From London to Ibiza and back.....

I'm just about to send one of my email updates to let everyone know that I'm back in London again. Normally I'd provide an update on what's been going on but the last update was done nearly two years ago (when I announced I was moving to Ibiza), there would be a lot of stuff to put in an email and seeing that I have a blog, I figured the best place for an overview of my time in Ibiza should be here and I can provide a link to this post in my email. So anyone who'd like a brief encounter with my Ibizan experience, read on. Anyone who'd like to read in more detail, most things are posted somewhere here on the blog.

Back in June 2007, I sent an email update announcing to my world that I had decided to move myself and my interiors business to Ibiza at the beginning of 2008. I was coming to a stage where I felt like I wanted a really big change and I'd wanted to live on the island ever since I first visited in 2002 so the decision was made in about 5 minutes. I was a third of the way into a one-year contract consulting at the British Ukrainian Society and decided to move once the contract ended. I'd also been juggling interiors with the consulting and found it difficult to give one hundred percent to both things so decided to focus solely on the Society for the rest of my time in London. It was in a fledgling stage, having only been launched in the UK and I wanted to ensure there were strong foundations for a successful organisation before I moved to island life.

When I first started at the Society, I was concerned about whether I could give another project as much as I had given my own interiors business. I needn't have worried as somewhere along the line something magical happened and I loved the challenge of the project. From this immense high, I left London in early February 2008 to move to Ibiza, turning up alone, not really knowing anyone, not speaking the language and not having any real work leads or contacts.

My life in Ibiza fell into 3-month cycles, each completely different. One of the things that instantly stands out with life in Ibiza is how intense it can be, each quarter felt like a year, not three months. You find yourself in situations that you have never encountered before, even if you've lived overseas already. Things have the ability to go from one extreme to another in the blink of an eye and you have no idea what's around the corner. Amazing opportunities can crumble in front of you in a matter of weeks and the most heart-warming situations can turn to heartbreak overnight. There seems to be a constant ebb and flow to island life.

The first three months were bliss, even though I was living in a rundown house with little hot water or electricity but the surroundings were stunning and it made up for any lack. I soon found solutions to the problem of not being able to take a shower properly or use a hairdryer (join the local swimming pool and swim six times a week). Life in those first few weeks involved trying to do things I took for granted in London (shopping, going to the post office) in a place where you didn't know where anything was and everyone spoke Spanish. But it's amazing how quickly you learn and adapt and start striking out on your own again. I remember the immense sense of achievement when I went and bought fire for the wood burner the first time by myself. Sadly I didn't see that much success in actually lighting the fire so ended up giving myself the job of cleaning the fire before it was re-lit. I eased myself into getting used to my new surroundings, started learning Spanish and after a few weeks of taking it easy, started looking for work.

The plan of action in a place where I had no contacts was to get some cards made up with photos of past projects and distribute these all over the island, including all the main estate agents. I was quickly contacted by an independent estate agent John who went out of his way to see how he could help me, putting me in touch with a few of his contacts. One seemed particularly interesting, a guy called Alberto who'd been working on the island with his wife for about a decade, doing up and renting out villas. They'd also recently opened up an interiors shop and John said that they always had more work than they could handle. I had to contact Alberto once he was back from his latest buying spree in Morocco but before I had the chance to get in touch, we met by accident in the street.

During the second quarter, I started doing bits and pieces of work for Alberto. They were getting ready to open some luxury villas in Bali and needed help with research for the project. I also started helping out with their work on the island - Alberto likes to keep a tight team so everyone gets involved during the busy summer season. During this time I also secured some writing work, doing a monthly interiors article for the main English-language magazine on the island. Things were starting to move in the right direction as far as work was concerned but it was a difficult time as I found myself quite homesick and missing everyone in London and not entirely sure if the move I made had been the right one. However a pair of cheeky kittens had come into my life and made it their sole responsibility to keep me laughing and happy at all times. They'd been born to one of the cats at the house and as my housemate Bea didn't like cats, I took on the responsibility of looking after the five kittens and the mother cat (who was barely a kitten herself). I wasn't planning on keeping a kitten myself but one day, when they were about four weeks old and starting to clamber all over the place, getting cuter and cuter and more and more mischievious by the day, one of the kittens looked over at me with his big soulful eyes and I thought "I think I'm going to have to keep you!". Then I didn't want him to get lonely so I kept the youngest one too and the comedy pair had me constantly amused with their hilarious antics.

At the end of six months, I came back to London for my brother's wedding still unsure about whether I wanted to be in Ibiza or back in London. But once back in the city, I made the decision that I did want to live on the island and the focus would be about finding enough work to enable me to live there.

The third quarter started with the firm decision about wanting to live on the island. I'd made some lovely friends there and Alberto had enough work for me for at least another month. The short stint back in London had cured me of my homesickness as I'd been able to see friends and family and I was raring to get back and get on with things. But just before I returned to the island, I had a text to say my two kittens had died in the week I'd been away. I returned to the island absolutely heart-broken and cried more than I've ever cried before. I'm still baffled by what happened but as my housemate was meant to be looking after them while I was away, I decided it was time to find somewhere new to live. Also out of the blue, Alberto offered me full-time work running the interiors shop and doing the sales and marketing for another of their projects, a luxury boutique hotel in Marrakech. This was in addition to working on the Bali project and some other projects in the pipeline. I moved close to work and a new chapter took off.

It was all about work. Things moved in leaps and bounds and I found myself with the exciting challenge I'd been looking for. I threw myself into it, working six days a week bringing a bit of order to an otherwise chaotic organisation. It felt like I'd found the natural successor to my work at teh Society as the challenge was immense but so was the opportunity. The end of the third quarter found me back in London again for my godsons' first birthday. As soon as I arrived back, it was like I'd never been away. It felt as if I had two lives, one in London, the other in Ibiza and I belonged in both places. This concept of two lives is familiar to me, I've grown up with two very different cultures, my work has been about two very different things and now I had a life in two different places. During this trip, London captured me again and I found myself starting to think about moving back again, maybe in a year or two.

The last quarter was still about work but things changed dramatically. I'd been busy raising the profile of the Harissa Collection (the collective name for all of Alberto's different projects) in the UK but when it was time to deliver, things remained chaotic. There were a number of occasions where I found myself with my head in my hands thinking "I can't believe this is happening.....". The work is amazing but there are too many projects going on simultaneously, spanning three continents, for all things to receive adequate attention. The entire team is tiny with Alberto and Yvonne in strict control of everything so not really much room for independent thought. I soon realised that I'd taken things as far as I could working with them and decided that perhaps it was time to head back to London. My last month on the island was bliss. I finished work sooner than expected but that meant time to make the most of the island, see friends and throw myself into intensive Spanish lessons. It was the perfect way to end my sabbatical in Ibiza.

When I decided to move to Ibiza, I had no idea why I was going, apart from the fact that I'd dreamed to living there ever since I first visited in 2002. I had no idea how long I would stay or what sort of life I would find. All I knew was that I wanted to go, wanted a change of scene and a different quality of life and answers would present themselves to me at the appropriate time. As I wound up work, I found myself awake very early one morning. I lay there thinking about my move to Ibiza and my imminent move back to London. It dawned on me that the main reason I moved was to see if I could do it, if I could move to another country all alone, where I didn't really know anyone or have any contacts or work leads or speak the language and see if I could make a go of it. I'm fascinated by the journeys that people make in search of something new, something better, uprooting themselves from one place and starting a new life somewhere else.

For the last few years, I've been acutely aware of some of the journeys that my parents have made in search of a better life. From the move from India to Pakistan during the harrowing period of partition on to a new life in London. When my parents got married, my mum was in Pakistan and my dad was in Great Britain. They'd never met and got married over the phone and then my mum got on a plane for the first time in her life to go to an alien country to meet her husband, a complete stranger. It was fine as my dad is a wonderful person but after talking to my mum about this, I've often wondered if I'd have the courage to do something like this but the thought of marrying a stranger is such a strange concept to me that I can't really comprehend it.

A part of me did wonder if I could turn up alone in a new place and make a go of it. I was curious to see if I had that intrepid gene or whether it had disappeared in a comfortable life in London. I'd already lived overseas three times before but all three times had been more organised - I was going for a reason, I had something to do when I arrived, I was expected. When I moved to Ibiza, there was nothing in place apart from somewhere to stay as soon as I got there. It was up to me to create my experience. And I have to say, there is something quite wonderful about taking your whole life, throwing it up in the air and seeing how it lands. The year away injected a breath of fresh air into my life - new experiences, new places, new people, a new language.

Life back in London is still an unknown for me, I have no idea what this coming chapter holds. One thing I do know I'd like to do is write a novel. I don't know what the story will be but I think it will span continents and generations. Apart from that, it's the usual work and play scenario and looking at London with a fresh pair of eyes. I think time away from this great city does that to you!