Next year I am 40 which is an age other people reach but I’ve never thought too much about getting there myself.
I’m incredibly lucky to live a life of almost complete freedom but have found myself longing more and more for repetitive days, building a home with a big library where I can read and relax between rides. I want horses of my own, too many dogs, to grow my own food, and experience all seasons.
Internally it’s a bit Jekyll and Hyde because whenever I’m still for more than a month I start looking at flights. I continue to wait to mature and that urge to explore to fade but it just never has.
My whole life I have had dreams about a big white villa with a wrap around deck. Mature trees in an english garden and excellent riding right on my doorstep. It’s a place I know well that if I ever see it in real life I’ll know it.
For many years I wasn’t sure where I would end up. I never felt a pull back to New Zealand. England felt too built up and too organised compared to where I grew up where I could ride my horse for miles alone, completely safe, in the hills near Wellington.
I lived in Brazil for six months during covid and loved the country but it didn’t have the same horse culture that I was used to.
I lived in Ireland for six months in 2017 and it did feel familiar. It was there that I started riding again after a 10 year hiatus for uni and a career in the city. I even found a place once. I saw it on the FT online when I was in Brazil and came back to Europe to view it. But I was too slow. It sold.
I lived in Moscow for three months and had planned to sign a 12 month lease on an apartment there and go back and forth from London before the invasion happened in February 2022. Russia remains the one place I can see myself living if world events had run a different course. Maybe one day.
At one point I almost moved to the Cotswolds but a series of uncomfortable events just before I was to commit steered me away from there too.
The closest I’ve come to finding a place was in May when I went to view a seven bedroom house on ten hectares in the highlands of New Zealand’s south island. It was an old station homestead. The original 10,000 hectares of land had been sold off and just the land around the house remained attached. It was very remote, down a dirt road. It hadn’t had an offer for six months and the owners were desperate to move. I fell in love with the place. The house was stunning. It had a facilities and bunk room down back of the property, a stable in need of repair, a barn, two pole sheds and an orchard.
I had reservations. I would need to add 6 ensuites. The water ran off the land. The septic tanks needed replacing. It would be freezing in winter. It would be a lot of work. A full time job. The thought of not being able to travel made me feel sick. But I wanted it.
After 7 months of no interest they received two offers and accepted one while I was offline in Kyrgyzstan, in the middle of my due diligence.
Five months later I hope it’s not the biggest regret of my life. I should have paid what they were asking for it.
This year I’m spending four months in Kyrgyzstan which wouldn’t have been possible if I’d gotten the place. Perhaps I am still on the right path. Who knows. I have fantasies of knocking on the door and offering the new owners enough to sell it to me. Maybe I will do this one day. I think about it every day.
Once I find the right place I’m going to open a Black Saddle lodge. Casual, self guided riding, where guests and friends can come and stay for a long or a short time. I’ll have fast wifi, country cooking and a lot of wine. It will have home-away-from-home vibe that I’ve not seen anywhere else. Part co-working, part safari lodge, part holiday home.
That’s my plan for my forties. I’ll take two big international trips a year and spend the rest of it with guests that come to me. The best of everything? I hope so.