Stewart says: The truth is, there’s absolutely nothing better than waking up with the sunlight making stripes across your bedroom walls. As the day peers through the shutters you can feel its warmth. Then you stroll out onto the terrace and put your toe into your pool to check the temperature. The water is heating up nicely so you have a swim.
Then you get dressed and stroll into your local village to buy fresh, hot bread, have a coffee and a pastry in the café and then there’s a slow walk home feeling the heat of the day gathering strength.
It’s a fact that there are thousands of people living exactly that lifestyle right now because they have bought a home in the sun. And there are almost certainly as many thousands who are thinking of little else but the day they can wave goodbye to the removals van.
Some thirty years ago, most people dreamed of a home in Spain, Portugal, France, Italy and possibly Florida. Since then, however, the market has opened up dramatically and there are expats in countries as far apart as Brazil to Thailand and Canada to Turkey.
The reality is that people are no longer as worried about ever-increasing distances separating them from the UK. The brake on many couples moving to a home abroad was the fact that they would rarely see their loved ones.
Now, thanks to cheaper and faster flights and the Internet, it’s so much easier to keep in touch. Using a laptop means you can listen to Expatsradio.com or the BBC, with a webcam you can hold unlimited, face-to-face chats with your family back home and probably once a year, you’ll be on a plane flying home for a holiday and to stock up on tea bags and Marmite.
There are some people who make the move to another country and then fret that friends and family won’t bother to come and see them. How wrong they are. The problem won’t be that they’re forgotten; it’ll be that they don’t have enough bedrooms. Doubtless they’ll shut the front door after waving off the latest visitors, sigh and say, “It’s nice to have the place to ourselves again.”
Stewart Andersen is the Editor of www.homesandtravel.co.uk
