell we were doing. It’s funny how problems lamented on in the middle of the night,  become magnified and seem impossible to pick apart, but by the time the sun comes up, they are put back into perspective. Night after night I was waking up wondering if we were doing the right thing and how we’d have to rebuild a new life somewhere. Oddly all my worries were money related, but deep down I knew this move was the right decision for the children’s education and our souls.

When  our house was put on the market we genuinely thought it would be snapped up within a couple of months; well priced, good area, good condition, but it was winter and the market was slow. We did start to get a bit twitchy, but the backup was to rent the house out if we couldn’t sell.  Our plans were to leave in January 2018 as we’d anticipated selling the house quickly, but as there had been minimal interest we would  have to push our leaving date back.

Rico wasn’t buying into our idea at all, especially selling the house. Putting myself in his shoes I understood why. Here was a popular 10 year old boy who was established at school and did well in the classroom and on the rugby field, had a good group of mates, loved playing football every week and was overall pretty happy with his lot. Then his parents have some crackpot idea to sell the family home, farm the pets out and go travelling around the world. 

We had sympathised with him and explained our decisions numerous times, but the time had come to be adults about the situation and he’d just have to accept it.  Parents get divorced, houses get sold,  people lose their jobs, families move…it’s life, and what we were embarking on was pretty radical and something a lot  of families would dream of doing.