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Resident Blog - Life Changing


23/05/2016 General, Wadswick Green

Posted by Mike Brain on 19th May 2016

My wife Carol and I were married for 51 years. We were fortunate to close our business that we ran together when I reached 50, mainly due to my health not being good with many problems associated with my diabetes. Luckily, in retirement, my health improved so we decided to spend some time going round the world.

After doing most of what we wanted we became a little fed up with long haul flights so we decided to buy a home in the sun and decided on Portugal by accident. We thought we would buy an apartment on the banks of the river Guadiana, looking over to Spain, in the small town of Vila Real Santo Antonio, a true Portuguese old fishing village. Life was good.

But Carol was taken from me one tragic morning when she just dropped dead; here one minute gone the next, it was a tremendous shock especially as we were at our home in Portugal. My life was turned upside down, was it worth living?

I decided I would not make any major decisions for a year. During that year my life was in turmoil. In a large isolated house and gardens, I was struggling to maintain the property, I was lonely, concerned about my health and being an insulin dependent diabetic worried about being too far from help, and my increasing loss of mobility.

I came across Wadswick Green and liked the concept of living in a retirement village but unsure was it right for me. My family thought it was not for me so I struggled on trying to look after every thing with help from them and spending time at my home in Portugal. Locking up and leaving was always a worry and expecting my family to look after everything was taking its toll on us all.

On a return to England, I decided to look at Wadswick again, still not sure. I was invited to a tea party where I was lucky enough to meet Peter Ford, the man behind the concept of Wadswick Green. After explaining to him about my concerns regarding the few safety issues and the problem of losing my mobility, he suggested ways to overcome these concerns and put my mind at ease. It was suggested that I should look with him at the apartments that were still available but nothing appealed. Looking at the plan of Birch Close a few days later I saw one I liked and reserved one.

I am now coming up to six months of enjoying and living my life as normal having made many new friends at Wadswick. I am now able to spend good time in the two places Wadswick and Portugal without all the work and worry.

I am a lucky old man having some very good friends in Portugal and England and believe I am a little home sick already and that has never happened to me before in my 16 years of having a home in Portugal.

 

 

 

 

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