28 Dec 08

33 Days to go!!

Today was a lovely family day! It started off with Marc and I doing our paperwork for his permit - I found out we can apply for it online! What an absolute pleasure! Tomorrow morning I will make an appointment with the Visa office to go through and hand in our supporting documents and get Marc's fingerprints scanned. Gotta love technology! It really makes life easier :)

In the afternoon we went through to Marc's brother for tea, and spent a great afternoon with the family chatting and playing 30 seconds! We decided that until we leave, we will spend every Thursday with his side of the family.

Here is a pic of Marc, his twin sister and his brother

And here is a picture of my niece wearing clothes we bought her for Christmas! (and a dodo teddy from Mauritius)

Hopefully have some other big news that I will be able to share soon!

27 Dec 08

Today was a really lovely, busy day! It started pretty early (at about 10am lol) where my family sat and chatted for about an hour... I mean really chatted! Lots of laughing, and I learned one or two things about my parents that I didn't know before! It was great being able to spend some quality time with them - I didn't realise how much I had missed it by not living with them (we are currently staying in a room in their house)

After the chatting, we got up and got dressed to go to the Brightwater Commons in Randburg to look at the fleamarket. Dad lasted about 10 minutes inside the flea market and then let my mom and I loose! I had to stop her from dawdling around the corners so that we had more time by the stalls! We landed up practically power walking where there werent any shops!! Neither of us bought anything which makes it really sad!

After our mad dash, we headed to a lovely Greek restaurant for a bite of lunch - it was really a fab place. Managed to get a photo or two of all of us!

Here is one of Marc and myself:

Then this evening we had a friend's birthday party in Rosebank. We had a really lovely evening, and as a bonus got to see other friends as well! In Particular, her brother and his wife who lived in London for a few years, so lots and lots of useful advice and tips!

Took more photos, and as I was uploading this one I thought it was hysterical! I didn't notice the sign behind us :)

And here is one of us and the birthday girl!! Happy BDay Nix!!

Fri 26 Dec 08

This is Jozi at dusk..

Image taken from HERE

Not a very eventful day. My brother came up to visit us from Knysna and it was really great to see him. In a way we are lucky because we already live far apart, so its a lot easier for me to know I am leaving him behind!

He has gone up to the Vaal Dam for a few days.. we have a house there. This is one of the things I am really going to miss about South Africa - I will try to upload pics soon so you know what I am talking about!

As far as the items on THE LIST goes, didnt do a single thing today!! Feeling kind of guilty, but at least we have the weekend to do most of the things, right? lol.

Ok, so day 2 of blogging and I have hit a bit of a wobbly! 36 days until moving day, and we have way too much to do! I think I need to write a list.

I'm definitely a list person - makes it a lot easier to make sure I'm not forgetting anything! I already started a 'what to pack' list (including number of undies I need to take! Haha) about a month ago and have been adding to it ever since!

Here is my to-do list for my move:

• Finish paperwork for Marc's EEA FAMILY PERMIT
• Finish paperwork for Lloyds bank account
• Submit both applications
• Sell remaining furniture etc on Bid or buy/gumtree
• Sell car
• Start saying goodbye to people
• Pack
• Pack a box to ship at a later stage
  Find a shuttle/taxi from airport to our house
• Buy more luggage if needed
• Load up all photos etc onto laptop
• Do filing - make sure important documents come with us
• Update our CVs

Thats all I can really think of now. I'll add to it or cross off as I think of things or complete them!

I'll leave you with this quote:

"Emigration, forced or chosen, across national frontiers or from village to metropolis, is the quintessential experience of our time."

John Berger

The story so far

Ok, so by the title I'm guessing you know what this blog is about by now! If not, let me give you a brief history...

I am 22, recently married, no kids. Both my husband and myself love England, and the opportunity presented itself for us to move over there. It seemed like the perfect timing, as we werent tied down by anything (other than pets) in South Africa. After much discussing, arguing, sobbing, more discussing and more sobbing, we decided that it would be the best move for us. Telling my family was hard, as we are all really close, but they also knew that it was for the best.

Marc (the dh) is a police reservist and has been for almost 1o years. Policing is his passion - he loves everything to do with cop stuff :) Not to mention he is really good at it.
I studied to become a medic (emergency medical technician) and I really loved every minute of it. I felt like I finally found my way in life. I found a really nice base and started doing a few shifts. Then I started planning a wedding and everything kinda fell apart for a while haha. I recently phoned the base to organise a shift or two only to be told that they no longer accept volunteers. This is now our situation in South Africa:

Marc wants to be a cop, I want to be a medic. If we decided to do it full time we would earn a combined salary of about R5000 a month. This is not enough for us to live on comfortably, and certainly not enough for us to raise a family. This is where London starts looking promising...

As cops and medics we are really looked after by the government. They are high paying jobs. Its not as dangerous (during the xenophobic riots all ambulance crew had to wear bullet proof vests and were getting shot at), and we can do what we love!

I am certainly not saying that everything is peachy in the UK. I am a realist, and know that life will be hard for us. I'm not even sure if I want to be a full-time medic anymore (wanting to start a family soon and 2 parents doing shift work is not my idea of the family life I want), but at least the opportunities are there for us.

Signing off now - hope I didn't bore you silly!