I left my American Dream behind because I missed Southampton - and the rain!

She awoke suddenly to the sound of the bedroom window screen ripping open and a mysterious scrambling noise. The moonlight revealed the mystery guest – a gigantic mountain bear.

Connie explained: “Out of a dead sleep I woke up and I could see half the bear’s body through the window. I said to my partner, ‘Danny honey, the bear is halfway through the window’ and he said ‘where’s my gun?’ I said ‘mine’s in the other room’ and so he stood up and growled as loud as he could and the bear backed out and ran off.

“They don’t generally attack but if the bear is cornered in your house, you are going to get ripped up.”

The bear stayed around for a month, though, cooling off in the ranch’s water trough and clambering onto the log piles.

It sounds like a scene from a cowboy film, but this was Connie’s new life in America.

A life where she came literally face-to-face with wildlife from mountain bears to bobcats and hummingbirds to wild turkeys on the 2,000-acre ranch.

And the ranch in the hunting community of Lindrith was so secluded the nearest grocery shop was 125 miles away.

Connie left behind her life in Southampton to move back home to America where she believed she would settle forever.

But while most people would think she was living the American dream, remarkably Connie missed Southampton – and the rain – too much.

She has now left her exotic life behind to move back to the city – and vows to never leave again.

She said: “I was American. I always thought I’d move home. I’ve always loved New Mexico, we have about 350 days of sunshine. It’s a beautiful and enchanting place. I always thought Southampton was just a temporary home.

“But moving there, it wasn’t the same.

“Most British people think ‘are you nuts?’ ‘why did you come back from America?’.

“But when I came back to visit Southampton, it felt like home. I thought ‘wow that was so silly’ I had to leave to realise this was really home. And if it feels like home here, it is where I’m going to be.”

Connie, a grandma-of-two in her fifties, was born in Georgia and raised in Florida, but moved to New Mexico alone following her fascination with native American culture.

It was the place she always felt she would return to.

That’s why she chose to leave Southampton in 2010 after ten years in England, where she worked in marketing at the Daily Echo and in fundraising for a number of charities including Macmillan, Wave 105 Cash for Kids and Sail 4 Cancer.

But she said as soon as she was on the plane she knew something wasn’t right.

Connie left behind a life of dinners with friends and taxis into the city with her glamorous nails, highlighted hair and passion for fashion. She swapped it for a life of cutting down trees with a chainsaw for firewood, getting to grips with a tractor on the badlands, carrying a pistol on a shoulder harness at all times for protection from the wildlife and swapping her elegant clothes for rugged gear and boots to protect her feet from ‘rattlers’ – rattle snakes.

Her initial doubts about the move were confirmed when she found life with no neighbours in sight difficult. She said it wouldn’t be unusual to struggle for an hour to get down her three-mile driveway in severe conditions. There were no taxis and she travelled 140 miles to get her hair done.

She said: “This was rural. It was very isolated.

“Sometimes you just need to pay attention to your heart.”

Connie realised that although her upbringing is American, her heart is firmly in Southampton.

She said: “Southampton is a unique place and when I got here my heart just felt this is it, this is where you need to be. It doesn’t make any sense because I’ve always loved nature. It didn’t scare me to have bears, bobcats or rattle snakes around because I so appreciated watching them. Those memories I will always treasure, but it wasn’t my home.

“Here in Southampton I couldn’t be happier.

“Nobody would believe it but I actually missed the rain. More importantly I missed my friends here and the work I did here.”

Connie, who loves walking on the Isle of Wight, New Forest and in Winchester, is now living in Bitterne and is searching for jobs in fundraising.

But despite not yet finding a permanent job, Connie, who has flown planes and crewed a hot air balloon in the past, says she has no regrets about starting a single life again in Southampton.

“I’ve been fortunate that I’ve had an enchanted life.

It’s not been easy but it’s been enchanting.

“I guess I don’t let fear stand in the way. So many people stop because they think ‘I should be working’, or stay in a job because of security or ‘why would you move somewhere you’ve never been before?’ but I think you just have to go. If you want to do something, don’t be afraid.

“Once you take the first step and realise you’re not going to fall, it gives you the courage to take all the other steps and I seriously think if I step off, the universe will catch me so just take the step.”