Times are worrying enough, and I appreciate that many posters have little ones, and that they’re a challenge in themselves, and an adventure. It can be hard for those without kids too.

I am just taken voluntary redundancy (great timing as i needed to move to Canada anyway). I have PR, so can work anywhere (apart from frenchyland, i think), and am single (no kids) in my late 30s. I have some French language knowledge.

Given the dire state of the economy, I think this is a great opportunity for me to take time out, let the fiscal problems pass. What I am driving at is this: has anybody gone off the beaten track, gone to a remote town and integrated?

Did you retrain to get a job, like a HGV or something?

I am an average software developer, feel like doing something different.

Me - I "gave it all up" to raise my child. Best adventure, ever.

What do you mean by remote?

We did, yes. My husband and I were both R&D engineers (although I was taking a career break to raise our 2 boys). We lived in a city in the UK (Chester) and my husband was a senior hardware engineer for a company designing scientific instrumentation. We came over to a remote little village that's >3hrs drive from the nearest city, with no employment pre-arranged (although the property we bought came with a small income-producing rental suite.) My husband took some circuit design & PCB layout contracts to tide us over for a few months and we also set up a PC repair business from home. After about 6 months my husband applied for a job as a technical analyst for the local school district. He had no professional IT experience, but we're in such a remote location that he was the only candidate!

It's all worked out really well for us. I don't think we could have done it without having the backup option of contracting over the internet if necessary, though (him in electronics design, myself in software) and the fact that the PC repair work is pretty steady... It's nowhere near enough to be a sole income (due to the tiny population) but a nice sideline...

Go for it - and good luck!

Every day! Don't mind flying, but hate crashing. Take off scares the crap out of me on a daily basis, even the parachute does not help.

Thanks a lot...it's very reassuring to know the captain is crapping himself during take off.

And that he's got the parachute.

Integrated? Balls to that, we're banging them around to our way of thinking.

A whole community up in the tundra who think like you?

Now that's something that scares me.

"community" is a bit strong. "Series of isolated farmsteads" might be more apt. Still, when we can reach them, we proselytize decadence.

Just kidding. In my spare time I do aerobatics, that shakes the loose change out!

Yeah I know. I've sat in the cockpit during take-off and landing when flying to the US from the UK pre 9/11...what an experience but it was far from scary.

now thats funny

Any landing you can walk away from is a good landing.

I have taken off and landed many times in the last 40 years, both in aircraft and balloons. I still get a charge each time the wheels /floats leave the ground/water and each time I touchdown. There is always an exhilarating feeling for me. I can't say that I haven't had a few occasions when I have been just a "tad apprehensive" though. Flying is a lot less forgiving than say driving and no matter what amount of experience you have there is never room for complacency.