Turn a dream into a reality (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

Turn a dream into a reality

8:30am Thursday 30th July 2009 in

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We all look forward to going on holiday, getting away from it all and indulging ourselves for a week or two.

But the prospect of returning to reality can leave us with an unsettling discontentment with everyday life and a lingering desire to sell up and return to the resort where we felt happy.

While most of us get the post-holiday blues, we eventually settle back into routine. But Kathy Evans of Cleckheaton ignored the doubters and followed her dream.

“When I was 21, I had a fantastic holiday with some friends in Greece and when I returned, I just couldn’t settle back into everyday life,” she says.

“I was in a job I hated and living with my parents, I felt stifled and depressed. I kept in touch with a DJ I’d met in Corfu and he said there were bar jobs going over there. I just went for it – packed my job in, booked a flight, and got myself a bar job for a few months. I had a blast and have never regretted it.

“I came back home in the autumn and felt so much more fulfilled. I felt motivated to change my life and went on to do a teacher-training course. I’ve never looked back.”

Tessa Hainsworth abandoned a glamorous life as a highly-paid, high-flying sales executive, and moved with her family to a tumbledown house in Cornwall, where the only job she could get was as a postwoman.

“It sounds reckless, and looking back it probably was,” she recalls. “Living the dream wasn’t as easy as I’d thought. In those early days, I thought our ‘perfect life’ would never work out. Most of our friends predicted we’d be back in the rat race in six months.”

In her book, Up With The Larks, Tessa reveals her adventures and challenges – making a home, overcoming the reserve of Cornish locals and adapting to the role of a postie, out in all weathers dealing with tricky customers and unpredictable canines.

“In my previous life I had everything I could wish for – a fabulous job as a marketing manager, a lovely husband and two gorgeous children,” says Tessa.

“The trouble was, I couldn’t really enjoy any of it. I was supposed to be a ‘supermum’ who could have it all. But working 12-hour days meant rocketing from one emotional extreme to another, revved up from the stresses of the job, or exhausted. I barely saw the kids.”

Missing a school play because of a work commitment was a low moment that convinced Tessa that life had to change and her husband Ben agreed to move with their children, Will, six, and Amy, four, to the southcoast.

After a desperate job hunt, Tessa was taken on as a postwoman. “I went from someone who wasn’t a morning person to getting up in the early hours and walking seven miles a day in all weathers. But becoming involved with my customers’ lives was the part of the job I came to love.

“Our life is transformed. Before we came here, I lived in the future. Now I live in the present and get so much pleasure from simple things.”

Her advice to those wanting to relocate? “Feel the fear and do it anyway. Be realistic, weigh up the pros and cons and have a practical financial plan, but if you have a dream – go for it. The alternative might be regrets.”

Up With The Larks by Tessa Hainsworth is published by Preface, £12.99.