Moving abroad: making mountains out of mogul-hills

Julie and Stephen Gort dreamed of doing something different with their lives. Their passion for skiing and the Canadian mountains finally pushed them to quit their well-paid jobs in the UK in search of a better way of life.

Until February 2002 I was employed as a sales manager for a small asset management company. I was well paid, but had the pressure and stress of working to targets and deadlines. My husband Stephen worked as an investment adviser, and we lived in a nice part of Bristol in a large, terraced Victorian house. We had no children, regularly ate out with friends and enjoyed good holidays abroad. However the culture of long hours and stress at work was taking its toll. We had always talked about 'taking time out', but doesn't everyone?

During late 2001 Stephen became increasingly disillusioned with his job and we decided he would resign and take some time to decide where to go next. Around this time we saw an opportunity to action our 'plan'. We decided to put our house on the market, and if it sold then I would resign from my job and we would set off travelling. We had two offers, at asking price, for the house within a week of putting it on the market. It seemed like fate.

After spending a couple of months travelling in France and then Madagascar, we turned our thoughts to the winter and where to ski. It was then that we stumbled across a new company called NonStopSki, offering ski training in Canada for the winter. Stephen became really keen on the idea whereas I felt anxious about the formal ski training but somehow I was talked into the idea, and we set off.