At long last, we have managed to type a few
words about ourselves, for those who don't know us or need a reminder (as
we have been gone for a little while now...) (with an update from
Sep 2007 below...)
Cornwall, Summer 1988
At Andy and Anna's wedding,
1993
Narrowboating, 1993
Our wedding! May 1998
Jura, November 2004
Québec, August
2005
Gullane, April
2007
About Ness
I was
born on 7th August 1967 in Sorrento Hospital in Moseley, Birmingham
(now a housing estate). Often referred to as "the youngest of the
four Voogd children" I had a tough act to follow as both my sisters,
Caroline and Beccie, and my brother, Chris, set high standards for
mischief, brain power, musical ability and sporting prowess (which
sadly missed me along the way!).
My Dad,
John (otherwise known as Boss Hogg - long story), ran a fruit and
veg import business and my Mum, Frankie (formerly known as Mazambula
- equally long story), helped with the books and generally stopped
too much shenanigans going on! We were lucky as children being given
the chance to do what we wanted (within generous limits) and going
on great holidays to Cornwall, France, Spain and Greece.
I grew up
in Solihull to the South West of Birmingham and still today referred
to as one of the posh bits. It has changed hugely in the last 20 odd
years from a small town to a large suburban conurbation, now just a
part of greater Birmingham. Each time I go home to see Mum and Dad
and the wider family new buildings have sprung up, most notably the
new Touchwood Court shopping centre, and the traffic is busier and
busier.
The pull
of the South Coast lured me away to university and, enjoying
Brighton, I stayed there from the end of my first year. I then met
Stef and the rest is history, a potted version of which is outlined
below!
About Stef
I'm Dutch, and grew up in
Brussels where I went to the European School. I've always had an
international background, considering myself "European".
Travel
aspirations started early and I have always been a bit of a dreamer,
fantasizing about far-away places. My imagination was fired by the
adventures of "Kapitein Rob" (google it), "De Kleine Kapitein" by
Paul Biegel, Jules Verne and more of that genre. When I was little I
often went to "America" by "train" together with Mischa, my little
sister - a settee and re-arranged cushions were all that was needed.
We always managed to make it back home in time for lunch though.
I came to
Britain in 1987 to study and met Ness in my first year - for the
rest, see below!!
Somehow I
managed to acquire a couple of degrees and a career (after a fashion)
in "consulting" followed. It meant I had a nice shiny laptop, nice
shiny mobile phone, and stayed in nice shiny hotel rooms a lot of
the time... It was fun for a while but that kind of lifestyle takes
its toll and then one day you find yourself wondering "what happened
to the last year, where did it go?"
About "Us"
So, who
are we?
University days
This is
us about a year or so after we first met as students at Sussex
University in Brighton on the south coast of England. In those days
we were both slim, had lots of hair and smoked like troopers!
We did
the same course although I was a year ahead of Stef. We studied
Economics and Mathematics and then went on to do a masters degree in
Management of Technology. Our time at Sussex was good fun. I think
we probably enjoyed the social and "life experience" part of it more
than the academic challenge of learning new stuff. It has certainly
come in more handy afterward than Venn diagrams and statistical
analysis. The last time I had a burning desire to read the Economist
was ...... (actually, Stef does read it now and then...)
One of
the great things about Sussex was the mix of international students,
especially at Masters level. On our respective courses we met a mix
of French, German, Czech, Malay, Indian, Mexican (best recipe for
guacamole ever), Spanish, Greek and Polish students, and even a few
from my home town of Birmingham in The Midlands. It resulted in some
interesting evenings out and probably was instrumental in whetting
our appetite for knowing more about the world and seeing it for
ourselves.
As our
student days passed, we settled down to become "responsible" adults,
although our families still think we are both big kids waiting to
grow up! Friends started to get married, our hair got shorter and
with the affluence of being at work our lifestyles changed. In 1995
we moved from Brighton to London, where we still have our house, now
rented out to tenants for the duration of our trip.
Ok,
now what?
Work for
me started at Family Assurance Friendly Society, now Family
Investments, a leading provider of savings products for children.
Initially I started as a temp with the usual collection of mind
numbing jobs. This then progressed on to permanent roles and I
gradually worked my way up and around various different jobs. My
role for the four years before we started our world trip was as the
Head of Customer Services. In my time at Family I have been lucky to
work on the whole with very friendly people, who gave me lots of
opportunities to flex my wings and develop my skills.
Stef was
a bit more nomadic. Again, initially working as a temp the lure of
student life was too much for him and he went back to study for a
second Masters degree, this time in Computer Science at
Birkbeck College, University of London. He combined part-time study
with work: first at Technopolis, a science and technology policy
consulting firm founded by two former Sussex (SPRU) academics, one
of whom was his former tutor, and later at SIA Consulting, a niche
consulting firm founded by former Rank Xerox executives. After
completing his degree at Birkbeck, he started working for Digital Equipment (now
part of Hewlett Packard) and got his first taste of project work.
From here he moved to Deloitte, in the consulting
practice, where he stayed for the next six years. A restructuring of Deloitte in 2003 resulted in redundancy
and a slug of money in the bank. Serious travel plans started to
brew at this time.
Wedding Bells
In 1998,
we finally succumbed and got married having known each other for
only 10 years! We had a great day at Nailcote Hall in Warwickshire
with family and friends there to support us and wish us well. Our
honeymoon was three weeks cruising through the Tuscan countryside in
Italy. Great fun, especially in our little blue MG.
A new
house and all that goes with it halted any ability financially to go
and explore the world for a few years. We then started to go for
long weekend city breaks taking in some spectacular parts of Europe
- Amsterdam, Paris, Prague, Venice, Seville, Barcelona, Rome.
As budget
allowed we also took longer "summer" holidays falling in love with
Argentina and Chile and having an fantastic time in India. Deepak
and Nandita's wedding was a truly memorable event!
In the
winter of 2004, knowing that a year away was highly likely, we
stayed close to home and spent two cold weeks in the beautiful Jura
region of France.
Breaking
the news of our world trip to family and friends was hard, knowing
that we would not see them for a year. Email and the internet are
fabulous though and it makes keeping in touch easy, as long as you
can find a fast internet connection. We are trying to keep our
website up to date but sometimes fall a week or so behind!
Most
people we have talked to about our trip have said "I wish I could do
it too." You can! "Simply" throw away the shackles of work, pack as
little as you can survive with in a bag (we still have too much with
us!), rent out your house and go. You won't regret it!
Update Sep 2007: Just to fill in the last
blanks on this page then, for completeness... We went on our trip
and travelled round the world from May 2005 until September 2006.
You can read all about that in the rest of this site, which has now
grown far beyond our expectations. What happened next?
Well, after a lot of indecision and research, we
finally decided to settle in North Berwick, a small town not far
from Edinburgh. We put location and lifestyle first and figured that
jobs would be around wherever (within reason) you looked, so we
didn't we fall into the trap of letting the job decide things for
us. Yes, we could have had an easier ride if we had just gone for
the first place where a lucrative job was on offer but we reckoned
that that way we would not be making any of the changes that we had
been talking about. We were after more space, better air, and
proximity to the sea. We had cast the net very widely, considering
not just places in the UK and Europe, such as Bath, York, Dublin and
Amsterdam, but also thinking of Montréal and Vancouver. We did some
research on all of those, using the time between returning from
South Africa and before heading off to eastern Europe, to tour
around, visiting friends and family in the process. Edinburgh and
North Berwick came up trumps, although we continued to ponder on it
while we toured around eastern Europe.
In October 2006 we rented an apartment in North
Berwick to start with while we found our feet and got to know our
new environment. Stef started the job hunt with high hopes, but it
soon became apparent that finding a job was going to be a job in its
own right. The back-end of the year was not a good time and there
weren't many companies hiring at that time of year. We went out
walking, Stef going out for regular trips into the beautiful hills
and highlands with Mark, and we explored Edinburgh and Scotland in
general. Then in January 2007 the job hunt started in earnest, and
several months of perseverance paid off, with a good job as
Senior Technical Architect at IBM for Stef. We decided to live on
one income as this would allow us to have a more balanced lifestyle,
rather than two of us having to keep busy jobs. Once we had
certainty on the income front we could also be more active in our
house-hunting and this also paid off and we found a nice house in
the centre of North Berwick where we have now well and truly settled
in. Ness is secretary of the active local cinema club as well as
getting involved in other local activities, and Stef has joined the
local yacht club (ELYC,
www.elyc.org.uk). We're pleased to have had visits from friends
and family, making the trek to what most of them consider as the
"far north", and I think it's fair to say that once they have seen
where we have chosen to live they can understand why. The place, the
coast around here, the light, as well as the city of Edinburgh, has
a very definite "wow!" factor.
It has now been almost a year since we returned
from our world trip and we have been busy with all sorts of things,
but we do look back on it quite often. The memories have become part
of our dictionary, we unconsciously compare experiences, sights,
tastes, etc. to our wider frame of reference now. The pictures pop
up on our screensavers, and of course we have kept a few souvenirs
and trinkets, which stir a memory.
