"The Downswings of Property and Poker"

Thanks for all the congrats guys.

So in other real life news I had always planned to not put pressure on myself to jump into a role before the end of the year and think I had posted that I had one offer of a backwards step within a bigger firm with a view to move forwards at pace within about 18 months but with the knowledge that we were expecting and also the fact that this company work longer hours than the other firms I had worked for over the few weeks of Malta and WPT I came to the conclusion that the lower money and extra hours meant it probably wasn't the opportunity for me and along with some of our other plans I didn't want to join a firm and then leave them in less than a year so told them at the earliest opportunity that I wouldn't be joining them.

Which means that since August 28th I have not done a days real work for the first time in 25 years! I wouldn't have changed it for the world as have spent time with the kids and kind of taken the role of house hubby enabling Petra to get on with her work and have more flexibility with taking photo shoots etc and as a Dad who is normally just there when the kids wake and getting back for bed/bath time it's been great be able to afford that time for them without it hitting us financially but all that has to come to an end soon.

Petra is doing really well with her stuff and recently won a first place for the group photo and 3rd place award at the London Portait Group which she attends once a month with the photo's below. The 3rd place one was with Max and was a monochrome/music theme where the photographers could come up with their own interpretation of the subject and the evening was judged by an internationally renowned photographer who judges panels for the BIPP.

Click to see full-size image.

So the plan moving forward is quite a surprising one but I am currently writing a business plan for something that I hope to launch in the first couple of months of 2016 and I have a couple of key meeting in the next 10 days which will hopefully mean I can press on with the setting of the company and obv will post further once those meetings have taken place and if so we will be looking to open further outlets over a short space of time with at the moment it being just me putting in the investment but I may take some external investment if required once my plan is complete.

Then I need to drive the first 6months really hard but it's not a business I will need to spend much time after that on with the exception of managing the KPI's, staff etc and can devote some time to the opening up of other outlets.

More surprisingly than me starting up something on my own is the fact that we are planning to move to Malta in most likely August 2016 and are already setting the wheels in motion with a plan to be there in time for Max to start school in September which would be their first year of junior school so he would have already have completed one year here and would be ahead of the kids in spoken/written English and also numeracy but will be behind in Maltese which my mum will be helping with over the next 9 months as over there as an ex pat the kids are taught 50/50 split English/Maltese so even if you only plan to be there for 2-3 years you need to suffer them learning Maltese but we are making a concious lifestyle choice to be out there as we have more family in Malta than England, my Mum plans to retire there in the next few years and just think as a lifestyle for the kids it will be a better environment for them to grow up in plus education is much improved over there meaning they have great opportunities moving forwards.

One thing we wont be doing first off though is selling up as we love our house so just in case it all went tit's up we will rent our place out as with the way the local market has carried on here we most likely wouldn't be able to buy our own house back if we spent a couple of years out there so I wouldn't want to put Petra in that position, then with some savings we will plan to purchase at least one investment property over here which should mean that we could live pretty much rent free for the first year to see where we are at then. It will mean with my likely business plans that I am back in England for 3-4 days every 2 weeks and then fly back so will take some forward planning with flights etc but Petra will have a great support network over there and also be in a lovely environment for the little un's.

If everything goes well and we enjoy being there full time after a year or so then Petra can do what she does here but over there and will have had the first year off as she would have done here with hopefully baby no3 and we will then choose whether to sell the properties and effectively could move out there and be in completely mortgage free position in a house big enough for us which is lovely but knowing me we will probably stretch ourselves as you always need to feel that bit of pressure don't you? Wink

So the next few weeks are key to the next 18 months of where we see ourselves and therefore I have had to take the grown up decision to skip Edinburgh this week and most likely a side next week at the GUKPT but I will make an appearance at the GPS in Sheffield in a couple of weeks time which is likely to be it for the year as I get to grip with the upcoming changes and devote myself 100% to that.