The Big Move

Finally the day came that was the day of the big move from the UK to Connecticut! My dear chum Crissy insisted on driving me to Gatwick which was very kind of her after many proclamations of “I will not let my friend take that bloody coach to the airport!”. We had a jolly good road trip on the way up, it was Sunday so it was all 80s on one of the radio shows which was great for car kareoke but also not great because I had ‘we built this city’ by Starship in my head until I got Connecticut.

So we got there in one piece and I checked in, the guy at the desk let me check my small suitcase I was going to take as carry on which was great as I then had less to carry until afterwards I realised I had over $1,000 in the case completely unlocked… still it all came back ok so no harm done. Then I called my Mum, my brother Charles, Bronte my sister and my Great Auntie Lily to say bye, went through security and then I browsed duty free. I’d been looking for a certain type of perfume, do you ever do that creepy thing where a stranger walks past you and you smell their perfume and it’s really nice so you ask them what fragrance they’re wearing? Well I’d done that a couple of weeks before so I spent a good half hour trying out all the Marc Jacobs perfumes to find the exact one. For some reason Marc Jacobs has chosen to revenge himself against normal people by making all his bottles look roughly the same with flowers on them and picking almost exactly the same names for all the different scents which are completely different. For gods sake Marc Jacobs, sort your life out.

Meanwhile my buddy Joy had decided she’d have one of my sofas for her new house and I got sent this photo of them stuck… so it did my heart good to know that they were having fun haha.

Finally my gate got announced but there was a massive massive queue, it wasn’t so bad because I made a buddy in the line to chat to who was from Sturbridge (you might remember it from the historical village we visited last Christmas) and had been going to a wedding in Berlin so that passed the time.

I assured my new found buddy that I wasn’t looking forward to the flight because Norwegian Air was utterly useless last time I flew with them to JFK and besides I always got sat next to a screaming baby. And my prophecy was correct, the moment I sat down a screaming baby promptly arrived to sit in the seat behind me… I swear there is some sort of tracking beacon on me when I fly. It screamed… and screamed. And we waited on the tarmac for 2 hours because they wanted to check something in the cargo and then they had to fill out paperwork and then they had to refuel because they’d spent so much time fucking around so we were really late leaving.

All the movies were either bad or I’d seen them before so I rewatched a couple, amused myself by finding Coventry on the little airplane map by zooming in a million times, huffed at the mother of the screaming baby, listened to music, slept on and off where I assume I snored at my seat companions, feasted on my banquet of tastiness I bought in duty free. The plane ticket I’d bought was part of Norwegian Air’s new budget flights for long haul, think Easyjet – you pay for luggage, a meal, to pick your seat etc all extra. I wasn’t about to pay 30 quid for airplane food no matter how much I enjoy it.

We finally got into Boston airport and then because we’d left so late they didn’t have a gate for us to park the plane at so we waited again for about 40 minutes, suspiciously exiting the plane just 20 minutes before the time that the airline would have had to pay us compensation for the delay… I was meant to land at 7pm local time, I didn’t get off the plane until about 10pm. After that there was a long line to reach border control, everyone else just had their ESTA visas but I had a large sealed envelope for an immigration CR1 visa. As I moved closer in the queue you could see all the border control agents view the envelope with trepidation, they all went super slow to try not to get me, one guy went on his break, another pretended to take a phone call, all waiting to try not to get me. In the end I was waved over to the only agent smiling, the others all looked miserable as sin, I told him he was the only person there who looked cheerful “Oh I get that a lot” he said chuckling. It reminded me a lot of one of my favourite dystopian games Papers, Please but luckily there weren’t any issues and I was through.

Kimmy girl picked me up, I had insisted that she make me a sign to collect me or else I wouldn’t go with her and I wasn’t disappointed. When I got in the kitties were please to see me, my boy cat Barclay did a double take as though he couldn’t quite believe it was me then proceeded to climb my head with love. I think Kim’s girl cat was quite pleased too because the whole time she’s been back in America she’s refused any treats but as soon as I gave them to her she quite happily tucked in, little madam. All the luggage made it unharmed except my laptop that used to be Kim’s laptop has a very large dent in it… it seems to still work though so… easy come easy go?

The next day we took a trip to Kim’s hospital where she works to sort out my health insurance, only we didn’t sort it because they were really confused by the concept of the NHS. The house Kim bought is in Coventry which is a lake town so about 3 minutes down our street is this beautiful lake, the part of it we live next to has a little dock and a closed off swimming area so we paddled a bit.

Also we got some Hello Fresh to make some fun recipes whilst I settle in – this has been good to learn where Kim keeps all the kitchen stuff.

Today we were about the discover the joys of the social security office when the alert for Kim’s tyre pressure popped up, we went to inflate them (which Kim had no idea how to do!) and got greeted with this mad medieval looking device. I am not used to these air machines, in England they have a little digital display and you just enter in what pressure you want and the machine beeps when it’s done. This looked like it was used to inflate the wheels on penny farthings! Fred Flintstone probably stopped off to use this on the way to Bedrock. We went to two separate gas stations and they both had the same. It’s like a time warp.

 

Afterwards we went to the social security office where we waited for about an hour and I incited a rebellion. I made some buddies at the social security office (I always make a buddy) waiting in the line and we got chatting about how it wasn’t very confidential because people were going up to the window and you could hear all their business so they all said they were going to complain. I said I wasn’t going to complain because I was a foreigner and didn’t want to rock the boat. A girl there who looked about my age asked if Kim was my daughter, so I said I hope not as I married her… seriously, Kim is 26… I’d have to be about 45 for her to be my kid… do I look 45??? I’m not even 30 yet. Not amused. The girl looked like she wanted to be swallowed up into a hole in the ground and I would have pushed her. Pft. Had to explain Kim is just a midget.

 

Packing Up And Lord Mayor’s Procession

So I’ve been pretty busy the last couple weeks or so packing up the rest of my house into 2 suitcases and selling everything. Selling things was the most annoying, I sold bigger items online on Gumtree and Facebook Marketplace and every single thing I sold there was hassle. People wanted more money off, wanted to collect things at really odd times, turned up late, they wanted things delivered when I’d put collection only, they couldn’t find my house, they couldn’t find my house even when I sent them maps with a place marker on. Don’t people get taught to read maps anymore? It was endlessly annoying to sort out between my last few shifts at work. The only painless transaction was selling my beloved car Goldie, a couple turned up to buy it who looked like Del boy and his wife, a real geezer. I opened the door and he said “Alright darlin?” after he went for a quick test drive he got out of Goldie, gave her a reassuring pat and said “pay the lady!” to his wife and they were off. Look at my suitcase…

It took about a good half an hour to get the zips shut to here… I found my first grey hair the other day and I am convinced this is why.

So finally everything was pretty much sorted, you might remember I had texted my Dad to see if he wanted to see me before I went. My Dad and I don’t really talk very often although we used to get on like a house on fire, I was a real daddys girl as a child and it was kind of a shame that we hadn’t seen each other for about 12 years. Anyway so he never got back to me with a date so I had given up, I texted him in the last week before I went (mainly to tell him off actually for not getting back to me) and to my surprise we did organise to meet up for lunch and it was so nice. I thought he’d have aged since I last saw him but he looked exactly the same and we got on like we’d never been apart. We went for lunch at a nice Portuguese restaurant and stayed so late chatting it was about 4pm when we left and my Dad got a parking ticket! Oops! So I was so glad we did that and hopefully we can talk a little more often now and have more of a relationship like we used to.

That night my lovely chum Sarah came to collect me and all my crap, the house was still full of stuff which I begged her to take (please Sarah, take my shoe rack, you know you want a shoe rack!). And she kindly dropped me off at my buddy Nancy’s house in Norwich. I also foisted my unwanted goods on Nancy, such as fridge scrabble where I left a special message for her boyfriend Tim (who is also our friend Joy’s brother) concerning her vegetarianism.

 The next day Nancy, Sarah, Joy and I took a trip into Norwich city because it was the Lord Mayor’s Procession.

So there was quite a lot of things on… I’m not sure why there was an octopus but whatever.

So we got a good spot to watch, but my god we had to wait, the procession was late because of some sort of running marathon thing so we had to watch these runners go back and forth for about half an hour. The mayor and his council buddies wafted about in their ceremonial dress and chains.

There were a lot of floats and dancers and bands.

Most of them were pretty fun.

A couple of them we didn’t understand though, one of them was a tractor and trailer and in the trailer were elderly people waving… who let them in it? I think they need to be more selective.

I felt sorry for the dancers and acrobats because they had to dance the entire length of the procession so they must have been exhausted.

After the procession Sarah, Joy, Nancy and I went to Nandos for some chicken and I saw my buddy Megan quickly and her sister because she had some coffee for me for a leaving gift (thaaannnkkss) so that was good.

Tim had been working nights so I didn’t get to see him but he left me a new addition to our scrabble and I left one back. Nancy and her family go to France every year but she was endlessly confused by the word escargot.

March Update

Emigration is slowly inching a bit closer, I now have my medical scheduled and my interview at the American Embassy in April so I’ve been getting things ready for that. Assuming everything goes according to plan at the interview it’s go time and I have 6 months to emigrate.

With that in mind I’ve started to get rid of a lot of my things and pack what I want to take. Bunny, Kim’s cat, has been excited about this because now the bookcase is empty it’s provided her with extra climbing opportunities.

I sold a ton of stuff one morning at a car boot sale, I’d never done a car boot sale but it was pretty good, my things were mostly too low value or time consuming to list each individually on eBay or Gumtree and it feels so wasteful to throw good things away. Everything I didn’t sell at the car boot sale I took to Barnardos and I now have a lot less, win win.

I’ve been working a lot of nights still, trying to get shifts in before moving and then not being able to work for a while until I get a social security number etc. I took a Makaton course with work the other day which is a form of sign language and that was really fun. However the course was after a night shift which was really not fun and I drank about a gallon of coffee because after the course, as I was in the city, Kim and I went on a cinema date to see Beauty and the Beast (we go watch the same movie at the same time in different countries!). Looking forward to when that’s done with.

Other updates are that Kim is looking to buy a house for us to live in once I move, although her parents have very kindly offered to have us stay with them as long as need be it’ll be the first time we’ve been legally allowed to live together properly and I’m looking forward to spending time with each other as a couple. Kim’s been pre-approved for a mortgage which, with her student loan, took some doing! In the UK when you look to buy a house you can just contact the estate agent to view and if you like it you put an offer in, in the USA to view a house you really need your own real estate agent and they contact the sellers real estate agent so that’s an added complication but we’ve found a realtor now called Melinda and we feel like she’s a good fit. We’ve got our eye on a house we like in our budget that’s in a nice area and Kim’s viewing that today but if not we will keep looking and hope to be moved in soon so I can send the cats over ahead of myself.

In the mean time my Mum, my brother Charles and my sister Bronte have booked to go on a little trip to the new Center Parcs in Woburn in June. We used to go as kids to the one in Longleat and although us kids have wives and girlfriends and boyfriends we thought it’d be nice to have one last trip where it’s just the four of us so we are all really excited for a bit of nostalgia before I move away. And that’s pretty much it for March!

 

Moving To Great Yarmouth

 Today was moving day! I went to pick up the keys from Lowestoft yesterday. It was like visiting the land that time forgot and the lady in the estate agents tried to convince me that the reason she’d spelt my name wrong on the tenancy agreement was because I had misspelt it on my application… errr no.

But I’ve finally moved everything! Yay!

Poor Barclay was very confused as to where all the furniture went. I’m moving him tomorrow night so I hope he likes the new house.

I actually added to all my moving stuff as I picked up this nice hydrangea on the way, I thought it might be nice in the garden or out front.  Thank you Aldi!

The hardest thing to get in was the sofas I got from Gumtree. Oh my goodness. I wrestled this damn thing up the stairs with a very helpful moving man swearing profusely.

I got some drawers from Gumtree too and this old fashioned wicker chair and blanket chest I quite liked the look of. I’m planning on painting them up so hopefully next time I post a photo of them they’ll look a bit nicer and if it doesn’t… well the whole lot with the drawers only cost me £22.

The thing that took the longest was cleaning the kitchen, I hate cleaning. Look how much I used, I sprayed the hell out of the kitchen.

And then I had a little sit down and junk food. Ugh my arms ache and placement tomorrow 😦 I’m gonna be so sleepy!

Tired Out

So I’m unpacked and in my new place and gave back the keys for my old; Barclay’s just pleased I’ve unpacked his toys.

But cocktails with the lovely Anastasia cheered me up this week. She ordered a white Russian (she’s white and Russian so this made me laugh).

It’s so weird, I’ve heard a ton about it but I’d never been to Franks Bar in Norwich, I had a really tasty cocktail called apple crumble and it really tasted like that!

But other things like changing my address (including an 18 minute long conversation with Scottish Widows!) have been much less fun and because of all this moving I am so behind on my dissertation. Wah 😦

I was thinking today, I don’t get body warmers. I never have a situation where my arms are hot but my body is cold. Surely no one does… why do they exist??

Location Location

So the boyfriend and I decided to call it a day recently and since then I’ve been moving my things to a shared student house (including Barclay the cat of course!). Isn’t moving such a chore?

Barclay’s enjoyed the boxes and seems to be settling in… after a tense stand off where he hid behind the washing machine for 20 minutes on arrival.

But I’ve been busy trying to cram all my worldly goods into my minuscule room. Luckily my lovely new house mates haven’t told me off when I overflow and put my stuff elsewhere (oops). Moving sucks. But in other news I’ve started my third and final year at uni having passed first and second now with a first (so far so good), just have to get through my dissertation (probably where I’ll lose the first!) and placement this module and then it’s just sign off module left! Everyone else seems panicked they’ll be qualified nurses soon but I personally just can’t wait to be working full time again.

Moving The Boyfriend’s Mum

We moved out the boyfriend’s mum last weekend to her new flat. That means I got to sit in the van! Hurrah! I felt tall and important.

It was a hot day, I wore shorts, the boyfriend’s mum and her boyfriend wore shorts, the boyfriend’s sister wore shorts, the boyfriend wore… thick jogging bottoms… foolish.

The boyfriend’s mum has moved into a lot nicer area, the area she was in was a bit… well… we had an audience moving. Just look at them. They watched the entire move, I’m not even joking.

I was the van unloader on the unpacking, I ran a tight ship and was very bossy. I think everyone wanted to stomp on my face afterwards but it was done in no time. Guess my family call me the slave driver for a reason, huh?

After comparing who was the most sweaty and disgusting we all got cool drinks and lunch.