An ex pat reflection

First of all don’t feel obliged to read this. It’s a reflection on heading back to the UK after 4 years away. Some of it is just to get my thoughts out and some of it is as a souvenir, which is the french word for memory.

Haven’t seen mum since 2018 and my brother and dad since 2019. Kids were 7 and 10 when they last saw grandma. The boy is a smelly, taller teenager now. The girl is still pretty girly to be honest.

The 30 hours of travelling is a chore. I remembered, the kids didn’t. But as usual as soon as you arrive the flight is forgotten. Not so much on the way home but more of that later.

We had no travel issues. Thank goodness.

The UK turned the weather on, it was glorious for three weeks. The UK is awesome when the weather is nice.

I travelled from Lancaster to Yorkshire to Birmingham suburbs to Moreton-in-Marsh (Cotswolds) to Cheltenham to Cardiff to Winchmore Hill (West of London) to London to Harry Potter world.

We didn’t make a meal for three weeks. I ate a lot of pork pies and had many beers.

I ran, then pulled my calf and then walked 50+ km’s (not all at once) I rode a bit too. It was lovely. It was especially lovely to be able to do it in glowing countryside and several times with my wife, usually we don’t coincide.

Hanging out with some very old friends is the height of psychological bucket filling – I’ve know the oldest friend since I was 8. A small but select group. The shared past and the deep connection is quite something.

I hung out with my brother. I love my brother he’s a good lad.

I spent too much time in the company of my children. That’s good but also painful as they bicker constantly over mind numbing and mainly completely fucking pointless trivia. They argue for the sake of arguing both trying to somehow “win”. We fell out several times.

My wife and I saw our parents after 4 years. We’ve finally had to confront the reality of ageing parents who are a long way away from where we live.

We’ve had lengthy discussions. This trip was the first one where we’ve both seriously thought about going back “home.” For home it is. But it’s really hard eh. Realistically we need to finish Aussie citizenship for the kid’s sake. That’ll take a year I guess – and then the enormous cost of heading home. Probably 18 months. By then the boy will be 16 and really unimpressed with being removed from his mates. The girl would be 13 and is a bit more resilient but I can’t imagine she’d appreciate it either. Then to a lower paid job in a country where it usually rains all the time.

I’d always said I wouldn’t go back unless I could be mortgage free. I’m not sure we could do that. My wife would have to wind up her practice and start all over again in the UK NHS.

So it all seems to be in the too hard basket. But we both are really feeling the pull. The compromise we’ve reached at the moment is for my wife to head back twice a year and me once a year and take the kids every other year. Certainly a damn sight cheaper overall!

But it really goes to show that money doesn’t buy you happiness. We have more money in Aus but less social connection and all the psychology books say again and again, that’s where it’s at.

This trip has really highlighted it.

We also thought maybe a sabbatical in 2026 when the boy finishes school (he can stay home and look after the dogs) – a definite maybe.

The girl finishes in 8 years so we could go back then. But a lot can happen in 8 years and the kids would be fully Australian and probably then we wouldn’t want to go and leave them…

Some friends we stayed with left the same day as us to head to the french alps. A whole different country, with a different language and culture. Such a luxury to have on your doorstep…

We stopped in Abu Dhabi on the way back to Aus – we weren’t meant too but I may have misjudged the length of the layover. It was nice, I should have gone to the enormous mosque we could see from the hotel. But it was 42 degrees and we weren’t moving from the pool or the air conditioning… Jet lag is quite literally very tiresome…

We had a most excellent holiday and if I could retire and walk and ride the countryside of the UK I’d do it tomorrow. But of course it’s not real, we were on holiday, not doing the daily grind, everybody was glad to see us and made an effort. The weather was good! It wasn’t winter…

As an aside despite all the doom and gloom that is percolating twitter and the press, everyone we hung out with was content, as I travelled by train down and across the countryside the villages and towns and countryside were the same as they always were. The people were pleasant (apart from one tool) the beer was cheap.

The hire car wasn’t – far out that was a painful hit…

Harry Potter world was just marvellous a true sight to behold and it makes the films even more impressive when you watch them again ( they happened to be on the plane entertainment so that was nice)

I came home and dropped FTE..

So what’s my conclusion? I dunno I’m just writing because I like to write and it’s a kind of catharsis and maybe I’ll look back on this in a few months time once we’re back in the thick of it and wonder what all the fuss was about…