Tag Archives: overseas move

Softly, Softly — (shhh!!!)

Softly, softly and oh-so-quietly — things are moving in our lives and it’s time to talk about that.

Yes — I am actually back — and hopefully I won’t be disappearing again!

We’ve been living in Ballarat, Victoria, Australia for just over a year and a half — and what a LONG slog that has been. We purchased a 1950 house in rather dire condition to renovate and now we’re almost done. At some point in the future I will do a full post (with pictures!) of just how totally grotty this house was — and what gorgeous work Mark has done to transform it.

So — good — time to relax and enjoy the finished house, eh?

Um — no!

We’re about to put the house on the market in about 2-ish weeks, hopefully sell rather quickly, and head back to Europe. Yes, we are both aware that Europe is in rather a lot of upheaval since we left — but we’ve come to the firm decision that Australia is just not where we want to spend the rest of our lives.

In preparation for a lot of new and exciting posts about planning the trip back, where we are going, who we are interacting with, how different life is on the other side of the world — all accompanied by gorgeous photography — I have changed the theme and the look of this website (do you like the Mid-Century vibe of the header?)

AND — I’ve made some new links that will lead you to all of the OTHER places where you can find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Google+, YouTube, and LinkedIn.

Things to accomplish in addition to (deep, DEEP sigh!) sorting, packing, selling furniture and cars, selling the house, donating a huge number of items to charity, booking all of the flights and hotels and making a travel schedule…
1. Finishing the book that I have been writing for the last year.
2. Creating some new e-books about the sort of non-traditional lifestyle that we lead.
3. Learning to make and edit small videos that will share our travels or be instructional.

Those are the plans — and that’s where I’ve been for such a l-o-n-g time away from this site.

Watch this spot — there may be even MORE changes ahead!

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Counting Down to Departure from Northern Hemisphere!

It’s now only ONE WEEK until our household goods get picked up by the moving company! I’ve spent my day filling out ‘Unaccompanied Goods’ forms for the Australian Customs folks, refining the inventory sheets so they know what is in every single box we have packed, getting specs online for our fridge-freezer to ship back to AU, and finding out what the coolant in that appliance contains (nothing negative, thank heavens!).

Australian Fridge Form

I was and HOPING to find some time to do photo editing this afternoon and I am SO far behind and my agencies in New York and London are awaiting images that should have been there already. Sheesh!

We spent the day at Hadrian’s Wall yesterday and in spite of the breathtaking cold, we had a wonderful time. That will be a future post full of pictures, but it might have to wait for awhile.

Back to work I go!

Ping-Ponging? Nope! Happily Back To Australia!

Have you ever heard the term ‘Ping Pong Poms’ and do you know the origin? It refers to people from Great Britain, commonly referred to around the world as ‘Poms’, who move to Australia for a new life and ping-pong right back to the UK because they find that it’s too much of a change for them or that Australia isn’t British enough for their tastes. They usually return to the northern hemisphere within 12 months or less.

So, in our own case, if we moved whole-heartedly to Europe from Australia over 2 years ago and, in spite of that previous commitment to a European life, are now returning to Australia — does that make us Ping Pong Aussies? Actually no — it’s a very happy choice and we are getting more and more excited with each day at this point.

I consider myself to be a boots-on-the-ground documentarian of the places and social conditions where we are living. Although I sometimes report on the glossy travelogue version of Europe, at other times you will read my take on the current day-to-day facts about Europe.

The reasons we came to this side of the world and that we love it here are all still valid — the visual beauty, the greenness, the history, the architecture. But it’s quite clear that Europe, including the UK, is unravelling financially and unless you are in banking, medicine, or property sales — if there is no way to make a decent living, you’d be in trouble in no time. We just spoke to a building contractor here in Newcastle about an hour ago and he said that 8-10 years ago he made 3-1/2 times what he does now each month. If we ever DO want to retire, we have to be sensible and go back to a place where we can start building the accounts back up, not continue to deplete them. We actually feel very blessed to HAVE options when so many people are trying to LEAVE the UK and emigrate to Australia or New Zealand. There are several television shows over here about how to do that!

France would have been our happy-heart choice here in Europe, but the tax changes and pension changes just blew that out of the water for us. There is simply no work here in the UK and even the people with jobs all feel quite insecure.

I was relieved to leave Australia in 2010 — I won’t lie about that — but not because I didn’t love it there. I wouldn’t have bothered getting Australian citizenship if I hadn’t truly loved that country and I would have just carried on being a legal resident the way I was in France. The rural lifestyle just wore us both out. It was much too much in a way that neither of us could have anticipated before we tried it. But gosh — we did love all of the people we met out there in Central Victoria who are now life-long friends to know as we get older.

I am glad that I never-ever departed from Australia with negative feelings about it because, after having a bit of a think about it and getting our heads wrapped around it, we have both realised that neither of us is having ANY issues with moving back in the end. And isn’t THAT a nice surprise! It’s as if going away has given us a better appreciation for the country and made us understand that it’s still a darned good lifestyle in Australia compared the austerity of Europe and the UK and the dreadful financial mess that is ever-present in the USA.

The best part of Australia to me is the part that is the most European — Melbourne! So Mark has agreed that even if we live in a shoebox sized house, he’ll do city living (thank God because I had enough of snakes, bushfires, and heat in the countryside the last time!), join a city cycling club, and let us have the freedom of just walking out the door and catch a tram to the market, a club, a museum, a cafe. He always turned up his nose at the idea of a more centralised city lifestyle in Melbourne or even when we were visiting Sydney but thankfully that has changed. Maybe we’ll eventually have a weekend cottage in the country? Maybe not. We’ll see.

Once we were actually on this side of the world, Mark finally got into the groove of that urban lifestyle choice in places like Berlin and Amsterdam and London. Those two months in London in 2011 showed him that cycling in the city can be quite interesting and visually stimulating in a different way to the bleached brown rolling hills of Victoria, Australia. When we actually lived full time in St. Girons in the south of France, he finally had his eyes opened to how cool it was to have your own wee manageable space in your home, but then the greater world of entertainment was right on your doorstep — literally — instead of it being a long and boring DRIVE to get to anything.

Our life in St. Girons has set the template for what we want to go back and find in Melbourne. But we wouldn’t have know THAT either unless we had left Australia for awhile.

So to answer the questions that have trickled in about how I REALLY feel about moving back to Australia and are we both happy about it –it’s all good, we’re fine with our decision, and as much as it seems like a shockingly abrupt turn-around to some people, we will not only manage, we will thrive! Mark is quite calm about moving back, I am quite calm about it, and we will relish every minute of this little 2-1/2 year adventure and know that it was the right thing to do AT THE TIME that we did it. Now it is the right time to go back.

Next up? The list making, re-packing, staging, reservations-making, booking of moving companies, and then getting ON THE PLANE. Wheeee!!!

That Glamourous Expat Lifestyle (cough-cough!)

Just letting you know that the day-to-day glamour-factor (smirk!) of our adventures in French expat lifestyle might be a bit muted this week. Ah well — it can’t always be a life of wine and cheese and glorious scenery, eh?

As previously reported, boxes 1-100 were delivered 3 weeks ago and we are still wading through those. The last 50-plus items are arriving today — tonight actually. Thank heavens it is summer and there is still enough light outside for Mark and the driver to see as they load things into the garage and tick off the numbers on the list. It will probably be well after 9 PM before they are done because the driver is running so late. And Mark hasn’t even had the splendid dinner that I planned to make yet.

I just — literally just — wrangled the apartment back into shape whilst Mark was off with some of the menfolk doing a two day mountain hiking session. He got back tonight just after 6 PM looking sunburnt, ready to drop, and walking quite gingerly because he was aching all over.

And this is the day that the driver was late??? Not really good timing.

Had planned to do some new posting this week with photo essays. At this point, I’ll just keep my fingers crossed.

Now where did I put that print out of the packing list. (sigh!)