I was in my late forties and I had been working for over 30 years. Starting at sixteen in the travel business and with jobs varying from conducting student educational tours to the UK and France, Holland and Belgium, a few years spent in the aerospace business - not popular with women, but a very lucrative business - to the last years spent happily as a high performance officer in the Equestrian Federation. This last was simply like dealing with heroes every day. I had loved most of my years on the carousel. But now it was time to step off. I just knew it. I could not explain it, nor rationalise it, nor answer the questions that well-meaning friends asked me in wonder. I truly think one or two thought that this change might be a sort of breakdown and that perhaps a good rest would get me back to normal.

The rat race finally became just too much in the summer of 2002. It seemed to have rained every summer for years, and while delighted with the green, it was wearying. Continually battling just to get to work, either driving or on public transport, whipped by the wind and the rain was becoming a nightmare. We needed the sun more than ever!

Life had become just a series of journeys from home to work and back again. This was thanks to the ‘Celtic Tiger‘, that mythical beast that most women I knew came to hate hearing about. These two words were invented by a journalist as a witty description of an emerging Ireland, which was about to take on the world. To begin with everyone loved it. In my case, my youngest brother lives in Japan and to hear him describe the reports of a booming Ireland was terrific. But then the ‘Celtic Tiger’ began to demand more food, as it were. The mantra of the employers had become ’we can always squeeze a bit more of out them.‘ And that was certainly true. For extra money, they could indeed always squeeze more out of employees. The price of absolutely everything we needed to live had rocketed up and out of all proportion and so more money was always welcome. In fact the love of money became all consuming to some. One high flyer friend put it very well when she simply said; “nobody gives a damn about anyone else here anymore“.

The incredible and furious growth that happened so quickly in Ireland was stunning certainly and especially, I know, when viewed from the outside. But for those of us who had been working since the seventies it was business as usual. Yes, there did seem to be incredible amounts of money sloshing around, but lots of those so called millions were in fact ‘phantom fortunes’, as was shown up when the IT industry began to wobble. People had actually purchased large houses and estates when they were alleged to have personal fortunes of perhaps ten million, and then overnight they were found to be worth just two million. Now for sure, two million is two million, but that story gives a small example of just how unreal the situation had become. And these were ordinary working people who had made it good, as it were.

We then had tribunal after tribunal exposing the chaps in political circles who had been lining their pockets, buying even bigger estates than the IT millionaires and keeping their money abroad in Cayman island banks, while we struggled along paying the outrageous charges of the main banks; charges we could do nothing about.

I left. And never looked back. Now, the first thing is this. The utter freedom of being away from so all the called experts - self-appointed - is hard to overemphasize. The peace in my mind because I haven’t heard anyone expounding their theories for six months is so amazing, that I am still waking up and pinching myself in the mornings! I feel rather like I was sixteen again, with everything seeming possible.

I realise it is still early days, but I do seem to be on the way to understanding how little I actually need to live. Just savouring each moment - small things like the perfect lunch made by slicing a tomato and some garlic and pouring some basil infused oil over it. Or an incredibly yellow yoked hard-boiled egg with a rich mayonnaise, ground black pepper and salt. Some goat’s cheese wrapped in herbs, made by hand and sold in the market on Saturdays by a wonderful old lady who I‘ve come to know a little. The old ladies here seem to live forever. One, in her eighties, invited me in for an aperitif before lunch one day. Perhaps that’s the key! Lunch is an occasion. The clatter of cutlery and crockery can be heard from twelve noon onwards.

From my desk in the top room of this higgledy-piggledy village my view looks out over the little red tiled roof, and to the Couseran hills, with the high Pyrenees in the backround. I never saw so much greenery in my life. The widlife here is stunning. Birds of prey are always in the air. I haven’t seen an eagle yet -or a bear. I understand they keep to the very high peaks, but hawks, buzzards, falcons, kites, etc are quite common.

The wonderful thing about this area is that people couldn't care less if you have two euro or two million euro. It is all about the quality of life. From the moment you go out in the morning for the fresh bread and croissants, and everybody in the queue wishes each other Bonjour, the day is like heaven. We had some visitors from Ireland and I knew they thought we were perfectly off our heads. You could see it from the minute they arrived. They couldn’t contain themselves and we were treated to remarks like ‘what on earth do you do all day?’ and ‘it’s a bit quiet here isn’t it?’ for the time they stayed.

What do I do? ‘I live!‘

St. Lizier, Ariege, FRANCE

The view from Jane's window