I often find the answers in the most unlikely of places. Well, unlikely to some. But for me, standing by the sea and observing the waves gently ebb in and out or in a forest as the dappled sun light dances through the branches, that’s when I am thinking clearly. Perhaps you have a favourite place where you feel inspired and where you can figure out a little puzzle that’s been on your mind.
Poet Becky Hemsley wrote…
“And she stopped…and she heard what the trees said to her. And she sat there for hours not wanting to leave. For the forest said nothing, it just let her breathe.”
As I gaze at the stars on an evening, miles away from traffic and humans other than my sleeping family, the silence is deafening. It is so profound that it takes on its own quality. A quality that is very difficult to convey.
So I just breathe. In that moment, I don’t need to do anything else.
My work includes instructing people on how to breathe. A strange job, right? After all, we breathe from birth. How can I teach that? Not that I have ever thought of it like that until now. As a fitness instructor, I need to teach a breathing pattern for a client to be able to perform an exercise correctly. This can take weeks or months to perfect. Even then, the professionals still need a reminder now and again.
And in a meditation therapy session the breathing techniques can be the most important aspect. It’s how we tune in and connect with our body.
But taking a moment to realise your breathing isn’t exclusive to these activities. Just five minutes in a quiet environment can help, but finding your favourite place, your ‘happy place’ and spending quality time there can be a game changer. Sometimes, you don’t even need to be there in person.
Have a think about where your favourite places are. Imagine being there now. Close your eyes, take a deep breath and put yourself there.
Sometimes you just need to stop and listen to the trees.
Finlay’s tooth has been threatening to fall out for months. He has wobbled it, pulled it and tugged on it but the little blighter has held on by a thread.
Until yesterday.
His front tooth finally fell out. No fuss, no blood. Just popped out.
‘So!’ announced Finlay, ‘I’ll be getting a Euro from the Tooth Fairy tonight!’
He is right, of course, that the tooth fairy does indeed visit our home on tooth-coming-out occasions but here’s what you should know about the tooth fairy that has been allocated to us.
Finlay is adamant that the Tooth Fairy is a ‘he’, so for the sake of this article and in danger of misgendering our Tooth Fairy, I’ll refer to him as male.
But this is where the issue may stem from. He might be upset that we call him a ‘him’. You see, the Tooth Fairy didn’t turn up through the night. No euro was left and Finlay’s milky white was still there, under his pillow, all wrapped up in a bit of tissue.
So Lou and I have spent the morning making excuses for our Tooth Fairy. We told Finlay that, perhaps due to us having a few different addresses in the past few months, he wasn’t sure where we lived.
We waited a moment to see Finlay’s reaction as we tried to defend our erratic Fairy friend from Toothland.
I’m not sure that was believable.
I went on to explain that, due to the backlog of tooth fallings out recently he might be running late. I used my birthday card as an example. I was due my card from my dad on the 14th of November from England. It is now the 2nd of December and it still hasn’t arrived.
But likening the Tooth Fairy to the lackadaisical postal system in central Portugal didn’t seem to wash with young Finlay.
Ok, Here’s The Truth
The truth is that the Tooth Fairy is a very hard, honest working Fairy who was well aware of Finlay’s tooth under his pillow but had fallen asleep that evening after a few glasses of port watching Netflix.
The Tooth Fairy, in waking up a little disoriented on the sofa, totally forgot to take the tooth and leave a Euro.
It was a total black mark on an otherwise glittering CV, but the Tooth Fairy had fucked up this time.
Still, I attempted to defend him. I told Finlay that the Tooth Fairy had a much tougher job than Santa. Santa has loads of elves to make presents and then Santa does his job on one night and takes all the credit!
I mean, there’s actually some credibility in my argument, right?
Tonight, I’m sure, the Tooth Fairy will have had a sobering talking to with his conscience and will totally be on it tonight. Finlay, however, is unaware of the damning truth that the Tooth Fairy got carried away with a bottle of Port and forgot to put a Euro under his pillow last night.
So we have given Finlay a little tip. We told him that the Tooth Fairy might like a note of appreciation, asking for his tooth to be taken, and this is what he might be waiting for. Just a little letter of thanks for the job he does. After all, the Tooth Fairy might also be a parent who is trying to do their very best.
I don’t think that the Tooth Fairy will let us down tonight.
As a child I would watch my sporting heroes who would inspire me and enable me to dream of one day following them in their achievements.
Just to name a few, sportspeople like Paul ‘Gazza’ Gascoigne, Jimmy ‘The Whirlwind’ White and Andre Agassi excited me as they performed in their professional sport. They excited me because, although they were never considered the very best, they had an abundance of character to compete with those who were. A part of their edge is perhaps also down to the fact that they have each had their own mental health struggles.
Gazza
And it appeared to me as I watched a recent Netflix documentary about Robbie Williams that most of the ‘famous’ people that I like or admire have mental health problems.
For some reason I’ve always followed William’s career. I don’t even like his type of music. But I could see, from afar, that he was desperately unhappy. The cheeky chappy who always wanted to play the clown and say something controversial, act differently and seem to go out of his way to be disliked. That was me as a teenager and young man. And seeing as we’re of similar age, he connected with me.
Similarly with Gazza. As a young footballer I wanted to be him. I watched World Cup Italia ’90 as a 12 year old in absolute awe of what Gazza could do with a football. I’m sure many kids did. He played for Spurs, I supported Liverpool and my mates supported Manchester United or Leeds. But it didn’t matter. That summer, we all had Gazza T-shirts on under our England shell suits.
None of my idols admitted to any sort of mental health issues, though. Yes, there had been drugs and alcohol issues, getting into trouble with the law and well documented domestic issues, but they never actually came out and said ‘I am depressed’ or ‘I need help’. Certainly not publicly.
This week, England and Saracens rugby captain Owen Farrell has made a statement saying that ‘in order to prioritise his and his family’s wellbeing’, he will be taking a break from International duties. This coming from a man who has lived and breathed the sport in an extremely masculine environment is highly commendable. Yes, winning World Cups and Six Nations trophies are important. They train incredibly hard for that moment. But it is not as important as an individual or their family’s mental health. Being an elite athlete is about recognising that. He did and he has acted on it.
Owen Farrell
Another of my idols, albeit a bit before my time, is Bill Shankly. He once said, “Some people believe that football is a matter of life and death. I am very disappointed with that. I can assure you it is much more important than that.”
With the world that we live in I am sure many people will qualify in justifiably being able to disagree with him. Sport is sport. Life is life. However, as a coach myself I can understand exactly what he means. During a training session of mine or a client’s, I expect that to be the only thing that matters in that moment. Whatever is going on outside of the gym must be parked there. That is how we achieve fitness results and how elite sportspeople achieve medals and trophies. But inevitably we have a life away from that, even the professionals who are making a living from their sport. They have families. They have feelings. They are fallible. No matter what their earnings are, where they live or what car they drive, mental health does not care. It can take a hold of anybody.
Perhaps mental health is, at last, being talked about much more openly than it used to be. I knew, even as a kid, that these sportspeople that I idolised were different from their counterparts. Their behaviours didn’t always fit the acceptable requirements of their team, professional body that they represented or the media. But did they even know that they had mental health concerns? Even if they did, what options did they have?
The UK in the 80’s and 90’s was a very different place to be an upcoming sports superstar to what it is now. For the likes of Gazza, he had to perform in front of terraces known for chanting fans abusing the footballers for anything they could. Any sort of ‘weakness’ or admittance to needing help would have been disastrous for him and his career. And this baying mob mentality was led by the written press at the time. They loved his antics, but I often wondered if they were laughing with him or at him.
In my opinion, social media has nothing on the British tabloids of the 90’s. Social media has, for every bad, a cause for good too. The tabloids, however, could ruin you in an instant if you didn’t stick to its narrative. It’s hard to imagine a rugby player talking about mental health back then. So, though saddening to hear that Owen Farrell feels that he needs to step down from his England duties, it is encouraging to know that he can without being abused for it. At least from the majority of us decent folk.
Heroes aren’t just the ones who lift the trophy at the end of a game.
For those of you who read my blogs from afar you might not see my family’s move to Portugal as anything too big. But for those who have followed my journey and who know me personally will know that it is absolutely massive.
The fact is that my decision to move from the UK to Portugal came from me (or my wife and I) hitting a brick wall.
This brick wall was making us unhappy. We felt that, month upon month, we could not pay mortgage bills, rent bills on our businesses, council tax and food and energy bills. There was no way of planning a holiday for the kids. Our savings since COVID was depleted. Our brick wall was getting thicker and higher.
You too might feel that you have a brick wall. Let me tell you now that you can climb it, dig under it, hell you can kick your way through it, but never let a brick wall break you. You can come through the other side.
Your brick wall might be totally different to mine, but if it is making you unhappy and restricting your happiness then it is there.
I always had a need to travel, yet career moves and kids meant that I had to stabilise my life at that time. It was only in 2016, after the referendum for the UK to leave the EU did I know that I would leave my home. But at the time my career was just taking off as a Personal Trainer and my kids were babies. It was, we felt, not the right time.
And as much as I always threatened to leave the UK it only became a reality when I felt that I could no longer afford to live there. I hit the brick wall. And to put that into perspective, my mortgage had doubled in the UK from October and council tax was almost £300 a year. In Portugal, we are mortgage free and council tax is 20€ a year. A 5 litre box of quaffable wine is under 5€ too. Bonus.
I’m not here saying, hey, look at me! Look at how well we’re doing! Blimey. There’s a long way to go for us yet. We’re still renting from one place to the next until our house purchase goes through. We’ve been living like this since September and expect to be until late January as we still await a reply from a school for our kids.
Also, there is a whole lot of work to do on the property that we have bought to become liveable and profitable for our business. Something that you will be able to see on our Road To Tranquility Facebook and YouTube pages plus Channel 4’s A New Life In The Sun in series 10.
The Brick wall is still palpable. But we still keep climbing, digging, bulldozing and beating down this bloody wall. It won’t get in our way.
Never let a brick wall get in your way. Whatever you want, overcome it and reach the other side. Don’t let it beat you.
Eating the frog first is a phrase I heard some years ago to describe how training, doing an exercise class or a long walk/jog first thing in the morning can enable you to develop a healthy daily routine.
This saying, I believe, was made by Mark Twain to prioritize difficult tasks. He went on to say that if there are two frogs, eat the biggest one first.
It certainly helped me. I preferred a morning workout. It helped me complete other daily tasks throughout the day as I felt more motivated, more confident in my skin and it made me make better meal choices for that day.
And I am finding that this rule can assist in creating a productive routine for my kids at the moment. As those familiar with my blogs will know, my wife and I are currently buying a home in Portugal. Our boys haven’t yet got a school so we are homeschooling them. As each minute of the day passes we find that we are losing their interest to open up a text book as the lure of the pool, football in the garden and iPads take over.
And they are important too, of course, but as parents it is also our duty to keep up with their learning, especially as learning Portuguese is at the core of it.
But it isn’t just them who lets the day slip away without any schooling. If my wife and I don’t hit the ground running in the morning it is very easy to fall into the trap of allowing ourselves to consider this moment to be a vacation. There are many things that keep reminding us that it is not, however, such as ongoing contract negotiations between us and the house vendors and the unfinished business we are tying up in the UK. But these are yet more reasons to postpone the schoolwork.
Simply put, if we are to proceed with a healthy, stress free day we need to get all of the crappy stuff done early. We need to eat the frog first so that we can enjoy the yummy tasty things on the plate without worry.
Along with my new resistance training which I’m now completing each morning, as a family we are beginning to explore our local area of Palhais in Sertá. And as I don’t have the use of a full time car, walking long distances has been a daily activity.
We happen to be almost in the very centre of Portugal. So much so that in the distance of our accommodation we can see the Centro Geodésico de Portugal, which is a tall white tower signalling the geographical centre of Portugal in Vila de Rei which offers fantastic panoramic views. But this region also has its challenges.
Buses are irregular and, if you do drive, the long and winding road through the mountainous route from Palhais to Cernache do Bonjardim is not for the faint hearted. And for those who are walking from place to place, kerbs aren’t really a thing here.
And that’s what we’re doing for the most part, doing lots of walking.
But luckily, whether we are on foot or in a car, we rarely see many cars on the road which suits my left hand lane driving brain.
In the town of Sertá, there are lots of things to see and do even on a drizzly (yet warmish) November day. Of course, the boys found a football pitch to have a kick about.
And then there’s Trizio, which is a wonderful river beach offering water sports during the summer periods. For now though, we got to see its beauty without any people there. When our youngest, Finlay, managed to stop talking for a second, we could hear just the silence of our surroundings. Bliss.
There are those days where we don’t feel like leaving our accommodation at all. It has a pool, which is freezing, but that didn’t stop Finlay from having a dip!
We know that what is around the corner for us in our lives will be a challenge. But it’s one that we signed up for. Tomorrow we will be looking at another house that has the potential to be our permanent home and business. It won’t be the finished product and we will have to put all of our resources into it, as well as ensuring that the kids’ wellbeing and schooling needs are met. So far, we have been able to explore our surroundings at our leisure. But we await the next chapter and we hope it will be in Palhais.
And we don’t expect a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but we are hoping for a fulfilling, grounding and loving one.
In a small bistro in the centre of Darlington, big ideas were being refined by its two managers.
Louise and I were to open this new dining establishment back in 2008. I know the date well. As we opened the doors, the news came out that a worldwide economic crash had begun.
It seemed like we were going to be up against it straight away!
It is true that we had no experience in managing such a big project within this industry. And we certainly had no experience of the massive impact the economic crash would have on an industry such as a restaurant. But we created something special for our loyal customers.
Lou would create the menu and design the serving styles of each dish whilst managing the kitchen. I became the wine and coffee ‘specialist’ while managing front of house.
Saturdays were especially busy and people would often be queuing out of the door to get a seat where, regrettably, once I had to turn down ex England manager Steve McClaren and his family as the waiting time for a table went well into extra time.
But in those down times, where people would call in for a cuppa, we made sure that we had time for a chat.
I love cafe culture. Some of my most memorable moments on my travels were just sitting outside the cafe at places like Piazza Della Signora in Florence and the quaint cimbalimo in Tomar drinking an americano.
Somehow, it allows the world to stand still for a moment. Sure, I see the people mulling about and going about their business, but it all seems calm. Peaceful.
So that’s what I wanted to create a little bit of for the customers of Houndgate Cafe.
Fast forward fifteen years and it is still what I want to create for my customers. And since Houndgate I’ve added to my people skills with working in the fitness industry.
Roll my experience up into a ball and you kind of get what we will create in Portugal. A wellbeing centre and glamping site. Or Centro de bem estar é glamping, as it will be known.
For the past twelve months I’ve been dreaming of seeing our visitors sitting outside their accommodation, cooking BBQ food and enjoying the Portuguese summer evenings. Well, that and dreaming of Liverpool winning the Premier League, but you get what I mean.
I can only create what I know that I would want in a service. That’s what I’ve always done. As a support worker, I wanted to treat people like I would want to be supported. At Houndgate, I wanted to give the customer the experience that I look for in a bistro. And as a personal trainer, I wanted to make the client feel positive about themselves both mentally and physically.
Our youthful optimism from when we began our journey at Houndgate has since taken some beatings. After all, we need to experience the lows for us to know where to improve and embrace the highs! It’s just a part of the process.
But our ideas are now ready to be rolled out onto new beginnings. We’re ready to create something new again.
Never Give Up PT 