De Clutter

Dear Friends
On Monday I took our documents, passports and application forms to the immigration lawyer.  We had a brief chat and spoke about the best options in terms of submission of our application.

The thing about making any move, but especially a big one like this - is trying to cover all the bases. Normally a move is big enough on its own, but now you couple it with:

• Changing jobs
• Changing house
• Changing car
• Changing schools
• Changing telephone/internet provider (and subsequently email address!)
• Changing banks
• Changing insurance
• Changing power provider
• Changing seasons
• Changing times
• Changing speech
• Changing what you eat, drink, live out of. (our familiar items will be on the sea for at least 6 weeks - so we will have to make do with a furnished place, and all the differences that it brings.)

There are so many changes. So it is not unexpected to try and hold on to the familiar as far as possible. On the other hand, you want to make the move as painless as possible and not drag things across the ocean that are not necessary.

This weekend I looked at our bookshelf.  It was filled with books which I had bought on a wim and had not read. There were also books that I had read and enjoyed, which I would probably not read again.  There were books that I got as Christmas and birthday presents - to toss or to keep?

For books I had not yet read, I evaluated how difficult it would be to find them at the library or on the Kindle - and tossed a whole lot.
For books I had read, I honestly asked myself whether I would read them again. Those that I could not see myself re-reading, got tossed.  Interestingly enough, the only fiction books that passed this test were "Lord of the Rings" and "The Complete Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy."

There are moving companies coming today to quote on the move.

Trading sunshine for Rain - again

I previously had a blog on here which was called "Trading Sunshine for Rain" - the aim of which was to chronicle our move from South Africa to the UK.  This is did - with varying success and with irregular updates. The last post in that blog mentioned our return to South Africa in 2010. It was a very sad post. For me at least.

We have lived in Cape Town since December 2010 and all the reasons for our return have changed or have not come to fruition.

1. Kim's ME/CFS - We had hoped that a change of climate would positively influence Kim's health and that she would be better in South Africa. This did not happen.
2. We had hoped that family would assist and help and be more present with Kim's illness. Of course what we didn't factor in is that they have their own lives and things going on which have made this impossible.  Nothing much has changed as far as family support is concerned from living in the UK and living in South Africa.  At least in the UK there is more access to help and less reliance on transport and distance for the day to day elements of living.
3. Our daughter is due to start studying in 2017/2018. She wants to study astrophysics.  The courses are much better in the UK for this and access to quality tertiary education is a problem in South Africa.

All the above, coupled with the fact that I quite enjoyed and preferred living in the UK has led to this decision.

I will try and give a more detailed and more regular report on this blog of where we are in this entire process.