AJ

Hi, I'm AJ. I'm currently an employment adviser for a disability charity and I'm 36. Like everyone, I've had my share of ups and downs. I had good days where I could buy whatever I want and not so good days where I had to scrap at the bottom of my savings just to make both ends meet, just like any other average joe.

So, recently I've been travelling home on the bus from work and I've realised just how much I miss living in the country. I tend to sit on the top deck and for one brief moment you can see right across the Aire Valley, and then all I can see is buildings. Imagine my usual trip home if you will; sat next to me we have a sniffing, coughing woman playing her MP3 player so loud that I could hear it above mine, sat behind me we have a bunch of loud, smoking, chavvy kids whom no one dares challenge. No-one makes eye contact, no-one talks and I really truly yearn to run away from it all.

So we have settled on Nova Scotia as a potential new home - "The walking Province". Nova Scotia is about 53,000 square kilometres (25,000 square miles), which makes it about twice the size of the American state of Massachusetts and just a bit smaller than Ireland. In January 2002, Nova Scotia was home to 940,000 people. Leeds has a population of 750,000!

Why Nova Scotia - well I would love to say that I have thoroughly investigated each province and its pros and cons, but I think it's because it reminds me of the Isle of Man (where I grew up), that, and the fact that because it's a smaller part of Canada, it seems less scary a move. I'm not going to psychoanalyse my motives, it's a lovely looking place and the natives seem very friendly... oh and its damned cheap.

You know that little voice inside you that seems to nag away - you know what I mean, that Jiminy Cricket that tells you to stop being ridiculous and put a suit on, sort out the pension and shave off the beard (maybe not the last bit, maybe that's just me). Well, it seems of late that all my internal objections to leaving this country are being taken away from me.

Perhaps my subconscious is now tuned to all things Canadian and Nova Scotian, but there have been quite a few co-incidences over the last 12 months that a superstitious person would find spooky. Perhaps I'm reading far too much into these coincidences, but it still makes me smile that perhaps all these things really do mean that sometime, next year, our new home will be a little farm half way around the world.