Real Life Stories Buying Case Study: Crete

Date Published:

18/06/2008

For some people, the phrase 'life begins at 40' amounts to little more than a vague resolution to join the local gym. This is invariably followed by another resolution, at 41, to actually go there.

But for Maggie Waldon, who recently celebrated her 40th birthday on holiday in Crete, it really was the start of a whole new life.

She and a group of friends had come to this rugged island to climb a mountain and toast her birthday with cocktails at the top. A photo capturing the moment - everyone with glasses held high - now takes pride of place in Maggie's Cretan village home. Because somewhere between the top of that mountain and heading home to Bristol, she decided to move from Bristol and settle in Crete.

She and partner Alan Parsons clearly aren't people who do things by halves. They returned to Crete and made an offer on an abandoned wreck in the quiet village of Mourne, 20 minutes inland from Rethymnon on the island's north coast. They paid £25,000 for it back in 2001, and have taken two years to turn it into a home.

Alan used to renovate Victorian houses in Bristol, so he had a head-start in project-managing the work, but the architecture, building materials and techniques - not to mention the Greek language - were all new to him. He rented rooms in nearby Spili while Maggie, in those days the regional manager for a training company, returned to work in the UK. 'I didn't come out until there were flushing toilets!' she says.