A Sabbatical is not a vacation

We took a sabbatical 10 years ago when we left Australia in search of "A Future We Want". (www.rivieretay.weebly.com). That adventure led us to eventually coming to France and setting-up the farm. The past 10 years have been amazing; we have accomplished so much, learnt so much, grown so much..... But it has been intense and for want of a better word, plain hard! I likened our 1st sabbatical to jumping off a hamster wheel. This time, we are less on a wheel and more in a pot.... You know the story about the frogs in a pot, slowly being brought to the boil? Well, I suspect we've been those frogs. So busy with life that we barely noticed the temperature rising.

There were numerous warning bells; Benoit's 6 week stint in ICU with a ruptured oesophagus, tendinitis, torn calf muscle.... and my own seemlingly endless catalogue of injuries and surgeries; Eyes, shoulder, knees and even my toe. After each incident, we vowed to slow-down, to find a healthier balance. But these new resolutions were quickly forgotten once we got back to everyday life. And the thing about living on the farm is that there is always some fire to be put out somewhere!

Mid-life crisis, burn-out, menopause.... I don't know which label to use, but something was amiss and we had to adress this. This sabbatical is not a holiday; it is serious thinking time; To reflect on where we are, what we've accomplished, and what we want from the next chapters of our lives. Benoit keeps reminding me that we have at least another 30years ahead of us .... and what do we want for the next 3 decades!

We don't necessarily know what we're looking for, or what we'll find along the way. But perhaps that's precisely the point.