Their dream lifestyle sat in the driveway for five years before a major health scare suddenly made the timing right.
“Mortality was the catalyst for all this change. Two ambulance rides to hospital from work. The boss looked at me at my desk and said are you OK? He basically said we are ringing an ambulance.”
At only 45 years old Philip James’ symptoms were a mix of anxiety, high heart rate, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, possible clotting in his legs and stress.
“I started looking the symptoms up and saw that they are all related to sitting at a desk all day. I wasn’t stressed in that there was a lot of pressure I was stressed in the sense of I just wasn’t enjoying the work.”
Working as an electrical draughtsman meant many hours very busy on a project or many hours awaiting the arrival of a project. All these hours were spent sitting “chained” to his desk.
“You couldn’t get up out of your desk and go and wander into town you had to stay in your seat.
“I ended up at the doctor with stress levels that were through the roof which was causing all my health issues. I got sent off to somebody to manage my stress. Basically we came to the conclusion that if I didn’t change job it was going to kill me.”