When the Dream Move Isn't Quite Right: Kate Kurdziej on Starting Over

Description:

Kate Kurdziej was a practice manager in wealth management in Yorkshire when COVID hit, her waters broke early, and life suddenly felt very fragile. Five months later, with maternity pay running out and no desire to put her newborn into full-time childcare, she launched her own business strategy consultancy from home — a decision that would eventually take her family to two different countries.

In this episode, Kate talks us through the lifelong dream of moving to rural France, what happened when that dream turned out to be lonelier and less practical than expected, and the tough but ultimately right decision to start again in Jávea, Spain. We cover the reality of juggling visas across three countries (including a late-stage pivot to Polish EU citizenship via her husband), the impact the move had on her young son's development, and how Kate has since pivoted her business into hosting and coaching business retreats.

If you've ever dreamed of moving abroad — with or without kids — this episode is full of honest, practical, lived-experience advice.

About Kate: Kate Kurdziej is a business retreat host and retreat launch strategist based in Jávea, Spain. She helps entrepreneurs plan and launch their own sold-out retreats, having built and rebuilt her own consultancy business across the UK, France, and Spain.

Connect with Kate:

• Instagram: @kate_kurdziej
• Website: olivier-consultancy.co.uk
• Email: kate@olivier-consultancy.co.uk
• WANT TO LAUNCH YOUR FIRST RETREAT? Watch the my free training- The 5 Must-have Steps to Your First Sold-Out Retreat
• JOIN A BUSINESS RETREAT Work ON your strategy in Spain without distractions; Join the waitlist here
• Featured in: The Times | Daily Mail | i Newspaper | Stylist Magazine | We are Tech Women | The Successful Founder | Process Excellence Network | Tech Round | She Can Code
  
  

Timestamps:

• 00:00 – Introduction to Kate
• 01:00 – Life before the move: Yorkshire, wealth management, and burnout
• 02:00 – Introducing Jávea and life on the Costa Blanca
• 03:00 – COVID, an early birth, and the pivotal moment
• 04:00 – Launching a business from home with a newborn
• 06:00 – The leap to France: entrepreneur visas and selling everything
• 07:00 – Rural French life: cold winters and isolation
• 08:00 – Their son's speech delays and the search for support
• 10:00 – Discovering Jávea and the digital nomad visa
• 11:00 – Settling in Spain and no regrets
• 14:00 – Worrying about what other people would think
• 17:00 – The visa maze: digital nomad visas vs. Polish EU citizenship
• 19:00 – Their son thriving, trilingual, and settled in Spanish school
• 23:00 – Why the Spanish climate matters for wellbeing
• 24:00 – Future plans: finding the "forever house"
• 25:00 – Pivoting the business into hosting retreats
• 27:00 – Would she do it all again?
• 30:00 – Reflecting on France with no regrets
• 31:00 – Kate's advice for anyone considering a big move
• 33:00 – Closing thoughts and thanks

Hashtags: #ExpatLife #MoveAbroad #DigitalNomad #LifeInSpain #BusinessRetreat #FemaleFounder #IslandLifeStories

Transcript

Speaker 1:37

Hi, Kate. Thanks for joining Island Life Stories. really pleased to have you on today. Really can't wait to get stuck into your story. it sounds really fascinating. the, the fact that you've

Speaker 5 1:48

moved

Speaker 1:49

twice, not just once, twice internationally with a young family, grew

Speaker 5 1:53

a business

Speaker 1:53

as well. I th- I think it's just really inspirational. let's start by introducing yourself. Let's find out about Kate before all this happened and what led to these, these huge decisions, by the sounds of it,

Speaker 3 2:05

Yeah.

Speaker 4 2:05

I'm Kate. My name's Kate Kurdziej, and I currently am talking

Speaker 3 2:10

you from Spain.

Speaker 4 2:12

but our story started five years ago, UK five years ago. but these days, fast-forward to now, these days I am a business strategist, so I run my own, consultancy. started that when my son was five months old during COVID lockdown in the UK, and, yeah, it's grown and, yeah, something I'm very proud of. but

Speaker 3 2:35

it

Speaker 4 2:36

has facilitated this move, abroad, which has been incredible,

Speaker 3 2:39

to have a,

Speaker 4 2:40

a business that you can make money from and, live in the place that you really want to live a very different life to what I was living in the UK. So yes, that's me. I have a little boy. He's six years old, just turned six. and we live in

Speaker 3 2:52

Spain, in Javea,

Speaker 4 2:54

which is about an hour south of Valencia.

Speaker 3 2:57

lovely place

Speaker 4 2:58

on the Costa Blanca. So we can use Alicante Airport or Valencia

Speaker 3 3:02

Airport. On a

Speaker 4 3:02

very clear day, you can see out to Ibiza,

Speaker 3 3:05

so it's on

Speaker 4 3:08

Ibiza. So very similar kind of coastline,

Speaker 3 3:10

lots of palm trees, surrounded

Speaker 4 3:12

by mountains as well, turquoise Mediterranean. So yeah, little slice of paradise.

Speaker 5 3:18

Great.

Speaker 3:19

So with, COVID's got a

Speaker 5 3:20

a lot to

Speaker 3:21

answer for. I find that's a running theme, in a lot of the interviews I've done so far, where there's been a ch-

Speaker 5 3:26

a,

Speaker 3:26

an almost sort of watershed moment for a lot of people. Was that the catalyst for doing what you did or w- was

Speaker 5 3:33

something

Speaker 3:33

already, in the pipeline bubbling away in the background?

Speaker 4 3:37

Yeah, it was a

Speaker 3 3:38

mixture, a

Speaker 4 3:38

little bit of a, a shit show of everything

Speaker 3 3:41

that

Speaker 4 3:41

point back in 2020.

Speaker 3 3:43

so

Speaker 4 3:43

I had been working in wealth management. I was a practice manager for a, a, wealth management company in Yorkshire. and I wasn't happy in that job at all. And then I found out I was pregnant, and that was at the end of 2019. So this was all pre-COVID. so I Crashed and burned out of that job, crying in the car park, three months pregnant, going, "I can't do this anymore."

Speaker 3 4:04

and

Speaker 4 4:06

had a kind of blissful pregnancy really, until March 2020 when COVID lockdown

Speaker 3 4:12

started.

Speaker 4 4:13

and my waters broke early, so it all kind of-- There was a couple of weeks where my son was in the intensive care unit. There was nobody on the roads. Everyone thought the world was ending, and I think that was, for me, the pivotal moment, and for my husband as well, where

Speaker 3 4:26

we were like,

Speaker 4 4:28

"Wow, life can change so quickly. what are

Speaker 3 4:30

we gonna do?" And we started

Speaker 4 4:32

thinking things, but obviously we had a newborn baby at that point, we couldn't really think straight anyway. and it got to the point where my son was five months old, so this was about, September

Speaker 3 4:41

time, 2020. So

Speaker 4 4:42

still in and out of

Speaker 3 4:43

of lockdown,

Speaker 4 4:44

still very kind of early days of COVID. And, my maternity pay was running out. I didn't even have a job to go back to because I'd quit.

Speaker 3 4:52

and

Speaker 4 4:53

yeah, with mat pay running out, I was like thinking and started applying to, big jobs that were full-time. And I thought, "I don't

Speaker 3 4:59

don't wanna put

Speaker 4 4:59

my little tiny lockdown baby into childcare at five

Speaker 3 5:02

months

Speaker 4 5:02

old." And I had this real internal kind of

Speaker 3 5:05

dilemma going

Speaker 4 5:06

on, which, I'm sure most parents go through of child- you know, do I want to put my kid in childcare or not? But, I didn't want to. And I looked at my husband, he was

Speaker 3 5:14

"What do

Speaker 4 5:14

you wanna do?" And I was like, "I wanna start my own business." You know, if I can work from home and, not have

Speaker 3 5:19

to

Speaker 4 5:19

put my son in full-time childcare and kind of start building a life that could maybe support us

Speaker 3 5:24

now

Speaker 4 5:24

for the next

Speaker 3 5:25

30

Speaker 4 5:25

years, like what does that look like? There's no more perfect opportunity than now because my s- my husband was, working from home a lot because he was employed at that point, but he was working from home. so we had this kind of little opportunity really, and I always think like in hindsight,

Speaker 3 5:39

like that was the

Speaker 4 5:40

golden opportunity and only some people will take it at that point, right? Like only some people will jump in

Speaker 3 5:44

in 'cause nothing's ever perfect.

Speaker 4 5:46

That was

Speaker 3 5:47

the

Speaker 4 5:47

right time to start my business and I was just in the right place at the right time, and it took off. So at some point, a little bit later, I did have to put my son in some childcare, but it was always very much like minimal childcare, working from home, working in nap times, working in the evening, just building things incrementally. and then my husband actually lost a really good friend during COVID, not because of COVID, but, I think it just showed us the fragility of life at that point and, corporate roles, mortgage, car, family, everything can just disappear

Speaker 3 6:19

overnight.

Speaker 4 6:21

So yeah, I think we just had a bit of a, like,

Speaker 3 6:25

like, YOLO

Speaker 4 6:25

moment to be so cringe and just think, what are we gonna do?

Speaker 3 6:28

is this what we want

Speaker 4 6:29

for the rest of our lives? And the answer was no. we'd been

Speaker 3 6:31

planning sort of

Speaker 4 6:33

loosely for a long time a move to France.

Speaker 3 6:36

but at that point Brexit happened

Speaker 4 6:39

and, um, the-- it wasn't so easy. Like, I don't-- you know, moving, moving

Speaker 3 6:44

in and out of

Speaker 4 6:44

the EU pre-Brexit was just like, just rock up with a car full of stuff and don't get on

Speaker 3 6:49

your easyJet flight home.

Speaker 4 6:51

like that was, that's moving abroad, before that. But then we then had to

Speaker 3 6:55

go

Speaker 4 6:55

through the visa process, we did our entrepreneur visa applications for France. and we got our visas and we just left, and my son was 18 months and we drove over on the Channel Tunnel. We sold our house, sold all our bego- belongings and went into a rental in France. The dream had always been

Speaker 3 7:10

to

Speaker 4 7:10

move to France, to be honest, Darren. I'm in Spain now, but the dream was always France. my husband and I speak fluent French. We got married in France. We met in France working. Like France was the ultimate, we wanted that farmhouse surrounded by sunflowers and then we got

Speaker 3 7:23

it. And this is

Speaker 4 7:25

something that I love reflecting on as well because we got everything that we wanted and we were

Speaker 3 7:28

like,

Speaker 4 7:30

"Is that it?" is that really what we wanted? Like, I think we'd been so focused on the move to France and moving to France that

Speaker 3 7:36

we hadn't really looked at what our life

Speaker 4 7:39

would be like in France with a very small

Speaker 3 7:41

child.

Speaker 4 7:42

and I don't know if you know anything about France, but there's no one there in the countryside. So to get any kind of form of life you have to live in a town or a bigger city and we really didn't want to. Like we wanted to live with, fresh air and countryside and

Speaker 2 7:56

Yeah

Speaker 4 7:57

so that's where we moved to and it just in practice wasn't what we wanted and I think after we did two years though there and some very cold summers, cold winters. we're about an hour northeast of

Speaker 3 8:09

of Bordeaux. So lovely, like

Speaker 4 8:10

sunflowers in the summer like it was beautiful. We had a pool

Speaker 3 8:13

and it was

Speaker 4 8:13

just you know typical French lifestyle but it was just quite boring like there just wasn't you know our age group there. There wasn't a lot of families all the village schools had

Speaker 3 8:22

closed 20

Speaker 4 8:22

20 years ago so you had to go quite far to get to a school and we just thought this is good but it's not good enough and then

Speaker 5 8:30

So you, you're

Speaker 8:30

certainly thinking of schooling age at that point. So you're thinking

Speaker 4 8:34

He was 18

Speaker 3 8:34

months to,

Speaker 4 8:35

to two and a half

Speaker 3 8:36

years, three years at

Speaker 4 8:37

that point. And, he had started French crèche, so like French nursery. and he

Speaker 3 8:42

was

Speaker 4 8:42

having some speech delays and some, behavioral issues because of not being able to communicate properly. and they were not handling it well because it was just a

Speaker 3 8:51

little village

Speaker 4 8:51

kind of crèche and they weren't any-- you know, they had

Speaker 3 8:55

no

Speaker 4 8:55

extra training, so it wasn't good. And I think we saw a bit of a path in front of us If

Speaker 3 9:02

this

Speaker 4 9:02

behavior continues, if any issues continues, what will happen? What will happen with our son in France in this location? So then we started looking at maybe moving into Bordeaux or Toulouse or

Speaker 3 9:15

somewhere a bit

Speaker 4 9:15

bigger where there's maybe some extra support that we can get. I would say at this point he's absolutely fine. It was just a very difficult period for the family generally.

Speaker 3 9:23

He's

Speaker 4 9:23

had some, extra support and he's absolutely cracking now. But it was quite a worrying time and we just sort of-- I think we just had

Speaker 3 9:29

a flash forward of

Speaker 4 9:30

what are we g- actually gonna do if this gets worse?

Speaker 3 9:33

worse?

Speaker 4 9:33

so we started looking at international schools, and obviously

Speaker 3 9:37

based in cities. we

Speaker 4 9:40

really still don't want to move to a city." We moved to France for fresh

Speaker 3 9:43

a city." We moved to France for fresh air and the

Speaker 4 9:43

countryside and outdoor life and, that isn't what we wanted. So we started googling, where else could we go? And I

Speaker 3 9:49

remember

Speaker 4 9:50

one day we were watching, I think it was something like

Speaker 3 9:52

Life in the

Speaker 4 9:53

Sun or Place in the Sun or something like that, and there was this scene, and I've got nothing against Benidorm, but I personally wouldn't wanna live there. It's not that far from where we live now, but I wouldn't wanna live there. But there was this shot on Christmas Day and people were in the sea, in the Mediterranean, in turquoise water, and What are we doing freezing our asses off in

Speaker 3 10:13

France?"

Speaker 4 10:14

I work remote. th- there's no reason to be here right now. our son

Speaker 3 10:17

isn't

Speaker 4 10:18

doing well in the school system. It probably will continue to be pretty bad until it gets much, much better. So what are we doing with our lives? So

Speaker 3 10:25

yeah, we kind of

Speaker 4 10:27

googled very quickly where international schools were in Spain, and we thought if we

Speaker 3 10:31

can get him into some

Speaker 4 10:31

get him into some like

Speaker 3 10:34

a lot will be solved. And

Speaker 4 10:34

that was the case 'cause support at that point. he's in a Spanish public school now, and he's absolutely fine, learning Spanish and Valenciano and, all sorts. He's absolutely fine now, but he needed that intensive input. So yeah, we started googling and my husband was like, "Oh, a lot of the international schools are in cities," and don't really wanna live in central Alicante or Madrid or anything like that, or Barcelona." But he's like, "I've seen this one in, Jávea." and so we started looking at Jávea, and I was like, "I know that name," and my dad had started thinking

Speaker 3 11:02

about

Speaker 4 11:03

retiring to Jávea years ago. He never did in the end, but he knew

Speaker 3 11:06

that sort of Jávea, Dénia area. So

Speaker 4 11:08

I was like, "Oh, I think it's nice," because my dad looked at it and was pretty serious about moving at that point.

Speaker 3 11:13

it and realized that it wasn't a massive city. It's

Speaker 4 11:15

tiny, and it has, the most beautiful beaches and a lot of amenities, but everything's very low rise. And we were like, "Oh,

Speaker 3 11:23

okay. This

Speaker 4 11:23

is a genuine like option for us." And yeah, got him into school, got him into international school. the digital nomad visa had just started in Spain, which was very lucky. I think like looking back on the timeline, we were very lucky with that timeline because if it was 12 months before we wouldn't have been able to do it 'cause I have to work. So we

Speaker 3 11:42

couldn't

Speaker 4 11:42

ever get like a non-lucrative visa, so we had to work. but they'd just brought in this like digital nomad visa in Spain and my business was doing well, so we got that, paid someone to help

Speaker 3 11:52

us understand any Spanish.

Speaker 4 11:55

and within five months we'd bought a house sight unseen, handed in our keys for the rental,

Speaker 3 12:01

sold things, packed

Speaker 4 12:01

up, and driven to Spain. and nearly three years later, we're still here and we've got absolutely no plans to go anywhere. We love it here. And I think, like looking back

Speaker 3 12:09

on our timeline, I feel like everything

Speaker 4 12:11

happened for a reason at that

Speaker 3 12:12

point.

Speaker 4 12:13

I feel like the universe was showing

Speaker 3 12:15

us

Speaker 4 12:15

what we wanted and what we don't want. And, the house that we had in France was the dream house. It was this huge place, like five bedroom, four bathroom, thick stone walls, so it was always so cool in the winter. It was gorgeous. Big garden, swimming

Speaker 3 12:28

pool. Like

Speaker 4 12:29

I felt like that should make us happy. Now we live in a little two up, two down house, 10 minutes from the most beautiful beach, like street parking, and we're just as happy here, if not

Speaker 3 12:38

happier.

Speaker 4 12:39

So it's funny how kind of life has shown us that

Speaker 5 12:43

Yeah.

Speaker 12:44

Oh, I, I completely get that. Yeah. I think it's amazing you've actually got to live where you've always wanted to live, live that dream, and then just sort of, "Oh, okay. It's not quite what we thought." Uh,

Speaker 4 12:58

Yeah. And I tell you what, that was quite a scary moment, Darren, when-- because anyone that knows us

Speaker 3 13:05

knows

Speaker 4 13:05

that we w- we always wanted to move to France. that was the dream. That was the, the, the one goal of our life was

Speaker 3 13:10

to move to

Speaker 4 13:11

France

Speaker 3 13:11

and

Speaker 4 13:11

raise a family in France. And when we had that thought of we don't wanna be here anymore, what if we just move to Spain? what if we just move somewhere else? There was that kind of oh, but what will

Speaker 3 13:19

other people think?

Speaker 4 13:20

What will other people think of us changing our minds? And, Kate's been talking about this for 30 years. is she, you know, like how can she just do a 180 like that? I was really worried and I realized actually no one really gives a shit. everyone was like, "Oh, okay,

Speaker 3 13:34

cool."

Speaker 13:34

Yeah.

Speaker 4 13:35

so that that should never hold anyone back

Speaker 3 13:37

So if

Speaker 4 13:38

if like anyone

Speaker 3 13:38

listening maybe

Speaker 4 13:39

what will other people think if it doesn't work out? 'Cause I think that's a big thing, isn't it? Like what if it doesn't work out? What if I have

Speaker 3 13:45

move back home? And

Speaker 4 13:47

I just think, you tried it. No one else did. Like you, you're the one that actually went and did it, and if it didn't work out, then it didn't work out for a reason. You can't just stay there because that's what you always said you'd do. Like you have full autonomy to change your mind,

Speaker 3 14:00

what's,

Speaker 4 14:01

so wrong with that? And I think that

Speaker 3 14:03

was

Speaker 4 14:03

quite a, like a game changer moment for me when I thought, actually, does it

Speaker 3 14:07

what anyone

Speaker 4 14:08

thinks? So yeah, found out no one really cared anyway, but

Speaker 3 14:11

it was just--

Speaker 4 14:11

it can block you I think, and a lot of people

Speaker 3 14:14

listening to

Speaker 4 14:14

to this might feel the same, blocked about what

Speaker 3 14:16

if

Speaker 4 14:16

I have to move home or what if I-- what if

Speaker 3 14:18

it doesn't work?

Speaker 14:19

and going back to what you said earlier with regards to, being in the middle of lockdown and,

Speaker 5 14:23

like

Speaker 14:23

I said, a lot of people were thinking, "What should I do now?" You know, having a good look at their lives and thinking, "What sort of changes can I make?" But, obviously a large percentage of people didn't actually act on anything.

Speaker 5 14:36

So

Speaker 14:36

I think, to actually have that mindset to say, "Yeah, let's just do it. Let's go for it."

Speaker 5 14:41

it's

Speaker 14:41

all calculated. you've mitigated any risks, but then to just actually make that bold move, do it, and then have the, the mindset of,

Speaker 5 14:49

okay,

Speaker 14:50

this hasn't quite worked out, but it's for a reason. let's look at- let's look to Spain. let's... We're getting there. We're getting what

Speaker 5 14:57

want,

Speaker 14:57

but it's not quite France. and not giving up on it and thinking,

Speaker 5 15:00

this

Speaker 15:00

hasn't worked. Let's, let's go back.

Speaker 4 15:02

Yeah, We're like, we already sold our house. We've got no belongings. we've just got a-- We have a little trailer and a roof box of all our stuff and a little Sitch and

Speaker 3 15:08

a little Citroen C4, and we just

Speaker 4 15:10

thought, "Let's try somewhere else." what's the other option? Go back to England? we haven't exhausted this process yet. We're only just starting it. So we did two years, didn't work, change. We've got absolutely no plans to move anywhere else. I think

Speaker 3 15:21

it's freaking fantastic

Speaker 4 15:22

here, but it's the opposite of what I thought I wanted. mean, I always

Speaker 3 15:26

knew

Speaker 4 15:26

I wanted, sunshine, but I get to live by the coast now. The Mediterranean is very therapeutic for a lot of people and-- or any, any sea and oceans are, for

Speaker 3 15:36

a lot of people.

Speaker 4 15:37

now I have a kind of different-- You know, I'm fulfilling almost a different dream. it w- it was always a dream

Speaker 3 15:41

live

Speaker 4 15:41

by the sea, but I never-- It's always so expensive, isn't it, to live by the sea anywhere in, in most

Speaker 3 15:46

countries.

Speaker 4 15:47

But, in Spain you can a little bit more easily. So I get to fulfill a slightly altered version of the dream now.

Speaker 15:55

So w-w-was your business born or established in France, or was that something that developed when you eventually went to

Speaker 4 16:00

No, that was UK. So I started as a UK limited company. so my son was five months, I think, when I registered my company. and yeah, so

Speaker 3 16:09

it's

Speaker 4 16:09

always been a sort of like business operations and strategy and consultancy.

Speaker 3 16:14

but it's gone through three

Speaker 4 16:15

iterations now. So it was UK Limited, and then I closed that down and

Speaker 3 16:18

set up

Speaker 4 16:18

as self-employed in France, and then closed that down and set up as self-employed in Spain. On the surface, branding-wise, nothing's changed. It's always been called Libby Consultancy.

Speaker 3 16:29

but

Speaker 4 16:29

on the s- on the back end, my

Speaker 3 16:31

God,

Speaker 4 16:32

the paperwork, of changing my accounts and re-registering and things like that, it's, yeah, it's been interesting, but worth it. And I always think with that kind of thing, like maybe you

Speaker 3 16:42

feel the same

Speaker 4 16:43

as moving, like any like moving paperwork, it's but you only do

Speaker 3 16:46

it

Speaker 4 16:47

once. You don't have to do this every single month, like with visas or, we had to change our car from French to Spanish. That cost 1,000 euros, but it's like it's just a one-time thing. So every time that we do something, like it's just a one-time thing. And then we did that in France, and then we're like, "We're just gonna move to Spain now," but it's just one more one-time thing. So we're not

Speaker 3 17:07

moving

Speaker 4 17:07

again. I'm not

Speaker 17:08

Yeah, no. I t-- I-- obviously that's a visa thing as well there, as

Speaker 5 17:12

take it. You've

Speaker 17:12

gotta register in, in Spain to

Speaker 4 17:15

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah,

Speaker 3 17:16

that's,

Speaker 4 17:17

that's been a very interesting journey. so when we moved from England to France, it was on my husband and I, two individual entrepreneur visas. So you have to do a business plan for it, submit it. They go, "Yeah, you'll make minimum wage in France. You won't be a burden on the

Speaker 3 17:30

on the state.

Speaker 4 17:31

Have a and then you have to renew that. You have to keep up

Speaker 3 17:34

those

Speaker 4 17:35

earnings and renew that. in Spain it was, a little bit different because digital nomad visa, my husband's

Speaker 3 17:42

work

Speaker 4 17:42

couldn't transfer to Spain. He was selling houses in France, and he didn't wanna do that here. And, there was no company transfer that he could do or anything like

Speaker 3 17:50

that. So my

Speaker 4 17:51

business was making enough money that I could be the main applicant for the digital nomad visa, and my s- husband and son could be my

Speaker 3 17:58

dependents.

Speaker 4 17:59

So they're not earning, and I am earning,

Speaker 3 18:01

even though my

Speaker 4 18:01

husband could then get work whilst he was h-

Speaker 3 18:03

h-

Speaker 4 18:03

when he's here. But on the actual application, he can't be working and have any

Speaker 3 18:07

money contributing to the application.

Speaker 4 18:09

It has to be me and my clients. So that was all fine. my business was doing very well at that point, and that, you know, the finances weren't a problem. But we've now gone in through another iteration. So the digital nomad visa, if you apply in Spain, you get a three-year visa, three-year residency. If you apply at a consulate outside of Spain, you get one year. So we obviously wanted to be in Spain to apply and get the three-year

Speaker 3 18:31

because there's no way I'm doing that every

Speaker 4 18:32

year. So it was three years. We're about to come to the end of that three years this summer. but in the meantime, we remembered that my husband has Polish ancestry and Poland is in the EU. my husband's been going through the process of getting his Polish, passport citizenship. and so we've just gone

Speaker 3 18:51

through this ridiculously

Speaker 4 18:53

bureaucratic experience of switching everything from my

Speaker 3 18:58

visa with their depend--

Speaker 4 18:59

with two dependents to my husband's, now the main applicant, 'cause the EU citizen. Now I'm spouse of an EU national, and then my son is obviously son of an EU national. So we now get five-year residency. We're classed as like EU. much lower income requirements than a digital nomad

Speaker 3 19:17

visa.

Speaker 4 19:17

Very,

Speaker 3 19:18

just

Speaker 4 19:18

a third of

Speaker 3 19:19

of the

Speaker 4 19:20

income per month is now necessary for the, the three of

Speaker 3 19:23

us,

Speaker 4 19:23

which is a huge pressure off me personally, with the earning. But it's much easier. But that has,

Speaker 3 19:30

you know, that's

Speaker 4 19:30

taken a lot of money and a lot of time and effort to get that

Speaker 3 19:34

sorted and,

Speaker 4 19:34

the

Speaker 3 19:34

process of actually

Speaker 4 19:35

getting the

Speaker 3 19:35

Polish to begin with

Speaker 4 19:37

took of years to get all of

Speaker 3 19:40

'cause you

Speaker 4 19:40

together 'cause you have to get all the military--

Speaker 3 19:41

'cause he was in the military, so you have to get military

Speaker 4 19:43

records

Speaker 3 19:44

Kew Gardens and all this sort of stuff. So... And obviously there's a lot of people doing that

Speaker 4 19:48

kind of thing 'cause they all want EU passports again from England. it's, it's one of those things where you just had to join a queue basically and do it. But it's all come through now with the final part of

Speaker 3 19:56

of the

Speaker 4 19:56

process is, me and my son need to go down to and get our

Speaker 3 20:01

taken and get a new card, 'cause

Speaker 4 20:03

of current so we need to get a new card for this new type of visa. But yeah, that's been a very long, arduous process, visas, and I, I completely empathize with anyone going through a visa process because it's just-- yeah, it's a lot. And the frustration of having

Speaker 3 20:21

all

Speaker 4 20:21

of the documents and then to talk to somebody that, you know, get your appointment, and then

Speaker 3 20:25

quite often just depending

Speaker 4 20:26

on who you're talking to that day, they go, "No, this isn't, this

Speaker 3 20:30

isn't good enough.

Speaker 4 20:30

This is-- you need this different document. Oh, you need to

Speaker 3 20:33

take out private

Speaker 4 20:33

health insurance. Oh,

Speaker 3 20:34

no, you don't need to take out

Speaker 4 20:35

private health

Speaker 3 20:35

insurance." And

Speaker 4 20:36

you just think, why isn't there a criteria list for this? why are we all not working from the same process with visas?" but they don't, and that's really frustrating. So play the game a little bit and just keep going, keep trying,

Speaker 3 20:49

keep applying.

Speaker 4 20:49

But it's worth it in the end. It's always worth it.

Speaker 20:51

thinking outside the box that, isn't it? I lo- I look at just, oh, hang on, we can get a... We still get a EU visa. But like going back to what you said earlier, you just gotta think, we do this once, it's done. Get, just get it done, and then that's it. oh,

Speaker 4 21:04

it. just a one-time thing and it's, once it's done, the renewals are always easier. It's that

Speaker 3 21:09

first

Speaker 4 21:10

first visa application where you're literally starting from scratch. renewals

Speaker 3 21:13

are so much easier

Speaker 4 21:14

because you're in the system and, they just need X, Y, and Z, and then you just go to

Speaker 3 21:19

appointment

Speaker 4 21:19

and renew again. usually that's But that first time, yeah, I, sympathize and empathize with anyone listening going through the visa process for any

Speaker 21:29

That's amazing. So your son is flourishing at the moment

Speaker 3 21:32

he

Speaker 4 21:32

just turned

Speaker 3 21:33

six.

Speaker 21:34

bilingual,

Speaker 4 21:35

yeah, he's, he switched from British International School to Spanish public school, and we're in the Valencian region, so they also learn Valenciano. so it's

Speaker 3 21:46

a like

Speaker 4 21:46

Catalan, very similar to Catalan. and Majorca has a similar kind of language as well. it's... Yeah, so really interesting for him. He's

Speaker 3 21:54

kind of--

Speaker 4 21:55

there's a very big international community here

Speaker 3 21:57

and a lot

Speaker 4 21:58

of Dutch at the moment as well, so he's picking up. we speak English at home, Spanish, like Castellano at school, but then Valenciano with that, and then he has a load of Dutch friends, so he, understands a bit of Dutch now as well. And I just think,

Speaker 3 22:10

we were

Speaker 4 22:10

we were talking about it with some parents the other day, and we

Speaker 3 22:13

thought like how wonderful that they

Speaker 4 22:15

get to grow up in,

Speaker 3 22:15

like such a beautiful

Speaker 4 22:16

place, but surrounded by different cultures and languages and it's just, yeah, it's an incredible lifestyle for the

Speaker 3 22:24

kids,

Speaker 4 22:24

to grow up in. This will be normal

Speaker 3 22:26

for them.

Speaker 5 22:27

Ultimately,

Speaker 22:28

that's the goal,

Speaker 5 22:29

it, really? And I

Speaker 22:30

know, having a lifestyle for yourself, but seeing your child grow up in doing something right as

Speaker 5 22:35

and

Speaker 4 22:36

Yeah. absolutely. Absolutely. it's the opportunities that, that the kids will get and just the healthier lifestyle, to live for us in the, you know, in the sunshine and be able to swim a lot of the year, just be outside. we had, family around last night and we were just sat out on

Speaker 3 22:51

the terrace at the back

Speaker 4 22:52

having bubbles and some tapas and you just think, "Oh, it's so nice." Like you could do this in England or you could do this in another country, but the warmth and

Speaker 3 23:00

the sunshine

Speaker 4 23:01

makes such a difference. So for me personally, like that was a huge

Speaker 3 23:04

draw of

Speaker 4 23:05

moving further south, is that in France in the summer that we could get that lifestyle for Ollie, for my son. But in the

Speaker 3 23:12

winter

Speaker 4 23:12

it's very much still indoors and still, um, you know, living a lifestyle that we wanted to do less of, but

Speaker 3 23:20

we were still doing a lot of that.

Speaker 4 23:21

So in Spain it's, you know, yeah,

Speaker 3 23:23

it's still,

Speaker 4 23:24

it's still cold in the winter, but cold compared to somewhere like England, it's not, like we... I

Speaker 3 23:29

still wear my big coat,

Speaker 4 23:30

but it-- I check the temperature and it's 18 degrees. So

Speaker 5 23:34

COVID-19 in, in, in UK.

Speaker 2 23:36

That's the

Speaker 4 23:36

yeah, cold and wet. Exactly.

Speaker 3 23:37

And that's

Speaker 4 23:38

difference, isn't it? if you live somewhere that even if it's cold, it doesn't matter, but it's the blue sky and the sunshine that makes such a difference. personally to me, like I've been diagnosed

Speaker 3 23:47

or anything like that, but

Speaker 4 23:49

I certainly feel that like that's something that I feel in the winter. and then when the warmth comes back in the spring, it's amazing. But if I've had a winter where it's cold and wet and gray, that's gonna be far worse than a,

Speaker 3 24:01

a sunny blue sky winter, even

Speaker 4 24:02

it's cold,

Speaker 24:04

Do, do you have any, future plans from where you are now? have you got any sort of short-term, long-term goals you thinking of

Speaker 4 24:11

Yeah, a couple. One, one is more kind of, house related. So like I said, we bought this sight unseen. we actually bought it without a mortgage. We had a small amount of money. It was-- well, small, large amount of money, but it was €135,000, and we could just stretch to afford it without taking a mortgage. We

Speaker 3 24:30

had to pull in some favors, but we bought

Speaker 4 24:32

it without a mortgage because we were moving country from France to Spain. I was gonna be the only one working, and we were taking on international school fees.

Speaker 3 24:41

We just thought,

Speaker 4 24:42

I don't want all this risk on me and my business." So we bought the house. We were really wanting to find somewhere without a mortgage. But it is small because it's more like a holiday home kind of style. It's lovely, but it's not got a lot of storage 'cause it's a much, much smaller house. We don't have our own driveway. like all of these kind of things that when you live here, it actually, does make

Speaker 3 25:04

a

Speaker 4 25:04

a little bit of difference. And we would just like more space. I'd like my own office again. In France, one of the many bedrooms was my whole private office, and now I'm in a nook at the bottom of the stairs, which is fine. It doesn't make a difference practically. But I think lifestyle-wise, we know that isn't-- this isn't the forever house. So I think first thing that we want to do is my husband's working now,

Speaker 3 25:24

so

Speaker 4 25:25

we're in a position to feel a bit more comfortable taking on a mortgage. So we would like to buy, the sort of dream house, like the forever house, four bed detached with a pool. that kind of

Speaker 3 25:34

house

Speaker 4 25:34

rather than feeling a little bit So I think we'll probably do that in the next 12 months, 12 to 18 months, something like that, we would like to be

Speaker 3 25:42

moved.

Speaker 5 25:43

It in

Speaker 25:43

the same area?

Speaker 4 25:45

Same, yeah. completely same area, and we're gonna do a bit of a tactical move over to the next town postcode because the high school's better in that town. so we've got him in the good primary school, and then we'll move over to the good secondary school. so we're gonna do that. But yeah, on a sort of

Speaker 3 25:59

of

Speaker 4 26:00

personal basis on the business front, I, So when I moved to Spain, I realized how incredible this scenery was for, just your mindset and disconnecting from any kind of noise. Like I c- totally get why people come here on holiday. It's just vibe completely to where we were in France, which had its own, benefits. so I

Speaker 3 26:20

started running business

Speaker 4 26:21

retreats here because there's a lot of kind of retreats going on. They're more in the health and wellness space, but I started running

Speaker 3 26:26

business strategy retreats here,

Speaker 4 26:28

on a bit of a whim, just, it just happened one time, and I'm doing

Speaker 3 26:31

more, and

Speaker 4 26:31

more, and they're growing in popularity. So I want to do more of them, and do less online and do more kind of in-person stuff because being a sort of COVID-y time business, I've really only worked online, like in my business. I've done a very few amounts of in-person stuff, but not as much as I would like to. And in the early

Speaker 3 26:50

days that was great 'cause

Speaker 4 26:51

it meant that, when Ollie was little I could be at home, but now

Speaker 3 26:54

I'm

Speaker 4 26:54

like really wanting to get out of there more. So I think we're gonna do some more

Speaker 3 26:58

in-person events and more

Speaker 4 27:01

retreats, and I now help people with their retreats, so I'm a retreat strategist, so I help people launch their retreats and just slightly pivot into a s- a

Speaker 3 27:09

different kind of vibe rather

Speaker 4 27:11

than like online business consultancy. it's more retreat

Speaker 3 27:14

based a different

Speaker 4 27:16

kind of pool of people that I work with now who are opening my mind to different kind of wellness things and, food and lifestyle and things like that. So it's nice. I feel like I'm evolving here, a big

Speaker 3 27:28

part

Speaker 27:28

pushing yourself a little bit as well then, isn't it? Taking yourself out of the comfort zone a little bit. that's brilliant.

Speaker 3 27:33

Yeah. Yeah,

Speaker 5 27:36

out of the comfort zone a little bit. that's brilliant. Yeah. S- w- is there anything,

Speaker 27:37

I was gonna say, is there anything you'd do differently if you had the chance to do it again, say from 2020 onward? would you class France as something, as a positive impact, the fact that you did that?

Speaker 5 27:49

would you

Speaker 27:49

do that again?

Speaker 3 27:50

Yeah.

Speaker 4 27:51

That's a really good question. I think we learnt so

Speaker 3 27:55

much.

Speaker 4 27:56

I don't think we would've made the same decisions moving here if we'd not gone to France first. I feel like that was part of the learning curve. and it made us realize that we didn't want that, that ma- you know, when

Speaker 3 28:10

we had a small

Speaker 4 28:11

child, we didn't want that massive house because the amount of maintenance, the... We had a ride-on mower for the garden. It was that big. it was just work, work, work. My husband was constantly putting

Speaker 3 28:23

pool cover on and off and cleaning

Speaker 4 28:23

it, and that sounds like a proper first

Speaker 3 28:24

problem, but when you're working full-time as

Speaker 4 28:26

well, and you've

Speaker 3 28:27

got a baby and all of this stuff, it just became like, what

Speaker 4 28:30

are we... Why have we chosen

Speaker 3 28:31

this

Speaker 4 28:31

life?" So

Speaker 3 28:32

I think

Speaker 4 28:33

if we hadn't have done

Speaker 3 28:35

step, we would've chosen that here,

Speaker 4 28:37

and then that might have soured us against this area, this, this lifestyle that we've chosen. So I feel like in hindsight, it's a really good question to reflect on. I feel like in hindsight

Speaker 3 28:48

I

Speaker 4 28:48

would've done it again,

Speaker 3 28:50

because I

Speaker 4 28:50

think it's taught us the lessons that we probably needed teaching at that

Speaker 28:53

yeah,

Speaker 5 28:54

it's part of the process

Speaker 28:55

that's got you where you are now, really. Yeah.

Speaker 4 28:58

Yeah. absolutely. Absolutely. And it, it showed us things with our son that we might not have seen if he wasn't in that particular scenario. And even though we have our

Speaker 3 29:06

own kind of

Speaker 4 29:07

trauma from it, it's, it's-- it, I think it showed us things that we were then able to do something about, and who knows what that would've looked like. it's a bit of a sliding doors moment. We don't know what that would've looked like in 10 years' time. So we feel like ultimately now, we left the UK nearly five years ago, we're

Speaker 3 29:25

in the best could

Speaker 4 29:27

be right now. We-- my husband and I both work between school hours. we go swimming every day after school in the summer. we've got the lifestyle that we want,

Speaker 3 29:35

but only

Speaker 4 29:36

through the learnings that we've had on the way, if that makes sense.

Speaker 5 29:39

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. and

Speaker 29:40

who's to say that France isn't an

Speaker 5 29:42

option

Speaker 29:43

way into the future when you're a lot older? At least you've experienced it now and

Speaker 4 29:46

Yeah.

Speaker 3 29:46

Absolutely.

Speaker 4 29:47

it's always gonna be close in our hearts 'cause we speak French, we

Speaker 3 29:50

married

Speaker 4 29:50

there, we worked there.

Speaker 3 29:51

Like it's always

Speaker 4 29:52

gonna be a country that we love. But I think if we had stayed, we would've really fallen out of love with it. Whereas now we look back at it and we're like,

Speaker 3 29:59

like we're doing a road trip

Speaker 4 30:00

the summer,

Speaker 3 30:01

we're

Speaker 4 30:01

gonna be driving

Speaker 3 30:02

France and I'm

Speaker 4 30:02

so excited to drive back through France and see France again and see the French countryside, and it's still got a very special place in my heart. But I wouldn't live where we lived because that was far too rural. that was one of the lessons that we learned. and there's so many amazing places in France. anyone listening to this thinking, "I wanna move to France," or, "I'm in France," no bad word against France, it just wasn't quite the right fit at our time in life. it's totally different. you're no doubt, like, when you've got a small child or small children, you need different things to if you're a retired couple or if you wanna live in the middle of a city and, be a 20-year-old, employee. there, there's very different times in your life, and that wasn't

Speaker 3 30:42

the right fit

Speaker 4 30:42

for us at that point

Speaker 30:45

I'm 51 and living in the middle of nowhere sounds fantastic at the moment, so you've just described

Speaker 5 30:51

about France,

Speaker 30:52

that ticks everything for me.

Speaker 5 30:53

Yeah.

Speaker 4 30:54

Oh, yeah. I live

Speaker 3 30:55

Spain.

Speaker 4 30:56

When I hear like noisy Spanish, Spanish are very noisy culturally, that's fine. That's just how they're brought up. But then you hear a

Speaker 3 31:02

dog barking

Speaker 4 31:03

and then

Speaker 3 31:04

you

Speaker 4 31:04

think, "Oh my God, what would I

Speaker 3 31:05

give to

Speaker 4 31:05

live

Speaker 3 31:05

in the French

Speaker 4 31:05

countryside?" it's But it was just a time in our life that, I

Speaker 3 31:10

get why people move there and want

Speaker 4 31:11

to retire there. I'm not so sure it was the right fit for us moving as a, a new

Speaker 3 31:16

young family,

Speaker 4 31:17

at that point. So yeah, not a bad word against France, but that point in, in, time wasn't quite the right fit, wasn't aligned.

Speaker 5 31:25

Any

Speaker 31:26

small piece of advice for anybody in the UK thinking, or anybody in the world really, thinking about making a big move

Speaker 5 31:31

like that?

Speaker 31:32

with a young family or not, what would you say to

Speaker 4 31:35

I think, I would-- the headline of just do it, but that's always not that easy to just do it.

Speaker 3 31:41

Like that's

Speaker 4 31:42

really crap advice, just do it, because you need to-- like, there has to be a plan. There has to be an understanding. What I would say, one learning, and I think I touched on it here about the French move, is that we had been planning that for so long, and that had been the dream forever.

Speaker 3 31:56

I remember

Speaker 4 31:57

when I was seven years old on a French campsite thinking I'd love to live in France one day.

Speaker 3 32:01

Like

Speaker 4 32:01

this is my dream for my whole life. I didn't think past that. I didn't think about... Like, when we moved, Ollie was 18 months, and

Speaker 3 32:09

we'd moved so

Speaker 4 32:10

rural that there was no childcare. The crèche places were full, so we had him at home juggling between two jobs for a year with no childcare. So we didn't

Speaker 3 32:20

even

Speaker 4 32:20

think that through properly. We just-- There was an assumption, that you move somewhere,

Speaker 3 32:26

local crèche, you know, whatever that might be.

Speaker 4 32:28

So we didn't think that through. We didn't really think, like, where

Speaker 3 32:30

the nearest shops are,

Speaker 4 32:33

doctors, It's really hard to get a dentist in France. Sometimes you literally have to travel, hours to find a dentist appointment. I don't think we'd gone into enough granular detail of what would our life be like. Because you still have to do the supermarket shop, right? You still have to take your kid to school. you still have to do things. It doesn't matter whether you live in England or abroad, like you still have to do your daily

Speaker 3 32:53

life things.

Speaker 4 32:54

So what would

Speaker 3 32:55

that look like in the

Speaker 4 32:56

place that you're moving to? And I think that was our biggest lesson is I personally hadn't done

Speaker 3 32:59

enough further

Speaker 4 33:02

thought on that. I'd just been so focused on the visa and the move, and that has so many moving parts on its own that I hadn't quite got to the point

Speaker 3 33:11

of what

Speaker 4 33:11

would it... It's a bit like when you have a kid, and especially your first one, you're reading all the books, you know everything about pregnancy and childbirth, and then you get a newborn in your hand and you're like, what do I do now?"

Speaker 3 33:23

Because you

Speaker 4 33:23

don't, you haven't read

Speaker 3 33:25

that

Speaker 2 33:26

that. So

Speaker 4 33:26

far, right? You haven't looked that far ahead. So yeah, I would definitely say, my advice would be definitely do it, but think through what your actual life will look like

Speaker 3 33:33

for the next 10,

Speaker 4 33:34

20, you know, for the rest

Speaker 3 33:35

your life

Speaker 4 33:36

there. Is there stuff to

Speaker 3 33:38

you,

Speaker 4 33:38

your children entertained? if you've got kids, are you gonna be driving 40 minutes to the nearest swimming pool when they have their swimming classes? these things

Speaker 3 33:46

matter.

Speaker 4 33:47

and they might feel small and trivial, but on a daily, weekly basis, they definitely matter for your kind of enjoyment and lifestyle in that new country. but I would say it's almost always worth it. Even if you-- You know, I know people that have ended up back in their home countries, and they

Speaker 3 34:01

don't

Speaker 4 34:01

regret it because they're like, "I wanted to do it, and if I hadn't have done it, then I would have always thought, what if?" and I just think you're only here once,

Speaker 3 34:10

so

Speaker 4 34:11

give it a go. If you've got the means and need and you're able to, just try it because you might love it

Speaker 34:17

Brilliant. Fabulous advice. Kate, thank you so much for joining us today. Really appreciate your time, and, it's been amazing hearing your story. Thank you so much

Speaker 4 34:26

Thanks so much, Darren. Thank

Speaker 3 34:27

you