21.08.2019

It’s beginning at last. Holidays. Bearing in mind the events of the past eight or so months, now is the perfect time to take a moment to find some perspective. The man who has made our new lives possible is my husband Kevin, he is an incredible human being and jumped right on board over a year ago when I proposed we move to England for a good three years or more with our children to live a new life experience and travel the United Kingdom and Europe in the process. There are others of course that have made all this possible including our family here in England, our family and friends back home in Australia, and most certainly our two daughters Lauren (19) and Mackenzie (12). The tight-knit family unit that we have created means that there was no hesitation in supporting our move here, if there were it is entirely likely we would have reconsidered until they moved out of home. Not a soul could have prepared us for the lived experience of becoming expats, nor the challenges we would face.

The task of sharing all the finer details of this past eight months is daunting and perhaps requires individual attention to each of the challenges, something I will most certainly attend to as time goes on. However, at this time I guess a little peek will have to be enough, until I can gather my thoughts and put them into words to express it appropriately, including the journey before and leading up to becoming expats in England.

Since arriving here in England we as a family have had to face challenges in setting up our lives here, including opening a bank account, finding a house, securing jobs for my husband and my eldest daughter, navigating the purchase of a car, not to mention the nightmare of insurance as a non-UK license holder. Personally I have had to navigate commencing in a new health system, trying to find my feet and learn new ways of doing things, study for and sit the OSCE exam hoping to heavens that I would pass, learning my role as Registered Nurse here, and of course the emotional side of not having our close network of friends here beside us. I was compounded when I damaged both my rotator cuff and deltoid in the provision of my duties at work, and as a family we have had to face the death of my husband’s father on Father’s Day (in England) back home in Australia. Finances and circumstances resulted in us not being able to go home for this which I feel compounded the situation.

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So here we find ourselves counting the days until we have leave, I started today, and Kevin will start his leave on Saturday. It could not have come fast enough for us, with both of us feeling exhausted and emotionally depleted. It has been off to a great start with me waking super early to drive Kevin to work, followed by a much-needed appointment with my sports therapist Ben from Coles Sports Therapy in Kent. Since Mackenzie and I have done a quick tidy up (I cleaned the entire house top to bottom last night), I’ve decided to let her watch a movie so I can get some time to write – it’s been far too long so I just need to start. At the end of this week we will set off to North Wales for a few days with the idea of visiting Snowdonia, and next week we will drive to Belgium for a few days also.

If you have made it this far, I would like to thank you for taking the time and invite you to head over to my facebook page to follow our day to day goings on. I am hoping to start sharing content on a more regular basis but would love to hear what you want to know or hear about.

Cheers From Kent, Tams