Falling off the map

This is a blog post I’ve written and rewritten in my head a thousand times during the last six months. Finally, I can come out and tell you some fantastic news.

Alison and I are moving. Well, Alison and I are emigrating. At the end of April we’re moving to Iceland’s capital, Reykjavik. We are very, very excited.

I’d been over to Reykjavik twice in 2007 (the first time to run the marathon) and together we’ve been over enough to know we love the place. We talked and talked about Reykjavik and Iceland over and over until in August last year Alison finally said, why don’t we look at moving there?

Nothing has ever made more sense to me. It simply felt right. So we decided to do it. And now we have just a short time until we’re living in Reykjavik.

From being one of the poorest countries in Europe a century ago (many of the people lived in turf houses) Iceland is now consistently ranked highly for happiness, literacy, productivity, and wealth — the United Nations designated it the most developed nation in the world in 2007. Yes, there have been serious problems in the last two years, but I can guarantee that almost everything you’ve read about it is wrong (for example, McDonald’s didn’t leave the country and the British government is being an unsophisticated bully) and I’m confident Iceland will overcome.

In fact the future’s bright. Neither Alison or I have ever been more excited about anything in our lives. We’re just itching to get over there. It’s going to be brilliant.