Onward and upward
It may not have escaped your attention that this blog fell silent in June 2016. Yes, that's right. JUNE 2016. Three weeks, more or less, before what I like to call the British Naqba. After that, there was nothing more to say.
As of Friday, last day of January 2020, the die is cast. Alea iacta est. UK has left the building. And, coincidentally or not, in 17 weeks' time I will leave Spart Towers and the world of work. I may or may not have become a Belgian in the meantime. A new era is starting in many ways. And so I think it is time for a new blog.
Chocs Away! Old Girl has served to document my time in Brussels, allbeit with a good deal of embellishment. Fifteen years, one job, four different apartments. My ex sneered at me in 2005 when I said I was going to Brussels, and implied I would have no friends there. I had one, as it happened, at the time. And now I have dozens. Good ones, too.
But I feel the Brussels era is nearly over. It was always about the job. I have never felt any deep love for Brussels as a place. It has to be said my view of the city has improved since I bought a car two years ago and can now get out to places like leafy Genval more easily. But it's never been part of my retirement plan. I always wanted to go back to France. For a while I flirted with Portugal, but then reverted to the Perigord. After a few years the prospect of global warming was starting to make me think twice about the comfort level that far south, and I shifted my focus to Brittany. However, after ten years of visiting various regions of France, nowhere gave me a burning desire to return. Paris was starting to be a very distant memory and its rose-coloured tinge was fading to sepia. The France I knew was changing, too. It was acquiring all the bad characteristics it used to sneer at the British for - populism, consumerism, poor education, bad food (yes! they even invented a word for it, "la malbouffe"), vandalism, knife crime ... I started to ask myself the question I thought I would never ask - did I really want to go back and live there?
In the meantime I found myself in Scotland more and more often. In 2009, and again in 2014, then in 2018 my cousin moved to the Highlands and I visited four times in two years. It felt strangely right. Particularly Glasgow. It ticked many boxes. I started to wonder, was this The Place? OK I wouldn't be able to afford the lovely detached house with garden which I would have if I moved to some remote corner of Brittany. But those old sandstone tenement apartments were very attractive, and there are some fabulous parks, not to mention the breathtaking scenery a short train ride away. And a garden is a lot of work ... The weather is not exactly tropical, but with my skin and aversion to taking my clothes off in public, would it really matter? Weather isn't everything. What appealed to me was the natural humour of the Glaswegians, their friendly nature, even towards the English, and 24-hour shopping. Also, in terms of getting the lodger straightened out administratively, it would seem to be the logical, if not the only, choice.
I'm still thinking about it. But I must say it's creeping up on France as a retirement option. It may even be a way of turning Brexit to my advantage - with two-thirds of my pension paid in euros, if the pounds slumps my strong euros could prop up my income. And if I can persuade Gorbals that it is worth his while, certain sectors will be desperate for workers with British passports. Always look on the bright side of life ...
The irony being, that if I do get the Belgian nationality, it may turn out to be unnecessary. But hey, two birds in the hand are worth one in the bush. Or something.
