Farewell Teesdale, hello world

Their house is sold and they are going travelling, through South Africa, on to Australia, round New Zealand in a camper van, to Fiji and then the States, eventually flying back from New York.

The flights are booked and credit limit-busting amounts of money have been parted with.

So how did a conventional, middle class family turn into modern versions of the 60s hippies in Dormobile? Nicola Holden explains.

A COUPLE of years ago I was the woman who had everything. Older readers will remember their infant Janet and John reading primers. The Holdens were the Janet and John family.

A large and lovely house, husband busy at the office all day, mother (me) walking the Labradors, cooking nutritious meals on the Aga, scooping the children into my arms at the school gate, and smoothing husband's pleated brow as he returned home from an 11 hour day doing very hard sums (he was a finance director).

Okay, it wasn't always that perfect, but you get the picture. Too good to be true? You're right! Two things happened to us, things which happen to lots of people, but which are devastating just the same. Paul (husband) narrowly survived a terrible car accident, and sustained a serious leg injury from which he will never fully recover. It took six months for him to get better, and then in March this year, in a complete bolt from the blue, he was made redundant. (Or rather he was told that he was "leaving to pursue other interests", a euphemism invented to make the HR department feel better).

On hearing the news I remember clearly reeling backwards as if I had been punched. It seemed to be a catastrophe, the end of everything, and for days the sight of the children's trusting little faces (or even the dogs' trusting faces for that matter) made me want to burst into tears.

After three months of fruitless job-hunting in the North-East we decided to sell the house in readiness for any move that might become necessary, and it was at this point, I suppose, as we plumped cushions, brewed coffee and imprisoned the dogs in the car (in readiness for potential house buyers) that we began to realise that here was an opportunity for a once-in-a-lifetime family adventure that would never come our way again.

"The Trip" (we are not to call it a holiday, Paul insists) started off as a plan to push off for a couple of months over Christmas and evolved gradually into the five month epic I've described.

Any obstacles in our way have been amazingly easy to overcome. Dog-sitting has been sorted, and the Local Education Authority was surprisingly unruffled when I phoned nervously to broach the subject. A kind lady offered to put me in touch with various home schooling organisations, and wished us all a marvellous time.

Personally, I think the children will learn more from going away than from going to school. (No telly or Playstation for five months will be a good start!)

We have planned a project on Captain Cook, and have already had a day in Whitby at the fascinating Captain Cook museum. Endless amounts of science, maths and geography can be woven into a study of his life and voyages. Other highlights planned so far include, in South Africa, going down a goldmine, studying the rock art of the San people in the Drakensberg mountains and walking with tame elephants and lions through the Kruger Park. In Australia we are spending the night camping in Sydney Zoo (yes, really) and going swimming with wild dolphins.

Paul and I are not neglecting our own educational development, as we fully intend to greatly extend our understanding of the wines of the Southern Hemisphere, by drinking as many of them as we can.

We realise that there will be moments when we will all wonder what the hell we are doing, and family relationships will no doubt be tested severely. We realise also that we are taking a gamble that we can find work when we get back, but for us the knowledge that in a few years time the children will be grown-up and that chances like this come along very rarely was enough to tip the balance in favour of throwing caution to the winds.

Since we decided to go, I have noticed that we are not alone in our decision to step back from the rat race. The Press is full of stories of harassed executives on unpaid sabbaticals, and high achievers giving up their thrusting careers to run a bed and breakfast in Tuscany or grow olives in Andalucia. The runaway success of series such as Channel Four's No Going Back shows just how powerfully people identify with the urge to unshackle themselves from life in 21st century Britain.

The reaction of friends of our own age with young families bears this out. On hearing our news they display a level of enthusiasm that makes you wonder at how trapped they too must feel "You lucky things", they cry, hoarse with envy, "good for you!"

The reaction from older people, (the over 65s) has not been so positive, however. "Horrified" about sums it up. The head-shaking, muttering about heads in the sand, money best spent elsewhere, and anxious reminders about not being unemployed for too long fail to take the wind out of our sails entirely, but do temporarily dampen the spirits.

Perhaps this generation, for whom redundancy was a matter of deep shame, and who have never really left the austerity and insecurity of the war years behind simply find us deeply irresponsible. Perhaps they are right, but with the prospect of five months in the sun with the family ahead of me, frankly I still feel like the woman who has everything.