*** UPDATE: 26th October 2022 ***
Still here, still living our best life 🎉, still having a ball 🥳, still eating ice cream 🍦, still exploring 🚗, still dodging Covid, still going to the pub 🍺🍷, still missing Aussie mates, still loving life, still no regrets❤️
Ted’s 🧸 settled and our experiences just keep on coming …
In just a few short months we’ve lost our much loved Queen Elizabeth II 👑💂♀️and
watched our third Prime Minister take to the podium. Meanwhile, here on planet Earth we’ve been madly decorating our new home and falling in love with all things Yorkshire. The leaves are spectacular as they burn red and gold against blue Autumn skies and our drive needs sweeping daily if we are to continue to venture out. Halloween’s 🎃 👻 trick or treat will soon be followed by fireworks and bonfires as the country remembers November the 5th, and Guy Fawkes, no doubt contemplating the political merry-go-round of today 😳
Seven months in and Three Women, my book 📕, has been resurrected as I determine to finish the seventh and hopefully final draft 👩🏫 taking advantage of long cold nights 🥶 in front of our much loved log burner 🪵 🔥
Already it is barely light before 8am and the sun is set again by six 🌅. We blinked and missed summer 🧐 and now snow is on the way, or so they say, as Christmas looms on the horizon as we look forward to our first “real” Christmas in a long while 🧑🎄 🎅🏻 🎄
*** UPDATE: 3rd August 2022 ***
On 20th January 2022 packing the first of 45 “packed by owner” cartons 📦 we never envisaged the humps and bumps of our return journey. A little over six months later, here we are “living the dream” … we’ve found our happy place, our forever home - we feel lucky - albeit a little bruised. We have found wonderful friends and reunited with family, we’ve had visitors from near and far and look forward to whatever the future may hold 😎
Since that first box 📦 we have (in no particular order):
- Slept in nine different beds 🛌
- Experienced once in a lifetime floods 🌊 (the second time in ten years) 😢
- Lived on the 18th floor and stressed as floods rendered lifts/elevators 🛗 inoperable just two days 📆 prior to collection of our overseas furniture shipment 😱
- Waved 👋 a fond farewell 💞 to much loved friends 💚💛 while chomping on a traditional Aussie BBQ 🍔 as well as shared several delicious brunches/lunches/dinners 🍴
- Been to the pub (a few times) 🍻
- Hired 3 cars 🚙
- Sold a car and bought another 🚗
- Navigated international money transfers and tax complications 💲
- Discovered the UK home rental market is VASTLY different to that in Australia 😱 and not in a good way 😖
- Bought a house 🏡 and moved in 🚚
- Lived in all four corners of North Yorkshire ⬇️⬆️⬅️➡️
- Visited spectacularly beautiful places 🏞
- Drunk too much 🍷🥂
- Eaten too much 🍽 😳
- Spent too much 💷
- Flown 10,000 miles | 16,000 kilometres 🚀
- Driven 5,000 miles | 8,000 kilometres 🏎
- Traversed narrow country lanes, definitely not for the faint-hearted
- Viewed dozens of houses 😩
- Experienced the beautiful Yorkshire Dales in snow 🌨 🏔
- Experienced record breaking temperatures 🔥 hotter even than Brisbane 🥵
- Seen amazing sunsets on both sides of the globe 🌏
- Dodged Covid 🤞
- Travelled through deserted airports 🙁
- Watched a nation stick two fingers up to Covid 🦠
- Seen daffodils grow wildly and freely along grass verges 🌼
- Made new friends and reunited with old 🥰
- Had quality family time ❤️
- Taken delivery of 84 boxes and parcels that made it here, despite the floods 😅
- Found our happy place 🥳
- Watched lambs 🐑 gambolling in the fields (that’s gambol Ted, not gamble! 🎰)
- Eaten delicious ice cream 🍦
- Watched the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee live on TV 💂
- Had my first British haircut and colour in 23 years 💇♀️
I miss Australia, I miss my friends, one day we may return and I look forward to them visiting here ... but for now? No regrets! 🤔
❤️
*** 29th January 2022 ***
As two people who love to travel (and a Ted who prefers to remain incognito) ✈️ 🚁 🚢 🛸 ⛵️, two years confinement within Australia has not killed off our travel 🐛 and now he wants to 🦋once again. We have explored Australia 🇦🇺 and New Zealand 🇳🇿 extensively (and loved it) and after 23 years have decided to return to our roots and explore the UK 🇬🇧 🏴, something we haven't done together previously. We plan to make our home-base in North Yorkshire, the home of many of our respective ancestors, and exploring the beautiful Yorkshire Dale, its pretty villages and absorbing the culture will be our priority. We've missed British pubs, so expect to see plenty of those on our excursions. At least one of us is a fan of real ale and I am told there are 363 pubs in North Yorkshire - that'll keep us busy for a while! 🍻 🤔
As we exhaust the locality, we will travel to as many UK counties as possible, including the Isle of Man, sharing our adventures as we go. As border restrictions ease, we also look forward to taking advantage of the closer proximity to the US 🇺🇸 - Boston, New York, San Francisco - and Europe - Iceland 🇮🇸 , France 🇫🇷. , Italy 🇮🇹,, Norway 🇳🇴 - and so many other wonderful and beautiful places 🏔 🏖 🏜
As we transit, we will share some of the challenges we face as we prepare to travel over 10,000 miles!
