A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away....

During our working life we both have had a number of jobs which were quite interesting and satisfying. These  jobs gave us much energy, but on the other hand demanded a lot of energy put in to them as well. When enjoying our holidays, we would often wonder what a life in some far away country would be like. Normally the conclusion would be that although living there sure was appealing, we always were able to find very practical arguments against it. I'm sure you all recognize these:

• Too far from our relatives and friends
• Too hot during summers to even lift a finger
• Too cold, too wet, too-you-name-it in winters
• Not enough entertainment for day to day life
• The language barrier

You probably can think of several other  excuses yourself.

And then we would go back to The Netherlands and to our jobs, the daily rat race would pick up and a few days later our holiday just seemed a distant memory.

Typically after a couple of weeks we started to regret the fact that we allowed the holiday feeling to subside so quickly and would make a firm decision not to let that happen the next holiday. Sure.....

Furthermore, how often have we seen relatives, friends, co-workers or neighbours dying at too young an age. People full of plans, full of energy who intended to live a full life after they would retire.

With that thought in mind we decided some years ago that we preferred an early retirement to go and enjoy the things we like to do while we are still fit enough to do so. And one day we agreed to stop working in about five years. We managed to keep saying that for some two years and then really started counting back from five.

Meanwhile we had discovered Malta as a favorite holiday destination and had started ticking of all the 'against' arguments.

• Too far from our relatives and friends? Come on, it's just a three hour flight from Luqa to Amsterdam or Eindhoven. CHECK
• Too hot during summers to even lift a finger? So adapt to the pace and lift that finger slowly, very slowly. CHECK
• Too cold, too wet, too-you-name-it in winters? Winters aren't too bad in Malta, there's no snow or ice, just rain and wind sometimes. CHECK
• Not enough entertainment for day to day life? Malta has a rich cultural life, plenty of festa's and restaurants and bars are open the whole year. CHECK
• The language barrier? Everybody speaks English perfectly. CHECK

You know what, we just ran out of arguments. So we decided that Malta was the place to go and we started preparing. And now -February 2016- we are almost ready. Looks like we sold our house, which we will know for sure first week of March. That leaves nothing that can hold us back. So now we're planning to fly to Malta first week of May. Just us and a couple of suitcases. We plan to rent a place for the first year just to make sure that we can get used to the day to day life there. If so we intend to buy a house there and have (part of) our furniture and personal belongings shipped over.

Exciting times, I'll grant you that, but we are looking forward to our relocation. And yes, we are very much looking forward to the weather of course.