Why Charles Kennedy's death should make us all pause to reflect

Most people frequently think such thoughts at various points throughout their lives.

And then most sigh and get on with the need to earn a living.

Packing it in is an indulgence only few can afford. Ironically, the richest of all never pack it in.

It's a hard choice to cut off a flow of money and, more importantly, cut off the adrenaline surge and excitement that accompany the rush.

The friend who emailed, and his partner, visited me a few weeks ago.

He will be 50 next month; his partner, a senior consultant in both private and NHS medicine, is a few years younger.

He has done a number of jobs leading to this role, which involves him forever circling the globe, managing crises the public will never hear of because he is that good.

It was his first visit out here although we've been friends for years and I watched him slip into rural mode and visibly relax as time ceased to have meaning.

He asked about house prices and laughed at their cheapness. He talked of what they could buy even just to escape to at weekends.

He talked of really believing how being here in France would balance his life.

His partner rolled his eyes, didn't burst his balloon but told me later he did this everywhere in the world.

Wherever they went on holiday H decided this was THE place; this was THE answer.

G, his partner, is Asian and despite his standing in the medical world, has grown increasingly sick of the casual racism he encounters almost daily in England. Public school and Oxford educated, he is treated as some lesser being and has planned his escape, probably back home in Malaysia, in a few years.

Clever investment and property ownership has placed them in the enviable position of simply being able to walk away from the London life they both despise and love.

When I say H relaxed, he did, in his terms. His hands were still clenched, his shoulders hunched and he took in the sights with the fierce gaze of a drone photographing all for later scrutiny.

Like all who come here, there is an assumption that choosing a life in France, walking away from work, means that all is good.

As you know I didn't really, really, choose. I fled, knowing my gilded journalistic life had changed forever. That journalism, newspapers, had changed forever.

And I've struggled time and time again with living in Hicksville, no matter how obviously naturally beautiful, no matter that I'm bloody lucky enough to survive here on nowhere near my old salary.

Who, therefore, am I to advise anybody to pack it in and enjoy or regret the rest of his or her lives?

Fifty though, for some, is actually too young to contemplate a life of basically no goals, no purpose, and no reason to rise.

The surroundings, however exquisite, will pall by their very being unless the money in the bank is enough to get one out when they do.

Without work there is no joy in the reward of rest. The weekend becomes just another two days.

Hedonism easily replaces the discipline of school nights and it is oh so, so easy to fall into the vats of wine and tedious conversation with the same boring handful.

But I also know how easy it is to say that when one has, had, an active, engaged, powerful working life. Most people don't; just drudgery; and to move here is truly their light at the end of their tunnel. Lucky people who count their blessings daily.

The thrawn ones like me and my friends are forever wondering what we are missing in our old worlds; slighted if out of the loop that no longer concerns us; angry at our new limitations even while sitting by a pool and sipping cheap white wine.

I'm getting better, much better. I've lost the need to work every day and now pick and choose my jobs. That took a long, long time, mind you.

The frisson of fear can still return though if no one calls or I run out of ideas.

I've only just stopped really caring about what's happening in my old world, and I've only just started to accept this is where I live, my home.

After H's query, I sat in 31 degrees, yes, sipping my wine and looking back at my house, now dressed in its stunning summer foliage, and thought about it all.

Early deaths, like Charles Kennedy's, always give rise to ineffable sadness and questions about our own lives.

But the direction and truth about how we answer those questions isn't to be found in a geographical change.

We always take ourselves along on the ride. And if we're miserable and unhappy with our lot, no sun in the world will change that.

I thought of replying with those thoughts. Instead I returned to the sunbed.

It's a question only they can answer.