A Walk: Six Months on a Tropical Island

Guest post by Fiona from Destination Bali

I like my kids. They are interesting people. Not angels, but fun to be around.  I don’t seem to have the time to stop enjoy that.  Sometimes, all I seem to do is shout about socks, A LOT.

Most of my conversations with the children start like this:

“Have you got your…”

“We’re running late…”

“Have you done…”

“Can you please…”

You know, I really don’t want to be the shouty woman in the front of the car.

When the kids aren’t in the car, they enjoy drawing and painting, riding bikes and dancing silly. I enjoy doing these things with my kids too…but it while I’m joining in the fun, I am always thinking about the next thing on the list.  And believe me, it’s a very long, long list. Are they important things? For school: yes. For work: yes. For extended family and friends: yes. For our pets: yes.

Just imagine how much extra time you would have if there was no housework beyond the basics, no school and no work! And your whole family was there so you could enjoy it together.

Let me tell you where this is going.  It started with a date with my husband. We booked a babysitter but were too broke to actually eat out so we decided on a beach stroll followed by a picnic (which was really the leftovers from the previous night and a bottle of wine).

As we were walking hand in hand along the beach, my husband turned to me and said, “You need a holiday. A break for a while. Wouldn’t it be great to start saving for a family trip to Disneyland?” 

My mind started to whir.  Quite honestly, the thought of the saving for years, plus planning and trying to organise our 4 kids when we were overseas, seemed a huge undertaking. Too huge.  I thought to myself: Instead of planning a 3 week holiday to Disneyland, I would rather live on an island somewhere for 6 months for the same amount of money. Us, the kids and plenty of time….

…then I said it out loud.

“We could go to a deserted Island for SIX MONTHS for the same price as going to Disneyland for 3 weeks!”

My husband turned to look at me, seriously. Like really seriously.

“Fi, would you really do that? Really, really? Do you think you could sit still?”

It went pretty quiet for a while.  “Yep…”

That simple walk on the beach has changed our life!  A simple stroll and a chat about needing a holiday and now we are off Bali for 6 months….I can hardly believe it!

Now our family motto “proceed ’til apprehended” applies so much more (it has always been our motto).

…and so our story begins.

Watch out for the the next instalment on Monday.

Links

Read more about Fi, her family life in my interview with her here.

Follow Fi’s notebook blog here: Destination Bali