When Dan first got his new remote job, back in August, we decided to move to France. Back then I guessed we might be gone by January. It made sense to stay around for Christmas and for Eric to start school and just to give us chance a to get a lot of things sorted. BIG NEWS....we're still here. and there's a few people that I don't know super well that have seen me and said "you're still here" and lots of people that have asked how it's going. Until yesterday I was answering it's not going well. We're on stage 2 of 3, which is getting our marriage certificate and the kids birth certificates transcribed, which apparently takes FOUR MONTHS!
So if you've asked me in the last few weeks I would have told you, we don't know, but maybe the summer. But then yesterday there was a very tense moment, I saw the self addressed special delivery envelope on the mat.... we had seen it come back twice before with corrections we needed to do, but this time it had taken a lot longer this was either good news or really bad news....But then this beautiful green booklet arrived!
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| full disclosure I sent a much more in the moment genuine selfie round our family whatapps but I looked disgusting so this is a better one. The yellow really contrasts nicely with the green right? |
It's got all our names and dates of birth in and it means that we can move onto stage 3 of 3: getting the boys ID cards and my visa. Stage 1 was getting Dan's ID card so we already know how this stages goes, because we wasted weeks trying to figure it out. You have to get an appointment to go to London to see a french woman in a building next to the V & A museum. You have to book the appointment online, virtually every time you look there are no appointments. After a long time trying the honorary consul of Chester told us to try in the middle of the night. The only appointments that come up are cancellations and they come up for the briefest of times, more often in the middle of the night. So last night Dan stayed up until midnight and managed to grab the 29th March.
It's not ideal at all, ideal would be in February half term so that we don't have to take the kids out of school and we could have a few days holiday in London, but it was better than nothing. 4 weeks after that date we would finally get the document posted to Chester and then we could collect it and leave this cold grey country behind. Today in the afternoon I told Dan to check the website again and MIRACLE a date in half term was free! Before grabbing it Dan had to cancel his 29th March appointment because you can't have two appointments. He cancelled it, clicked on the half term one, but it had already gone! And so had the 29th March one. In less than 30 seconds someone had taken our cancelled appointment. There is a happy ending to this probably boring story of a ridiculous computer program. Just this evening we did manage to get one for the beginning of half term, 21st Feb which means by the end of March we're allowed to move to France!!!
Just got to empty our entire house and make it rentable, decide where to live in France, find a school for the boys, sort out a french car, get rid of our old car and our old rabbit, and get my visa, but that randomly is quite simple, it only takes 20 days and I only have to go to Manchester.
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| Anyone want this lovely but very old bunny Lola? She's soft and tame. |
My sister Sarah is having her long awaited proper party bit of her wedding at Easter time, so we will be staying for that, and we'll have a leaving party, and Eric really wants a party like Percy had, and even though his birthday is not until May it's only fair that he has one surrounded by people he knows. So there will be a lot of parties and visiting of everyone to do.
