My husband and I decided a long time ago that we wanted to move eventually to Portugal. We lived in the north of England and worked long hours to pay the bills and took every opportunity to get away on holiday. We first went house hunting in the Castanheira da Pêra area in early 2004 before eventually buying a house in a small village near Tomar in August 2005. It took us another 10 years to actually make the permanent move to Portugal and by that time we had decided that the small rural village was not for us – too much land and too isolated. We moved to Alcobaça in July 2015 after ruling out Tomar in favour of being nearer the coast for easy trips to the beach.

Since moving here our lifestyle has evolved, initially there was lots of paperwork to do, then we decorated our apartment. The first few years I surprised myself with my dedication to learning the language, although it was harder and took much longer than I anticipated! I started volunteering which has been an excellent way to integrate into the local community and practice the language. Joining a theatre project in 2018 was a massive challenge for me but again I met some lifelong friends there.

I now work part-time doing admin work (I’m brilliant at organising data!) and enjoy exploring the local countryside. We holiday most years in Portugal, usually doing a tour of an area – 1 year we visited the cities and coast of the Alentejo, another year we did a tour of the North (although we missed a lot and will go back soon!), we also like to take regular short breaks to Lisbon and Porto.

I love helping people to plan and prepare for their move to Portugal, I remember that feeling of taking a massive leap into the unknown alongside all the many, many tasks you have to do to move here, all those little questions that pop into your head and seem insignificant, but you’d still like answers. I also love helping to motivate others to learn Portuguese, it is such a vital aspect of integrating into life here and understanding what is going on, for this reason I set up the European Portuguese Resource Sharing group on Facebook which also includes a twice weekly Chat Club for practicing speaking. This is our forever home and we are part of this community.