By the time I went to bed tonight I was feeling VERY miserable. I'd got a bad case of the blues even though I'd had a fantastic day with Alan and Dee (as always - you couldn't meet two nicer, more sorted people if you tried).

The problem was that we went to their new house and it was everything I've ever dreamed of. A beautiful, if a little dilapidated, old stone house in a picture postcard village in Cornwall, with enough land to grow lots of food and keep a little flock of hens. It was so perfect I just couldn't believe such a place existed. The house needs lots of work but the building is so wonderful it's a privilege to just walk through the door.

I'm not envious of them, it's not that, quite the reverse in fact. It's just that I'm cross with myself for not having enough courage to 'follow my dream'. They saw an opportunity to sell up in the South East, buy a small business in Cornwall and change their lives so Dee doesn't spend hours every day on the M25 like I do. She is no longer a slave to big business and the impossible demands on our lives that big companies make. They no longer have to worry about who will pick up their daughter from school because they've been held up in different meetings or have got stuck on the M25 because there are just too many people trying to get from one place to another.

It's like the song......'I saw the crescent but you saw the whole of the moon' they did just that and not only did they see it but they reached up and grasped it in their hands and have reaped the reward of their courage and determination. They've not been lucky, they've worked hard and now have a lifestyle that is so idyllic it's hard to imagine how it could be improved.

So I'm angry with myself - I just don't have that sort of courage. I'm so worried all the time about how to pay the mortgage that I never take any risks, to the extent that these days my limited time is stretched so thinly that I can't remember a time when I wasn't rushing around. Even on holiday I had to stop myself from 'we've got to get there by such and such a time or we can't do this too'.

There is a huge amount in my life to be thankful for but it's there despite me, not because of me if you see what I mean.

In Cornwall there is a different culture - if you live in a town, you generally work there too - their friends were shocked at their decision to leave Looe to move inland because they had.....wait for it.....a 12 minute commute to work!

Post script - it's now four days since we saw Alan & Dee and I'm now more positive. We have a workable plan for getting off this hamster wheel that is the South East of England and we've decided that we really can follow our own dream and head down the A303 but this time with a big removals truck of our own!