Returning home
‘Welcome to Wales’. I see the sign at last. A five-hour drive to the border, and another three hours to Carmarthenshire. All this in order to move our home from Scotland back to Wales. I was exhausted. As tired and anxious as I felt, I never doubted the decision to move home – it was the right thing to do for our marriage, our children, and our family. Let me take you along our journey from start to finish, and through the highs and lows that led us to this point in our lives.
Finishing our PhD degrees
I met Sophie while we were both doing our PhD degrees at Cardiff University’s School of Medicine. I was researching diabetes, and Sophie was researching cancer. The toughest academic challenge in our lives got even harder when I lost my mother following a brief and sudden battle with cancer. I took time off from my PhD to spend some precious moments with Mum, but at the time, I didn’t notice that my funding was about to run out. When I returned to the PhD lab, my director told me that the funding had come to an end and they could no longer pay me. Unable to pay the rent, I started looking for a job. Sophie was the first to secure a job at Cambridge University, so off we went on our first adventure – our first time living outside Wales.
Cost of Living
Both of us were doctors and had secured well-paid jobs in Cambridge. We hadn’t found a place to rent yet, so we lived in our orange van, nicknamed the “Wotsit”. In January, with the heater on and the snow piling above us on the roof of the van, we had some cozy and beautiful nights, but we knew this wasn’t a long-term solution and we needed to find somewhere to rent.
After hours of searching, we found a beautiful farmhouse on the outskirts of Cambridge in the Coton area. It was also our first experience of renting a private property – and of the attitudes of private landlords towards their properties! Costing around £1000 a month, there was no central heating and there were only single-glazed windows. This was the year of the ‘Beast from the East’ snowstorm – the bath and toilet froze, there was ice on the inside of the windows, and lighting a fire triggered the carbon monoxide alarm!
Realising what’s important
We lived in the Cambridge area for nine months! After being overwhelmed by the cost of living, the traffic congestions, and the less welcoming spirit of the locals compared to what we were used to in Wales, we decided to travel around Asia and New Zealand. Strangely enough, we were able to save more money in a month by staying at five-star hotels in Asia than we had been able to do during our nine months in Cambridge! We also had time to consider what really mattered to us. We decided that we wanted part-time jobs that paid enough to support us and a family (possibly), and live in the countryside. So, that’s what we started doing.
Scotland calls
After making hundreds of job applications and interviews to try to stay in Carmarthenshire, in the end I managed to secure a job at a university outside Edinburgh that ticked every box. Soon after, Sophie also secured the ideal job. We were able to work part-time, share childcare, afford holidays, and we even managed to buy our first home. What a difference a change of country made. People thought we were lucky, but we had worked hard to make this dream a reality. But despite all this, we were still unhappy. We were longing for home!
How we got home
Looking back at 2024, the universe must have been trying to tell us something. Sophie lost her grandmother from Brecon; her father was diagnosed with a rare skeletal cancer; and my grandmother’s Alzheimer’s disease worsened and she had to move to a care home in Carmarthenshire. Sophie felt a strong tug to return home in order to be close to family and provide them with physical and emotional support. But living in Scotland meant that a trip home would take a whole day of travelling with two young children and at least £150 in the tank, so popping home wasn’t an option.
We knew that moving home would mean giving up our part-time jobs in Scotland that supported us as a family, and putting all our faith in the business we had been developing over the past three years. Anxiety and stress were a daily challenge; we really didn’t think it was financially possible for us to return. But despite this, Sophie persevered.
Attempt 1
We put our house in Scotland up for sale, and luckily it sold quickly, so we now had some capital to invest in a new home in Carmarthenshire. During the summer, we travelled to Carmarthenshire in search of a house, but they were woeful journeys! We visited several houses but their prices were beyond our reach. COVID and the problem of second homes were the drivers of these high prices. Of all the houses we visited, 90% were owned by people from England who had bought them in 2019 and were trying to make a profit. What saddened not only us, but also the locals, was that we were being shut out from the local area by these high prices.
We found an old farmhouse, and although it was inhabitable, its price was within our reach, so we made an offer and it was accepted! We were so happy to know that, finally, we were moving home. We were almost ecstatic! But that feeling didn’t last long. An inspection of the property gave it the death sentence! The seller was reluctant to change the price, which meant we’d potentially be owners of a £250,000 plot with no capital to build a new house. This wasn’t ideal for a young family, so we had to withdraw from the sale.
Llwyddo’n Lleol
Dad sent me a BBC article about the Llwyddo’n Lleol scheme. We applied and the rest is history. Thanks to the financial support we received, we were able to take the risk and move home. The biggest risk, of course, was leaving our jobs and having to rely entirely on the business. This is still a challenge, but being close to family is invaluable and worth the risk. We are truly grateful to the Llwyddo’n Lleol scheme for supporting us financially, and making us feel that the wider community wants us home. Thank you.