The Six Stages of an Expat Move...

Our shipment arrived from Moscow just over a week ago.  We are slowly - oh-so-slowly - working our way through unpacking it, and it suddenly struck me yesterday that there is a definite process involved here; one which others who have moved home (and not just internationally) might recognise...

It's the morning that the movers are due to arrive. You have breakfast and look around your mostly empty house, contentedly imagining the warm and welcoming impression it will give once all your belongings have arrived and been unpacked.  Right on time the truck pulls up outside your house, and you watch with eager anticipation as the team throw open the doors.  'This shouldn't take too long to unload' you think to yourself.  'There aren't that many boxes...'

The move-in begins.  The team begin to shift box, after box, after box.  After box.  After box.  After box.

Stage 1: Shock

'Jesus.  How much stuff did we bring?  I thought we did a pretty good job of reducing it before we even packed it all up, but this?  This is going on for EVER.  And how on earth are they going to get that sofa up the stairs?'


Stage 2: Denial

'It's going to be fine.  Look, they got the sofa around the corner in the stairwell and yes, I know it's upended in the lounge at the moment but once we get all those boxes unpacked there'll be loads of room, and who needs to swing a cat, anyway?


Stage 3: Anger

'I mean, for chrissake, what was I THINKING?  This box, this one here, we didn't unpack the last time we moved.  Who takes a travel cot to a different country just in case someone with a baby comes to visit, and then brings it back still in same the wrapping it arrived in the first time around?  Who does that?   And what about the empty picture frames?  Who moves EMPTY PICTURE FRAMES?  Why didn't somebody stop me? And that sofa will fit in the corner, between the fire-place and the cupboard.  I took measurements, dammit.  It WILL.  It must.  Or so help me...'


Stage 4: Bargaining

'OK.  Now.  If I put that in there, and this in here, then maybe, just maybe, we can fit the extra china set at the bottom of...  No, that's not going to work.  So, if we move that cupboard over here, and then balance that chest on top of it, perhaps the sofa can go against that wall, and then we can block the wall cabinet with that chair... No, that's not going to work because then how will we get out of the room?'


Stage 5: Grieving

'I can't believe it.  I worked so hard to get all that stuff ready to be moved, made so many trips to the recycling bank, delivered so many toys and so many of the kids clothes to the charity shop and for what?  That sofa - my favourite sofa, that I love so much - still won't fit in the sitting room...'


Stage 6: Acceptance

'There's nothing else for it.  The sofa is going to have to go.  Where's that number for the British Heart Foundation?

'Hello, is that the British Heart Foundation?  Do you still recycle sofas?  Great, I have one that I bought all the way back from XXX with me, it was especially made for us and we love it.... Wait.  What do you mean, you won't take it because it doesn't have a kitemark?'



(With apologies to Dr Elisabeth Kubler-Ross who formulated the original theory of The Six Stages of Grief, an invaluable aid to those who are going through the grieving process)

Remembering why I blog - the moving diary

It's been quiet on this blog for a couple of weeks now.

It's not that there's nothing happening; there's plenty going on in our lives.  We're preparing for an international move, the Boys have just finished at the only school either of them can remember, and we're ticking off items on our 'Say Goodbye To Moscow' bucket list.  We need to find a base in our new home-town, set everything up for a smooth arrival there, and re-establish some dormant relationships in the UK.

Having said all that, it feels like the calm before the storm.

Practically, I know that isn't the case.  We've had an emotional few weeks - months, really, if I think about it - as we've gone through the mill of taking the decision to leave Russia, identifying where where we want to live back in the UK, applied for school places for the kids, been accepted (thank heavens), and dealt with the slowly dawning reality of what it will actually mean to leave the supportive community in a challenging environment that we've been living in for the last six years.  More recently there have been tears as my children have said farewell to good friends and I've held my nerve to assure them that yes, they WILL make new ones, it may just take a little time.  And of course Husband and I have attended a host of leaving parties, both for ourselves and for other people we know who are leaving Moscow.

Since the the school bell rang for the last time two weeks ago I've continued to sell / recycle / donate or just plain throw out the stuff we've acquired during our stay here and don't plan to move back with us.  In addition, there's been the small matter of housing, buying new uniforms for the children, and making a flying visit back to Blighty for them to attend New Starter events at their new schools to deal with.

We're back in Moscow now for a couple of week's hiatus before the we move out of our house here.  I feel as if I should be tidying - I KNOW I should be tidying - but actually there doesn't seem to be much left to tidy.  I've been through the kitchen cupboards, I've given away the clothes the kids and I no longer wear, I've got rid of a load of paperwork.  The only 'big' job now outstanding is to go through the Boys toys, but that can wait a couple of weeks longer.

And it's quiet - oh, so quiet.  The communities we normally socialise with - Russian and expat - have mostly packed their bags and flown, either to their dacha, home country, or somewhere else for a few weeks or for good, depending on their plans.  The Boys are in day camp, and Husband is travelling for business.  I feel as if I should be making the most of my time, doing, I don't know, something, but instead feel as if I'm stuck, dealing with the small tasks of running our day-to-day lives but unable to settle down and get my teeth into the big ones, like starting to actually write the next book that I've tentatively planned out, for example.  Or to  make initial approaches to a host of agents that I've never met, no doubt waiting with bated breath to hear about my last one.

Apologies for what may seem like nothing post, but it helps, to sit here and blog; it reminds me why I started doing this back in 2007.  What can seem at the time like a total lack of progress, whether it's the frustration of potty training a small child, dealing with the 'hurry up and wait' timetable of looking after two young children, or the ups and downs and sometimes what seemed like the interminable 'on and on-ness'* of being the main carer at home, my blog helps me take stock and realise that yes, I am moving forward.

And I can see that actually, this is not the calm before the storm.  Having written all this down, I've realised that actually, I'm right in the centre of it.  The eye of the hurricane.


* an expression borrowed from my good friend Jennifer, who blogs here and here.

I can't bear to part with...

In preparation for our impending move back to the UK, I am slowly forcing myself to go through all the cupboards so that we only take with us what we actually want and need when we arrive.

This follows what I can only describe as our rather chaotic exit from the UK over 5 years earlier, when I wrote this post following the foolishness of having left Husband in charge of the packers whilst I ferried the Boys from one set of grandparents to another whilst we moved out of our London flat.  My favourite excerpt from that post is this:

'2.  Packing enough bed linen for 4 double beds and 2 singles - twice over - is a somewhat pointless exercise when you are currently living in what is basically a 2 bedroom cottage.

3. Likewise towels. What were you expecting PM, to be training as the local midwife?'

So this time around, I'm trying to be ruthless.  It's tricky.  I'm not good at throwing stuff away.  I mean, who knows, we might need that weird shaped  metal... thingy when we get back to England.  Or the broken Dyson hand-held vacuum.  There will always be a use for that, surely? Tell you what; let's just charge it up and see if there's been some terrible mistake and it does actually work?  (It doesn't).  Or that collection of instructions on how to put together the ikea shelving units that we plan to donate to charity before we leave here - surely they might come in handy?

You can see what I'm up against.

But I'm trying my best, which is why this morning I went through the Boys' clothes for the third time in 3 months and still managed to find 2 large bagfuls that no longer fit them and which I probably could have got rid of last time but which for some unaccountable reason, I missed.  Probably because I was too busy cooing over the clothes that I REALLY can't bring myself to get rid of and which I have stored in a special hamper to take back to England and pull out in 5 years time to marvel at. What's in the hamper?

Well.  I was hoping you would ask that (if only so I could write it down here to remind myself of the reasons why I kept this motley collection)...

• A collection of hats (sun, baseball, and cold weather hats) - were my sons' heads EVER that small?
• A collection of long-sleeved t-shirts that have featured in photos of both boys over the years (my favourite, for obvious reasons, must be the Trans-Siberian Express one from Gap, although the fleecy polar bear one and the bright blue rhino one tie for a close second)
• The kilt that Boy #1 wore for his kindergarten extravaganza back in London (as featured in this memorable post, here)
• A swiss prehisto t-shirt featuring dinosaurs in cow print, and a bright striped short-sleeved t-shirt (retained for the same reasons I held on to the long-sleeved ones)
• Boy #1's first school jumper (No idea why that one made the cut other than perhaps to remind me of what a god-awful colour it was)
• A smart dress shirt in a gorgeous pale blue and cream print that both Boys wore about, oh, twice, but which again I have strong memories of and so can't part with.
• A teeny-tiny pair of socks and a cuddly pram blanket that did service for both Boys #1 and #2 (no explanation needed).

What items of your children's clothing can't you bring yourself to part with?

Observations #101

Well, our shipment of 'stuff' from the UK finally arrived. Only 3 months after we did, but let's not go into the reasons behind that...

(Oh, you insist? Well... No, I couldn't. Let's just say it's not me that's to blame. Or the Boys. 'Nuff said?)

Anyway, 30 or so boxes turned up the day before we went away for a week, so it's only now, 10 days after our return, that (almost) all of them have been unpacked and distributed into the additional storage we had to go to Ikea to buy once we realised how much useless crap we had spent good money to bring with us.

And now that I have had the chance to take stock of what was packed in that mad pre-departure rush, I would like to make the following observations...

1. Electric hand-whisks work better when you remember to pack the beaters as well.

2. Packing enough bed linen for 4 double beds and 2 singles - twice over - is a somewhat pointless exercise when you are currently living in what is basically a 2 bedroom cottage.

3. Likewise towels. What were you expecting PM, to be training as the local midwife?

4. Promising your Husband that you would love to rustle up some wonderful dinner parties, but only once your Le Creuset arrives, leaves you no place to hide once it does.

5. Leaving all your summer shoes back in England (which could so easily have been included in the shipment) to be collected at some future date, when said 'future date' is one month after the official start of summer, is not the smartest sartorial move one can make.

6. Entrusting your Husband with the safe packing and delivery of the dvd player remote control was just asking for trouble.

7. Keeping your own counsel when he pronounces that it will be no problem and he is sure he'will find it somewhere', (making the Boys' watching any blu-ray dvd's until he does so an impossibility - and this in a house currently not connected to tv) is advisable, as...

8. ...Revenge is sweet when he wants to watch Episode 2 of Series 2 of The Wire and finds that to do so without the dvd remote control, he has to watch the whole of Episode 1 again to get to it.

(It's good, but not that good. I think he may now have prioritised finding that remote).