Sabbaticals!

Well, despite all the great intentions of my last Blog post I didn't manage that much in the blogosphere over the last few months. One of the reasons being that I have had a wonderful sabbatical for two months. Today is in fact my first day back to work.

In the two months I got married, spent a month in Boston, spent two and a bit weeks in Spain and had some fun at home too along with sorting out the house and garden in readiness for summer. A wonderful experience, all the better for sharing it with Mrs Noakes! I had never thought of taking a sabbatical and I now, in retrospect, really wonder why. It's such a great concept - if managed correctly, and one that has brought a great deal of change, rest and enjoyment.

Two months was a good length of time, but three would have been better! Seriously, while money for such a thing is tricky to manage, a third month would have been amazing. Perhaps 6 months as some people do would be almost impossible to return from - depending on the nature of what you do with the time.

For me, having spent 11 years at the helm of TCL - from bedroom floor start up to where we are now - it was a brilliant opportunity to take stock of life and self, and reflect on aspects good and bad of the journey to date. The next phase of the journey for me and for TCL is not yet fully defined, but there are a lot of thoughts and options working there way into a decent plan over the next few weeks. Let's see where it all goes.

As for sabbaticals, I highly recommend them if you have the opportunity. My learning would be to always budget at least 50% more than you thought in terms of time and cash, and also have a good contingency fund available too! With more time at your disposal it's so easy to spend more money :)