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Published: August 8th 2007
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waiting for our flight:
Felling nervous, excited and ...tired!(all that last minute house cleaning and a very restless night) Four months have past since we came up with the idea of going to London. What started out as a throwaway remark and a bit of a joke has become a reality.
We were both feeling a bit restless and not happy about stuff in general, ...you know that feeling.
Now I realise most people would just create change in gentle ways but we are travelers and wanted our kids to experience traveling too. We figured if we could, we should. Just to allow the girls to really explore and get to know people, and learn about a new culture and also the world. It was the perfect time to do it, both old enough to always remember the experience but still young enough to be happy hanging around us. We asked the girls if they were interested and they both showed so much enthusiasm that we promised we would try t make it happen.
So we made our investigations: Could we afford it?, What would we do with our house? Our stuff? what good would come of it?, any negatives? Why would we do this? How could this affect our children? Then we began making little moves towards our plan, at first tentative but increasingly more serious and hopeful.
Then came the point where we had to commit: we sat out on our back verandah with a bottle of wine and decided to throw caution to the wind and go. You may as well live a full life and learn as much as you can along the way.
Herve did all the financial preparations and got our house rented, car sold and accounts in order (turned out my dad had to fix a few things up after we left, but we did our best). He also researched the job market in London including how to write a London CV. He updated his interview techniques, checked out blogs and websites for working in London and started contacting agents to let them know he was coming. I researched London and chose a place to live based on questions like: is it safe, interesting, is there a good school, is transport to the city easy, what transport is available to where, what kind of people live there etc etc. I decided on South West London after narrowing it down. I also packed up everything and did all the school, home preparations both here and in London. Getting into the primary school was surprisingly easy (probably because of the girl's ages 9, and 11) and a quick phone call to the principal secured our spot. Then we sent off all the forms. High school was much harder as the school is heavily oversubscribed (I had a lot to learn) but I insisted on harassing them and sent off loads of forms and a thorough application.
We talked a lot to our girls about the move, told them what we knew about England and made it all sound interesting. They got a bit blase about the whole thing so we knew then that they would be fine. They are both adaptable and enjoy change like us (although our youngest was initially a bit reserved, she came round after realising if we didn't go, she would just spend another year at the school she was currently in.)
We realised that we would not be able to secure jobs before we arrived because of the nature of contracting as opposed to permanent positions, so we were obviously running a risk. We had done that type of thing before but never with kids in tow. It would have to be so well prepared with finances to back us up that if it took a few weeks, we could survive it. For me work would be easy, teachers are wanted everywhere! but I also didn't want to commit to anything until I had assessed the situation, on the ground (as it were). The only problem is, of-course, teachers are paid pittance and my pay would not support us. It all relied on Herve....(a lot of pressure to place on one person's shoulders) but Herve being Herve he took it all in his stride with his typical mix of confidence and faith.
Then we fully committed: We bought the tickets, organised the high school for our return, packed up our belongings into boxes and stored them, cleaned up the house, booked our first weeks short term accommodation, packed our 20 kilos each, said goodbye to all and set off. It was a very exciting time for all of us as we new we were setting off on into the great unknown.
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