We all have those times when we make a decision and then suddenly realise we have made a commitment which requires a great number of actions in a very limited time.
The first time Marion and I faced such a situation was in the first half of 1977.
I had been offered a reporter’s job with my old company, North Wales Newspapers, based on Anglesey.
We had to find a place to live, almost certainly a rental, in North Wales; Marion had to put the Basildon house on the market; furniture would need to be stored; we would have to decide what we needed with us and what could be stored with the furniture.
All this as well as working out my notice with Rank; doing all the things we had to do in the normal world.
It was Spring but we didn’t know how long it would be before we would find our own place and have all our things with us: all of the girls’ toys and clothes; dining table and chairs; three-piece suite; my records; and on and on and on . . .
Then, suddenly, it happened. We looked back at the house in The Upway, said goodbye, then we were facing a bungalow in Valley and behind us was the narrow strip of water separating Anglesey from Holy Island . . . separating Valley, with its RAF base, from Holyhead, with its ferry terminal linking North Wales with Ireland.
For me it was starting on a new venture; for Marion it was far greater.
She had moved to Basildon with her family in the mid-50s, about the same time we moved to Rhyl; she had moved with her parents just once, but only a few streets away; then one final move to The Upway until that day when I took her from her Essex and whisked her and the girls off to a different country, with a different language and different customs.
There we started a brand new adventure almost 50 years ago, and we are still enjoying it.
Robin's Nest 