After four and a half years I will be leaving Chicago and moving once again, this time to the island of Bermuda. Immigration has yet to be approved, so there is a still a chance the British Colony turns us down but all being well we will only be in Chicago for another 6 to 8 weeks, sad as that is to think about.

This has been going on for some time, and although I have been to Bermuda a number of times since I came to the States, I spent two hectic days down there in January to discuss the opportunity presented to me by my company and then just this week we returned on Wednesday evening after spending 5 days on the island with a relocation company representative, realtors, human resources, my new boss and new colleagues. It was an exhausting, eye opening affair.

Last summer my company suggested that I might like to live and work in San Francisco. I wasn’t keen, nothing to do with the location because San Francisco is beautiful, but it was too far from the UK. I turned the chance down but it got me thinking about my future and evidently it got my company thinking about it too.

I moved to Chicago at the end of 2003 for a number of reasons, most if not all I have talked about in this blog over the years. This has been a very hard decision because I adore Chicago, and I love my home, on which I have spent a lot of money on upgrading it to the point it is now the end result of the dream I had when I bought a tatty, uncared for large brick loft in what was an old lamp factory 3 years ago. We’ve decided to keep it though because the Windy City will forever be a home for me and I can’t bear to sell it, not to mention that the sub-prime environment we are in will make that task awkward.

I have had many sleepless nights and have beaten myself up pretty badly emotionally about this move. I have a son in Kent who I miss intensely. Not a day goes by when I don’t feel guilt, however it is a relationship we have developed and all he has known, however wrong that maybe.

London would have been my first choice. It is where my mates are, my brother, my football team, and it is 70 miles from my parents. They have been very supportive but I would love to live nearer to them, and one day I will. London however was not where the job opportunity was that offered itself in Bermuda. Career wise, financially and excitingly the next chapter of my life, with the person who loves me more than I have ever known, is on a little island (It’s actually 181 islands) in the Atlantic Ocean 21 miles long and 2 miles wide.

Bermuda was described to me as a bubble last weekend. At times life is not real, dreamlike one minute and nightmarish in another. It certainly is not for everyone, I would never have gone there in 2003 on my own. It is a place for couples and young families or retirees. I know it will take a huge adjustment. Flick through my archives on the right hand column of this page and tell me how much I adore big cities, flash restaurants and tall buildings.

Bermuda though is one of the British Empire’s best preserved legacies. Discovered in 1503 there is history, beauty and culture everywhere and after more than four amazing years living in America, I can’t wait to be engulfed by the Britishness of Bermuda. Cricket (two days are declared a national holiday in July to watch the two ends of the island play each other), rugby, pubs, tea and a sense of humour that only we understand. Furthermore being 2 hours closer and 500 miles nearer to my family and friends in the UK was certainly a big factor.

Then there is football, not soccer but football, the world’s game. I walked past a pub on Saturday afternoon and people were spilling outside onto the streets, there was cheering inside, football was on the television. I already know one other Addick who lives on the island, that is already one more than I knew in Chicago.

Bermuda’s motto is 'Quo Fata Ferunt' or 'Wherever the fates will take us.' Well it’s taken me and this blog to Bermuda; I hope you come with me.