Alex Aldhous
(Picture: Handout)On the eve of the pandemic Alex’s Aldhous was living in Walthamstow, working as senior operations manager for an international company, and living a busy London life. She was only able to see her boyfriend, who is in the army, at weekends and conducting a long distance relationship can be tough.
Within days of the announcement that the UK was to enter a period of national lockdown Alex’s life changed dramatically.
She was put on furlough and her boyfriend suggested she join him in Yorkshire, where he was posted. She handed in her notice on her “absolutely tiny” one bedroom flat, which cost £750pcm to rent, and moved in with him in the three-bedroom house he was renting in Catterick. “Coincidentally it cost exactly the same as my London flat had,” said Alex, 33.
The move gave her the time and space to clear her head and reassess her life.
“I was able to walk out of the door and go for a 5K hike without seeing another person, and in terms of wellness it was brilliant,” said Alex.
During the year the couple spent in Catterick Alex decided she couldn’t handle a return to the rat race and instead set up her own business, Arc Virtual Solutions, offering business consultancy advice to other companies.
This gives her the freedom to work from anywhere which was lucky because in August 2021 Chris, also 33, was posted to Watchfield, Oxfordshire, and in January they got married. Later this year they will move again, this time to Glasgow.
“All of Chris’s postings have been to quite rural places and we are a very outdoorsy couple,” said Alex. “In Catterick we took up wild swimming and we went hiking every weekend. We are looking forward to Glasgow because there are hundreds of lochs for us to swim in.”
The couple will be living in rented military accommodation for the foreseeable future but Alex enjoys the sense of community this brings, and is sanguine about the regular moves.
“It is an adventure, and we actually love it,” she said. “I do miss elements of London, the convenience, the fact that there is always something going on, and I had a large network of friends who I obviously miss. But I set up my business, so that I could go wherever Chris is posted, and it is great fun.”
