It's been a while...

My, how things have changed...

I haven't posted any new blogs in six years and just comparing who I am now to who I was then, I am literally worlds apart. Well half a world at least...

When I last posted I was living in Singapore. Now I'm back in the UK, a place where I never then believed I would come back to live. I loved living in a big city, loved the hustle and bustle of it all. Now I avoid all that like the Plague and am living in a semi-rural town in Cheshire.

Back then I had just started a new teaching job and was earning more money than I had ever earned before. Sure I still had an element of that new job excitement, but I wasn't enjoying the stress, pressure or workload being put on me. Skip forward 6 years and I'm earning significantly less, not particularly utilising any of my qualifications and spending my days picking up dog shit. But I'm my own boss, working with animals of all kinds on a day-to-day basis and have never been happier in the work I'm doing. Setting up the business was an uphill struggle and brought about its own tribulations and stresses but ultimately it seems to have paid off for the better.

But the most significant change over all is I am now a happily married man. 6 years ago, Tammy and I were dating but we didn't even live together (that came but a month and a half after my last post). We travelled together, got engaged by the Taj Mahal then a year after marrying made the decision to move to the UK. More stress was involved, including the shipping of two pet cats, which although expensive and emotionally stressful was actually one of the more straightforward aspects of relocating one's life across the globe. We went through the whole "this move was a terrible, terrible mistake phase" and came out the other side. In our four years married together it feels like we've dealt with more setbacks as a couple than others have to deal with in a lifetime together, but we've persevered and survived and are that much stronger for it.

I can only imagine what the next six years hold in store, but perhaps I'll document it a bit more frequently this time at least...