The Slow Move

I wrote this guide the way I wish someone had written one for us. Not a checklist. Not a relocation plan with timelines and boxes to tick. The real thing, the version I would tell you if you were sitting at my kitchen table in Coimbra and you asked me, quietly, whether you could actually do this.

So inside, I tell you why we left, and what it took to stop talking about it and finally go. I tell you why we chose Coimbra over Lisbon and the coast, and what we got right. I tell you what the move really cost us, the money, and the harder things money does not cover.

I do not pretend it was easy. I tell you what I would say to your face and not the tidy version. The five things that actually matter, and the ones you can stop worrying about. What an ordinary Tuesday here really feels like. What changed about our health once we stopped trying to fix it. And why there is no perfect moment to do this, only the one you are standing in.

By the last page, you will know what we know now. That is the whole point of it.