SETTLING IN ENGLAND

PINPINWe’ve been here in England for just over a week now, and we are slowly settling in. It feels very fall-like this morning; drizzling and chilly. Kyle headed off for his second week of work at his new job as a head brewer for a smallish brewery close by the house, and the girls and I are finding our footing in our new house, on our new street, in our new town, in this new country. We’re spending the day the way we’ve spent most of our days here so far: eagerly awaiting orders from Amazon and IKEA. We are about an hour outside of London, and where we live feels very similar to the Pacific Northwest. It’s nice and familiar-feeling: lots of trees, and green, and rain, and grey, and coffee. We don’t have a car yet, so most of what we’ve seen and explored so far has been by foot or bus. There are lots of parks and paths, and everyone we’ve interacted with has been incredibly warm and welcoming.

The story of this move is still taking it’s time to catch up to us… there was no way that if you’d asked me six months ago I could have seen this on the horizon. In the beginning of March, Kyle came home one day and declared that he needed a job change. As soon as he said it, it completely made sense. We’d been not entirely happy for a while, having a hard time in general, and when he said that it all seemed to click into place. He was just wrapping up a long stretch of school to finish his Masters’ degree, and even though his job was great and steady and wonderful, we needed a change. Fast forward through several interviews with a number of breweries in different areas of the US, and a few abroad, and we found ourselves committing to this particular brewery here in England.

We’ve always wanted to move abroad. We’ve always wanted to travel with the kids. We used to sit in our one bedroom apartment and scheme and dream about selling all of our belongings and moving to Europe. But then we got a kitty, and then we had Gigi, and then Lulu, and we bought a house, and we slowly became a part of our community, and we loved where we lived, and we made wonderful friends, and we had a garden, and furniture that we liked, and a routine, and health insurance, and family within driving distance. We had everything we wanted, but our last, challenging year, Kyle’s need for a job change, and that deep-seated longing to see more and taste more and experience more pulled us out of our life and into this one.

PINPINPINPINPINPINIt has been exciting, but also incredibly hard. I underestimated the physical and emotional challenges of this kind of move – especially while pregnant! It is absolutely an adventure, but it’s not been easy. The process was slow and stressful, and Kyle spent three months without working before we got here. As I sit this morning in our new house, that doesn’t yet in any way feel like or resemble a home, waiting for our orders of things like: a mop bucket, a pair of scissors, a baking sheet, bath mats, garbage cans (or bins, as they’re called here), pots and pans, and laundry baskets, I can’t help but feel set right between feeling excited, and feeling homesick. Letting go, it turns out, is equally liberating and heartbreaking. Embracing change is equally thrilling and scary. I’m equally happy that we’re here, and wondering, “What the $!@£ have we done?”

PINPINIt feels great to be wrapping up the “Moving To England” to do list that we chipped away at for the past few months, and to be settling in here even as everything feels… well, foreign. As we settle in, get utilities installed, furniture delivered, rooms deep cleaned, and laundry done, I feel like we’re slowly embracing this space as ours – maybe it won’t ever feel like “our” home, but it will certainly work as a good, cozy, home-base for the adventures and experiences we’re going to have while we’re here. This move is, at the very least, an opportunity to wake up and engage, to be open where I’ve been rigid, to be brave, and to say yes to as many new experiences as I can. That will include exciting things like trips to Paris to visit family, weekends in Sweden, and taking the kids to the zoo in Amsterdam, as well as simple day to day things like making our house feel like a home with cheap IKEA furniture and candles, and dedicating myself to being a home-educator.

PINPINI’m not sure what all of this change will mean for this little space I’ve dedicated to writing in for the past several years; there will still be plenty of recipes (once I figure out the grocery store, Celsius, grams, and those pots and pans and baking sheets arrive), but I imagine there will be more about travel and exploration. I’m looking forward to sharing about our journey here. Most of these photos are copied over from Instagram, where I’ve been sharing quite a bit.

“The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

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