Studio Flooring

 

This morning was spend to put down laminat in the studio/library. It took approx 2.5 hours to get all that done. In the afternoon I put furniture back together, put books on the shelf and put the boxes that will be in the studio from the sitting room in the studio. Slowly but surely it feels like home.

 

I still have the master bedroom to do. I have a wood floor in there and need to find some time to sand it down before setting up the wardrobe but I think this will have to wait another week or two before I am able to do this.

Container has arrived

Road Trip to Germany

I left the Newcastle at 7:40am on Thursday 09.08.2012 and arrived in Seboldshausen at 1:30am on the 10th of August. Lond trip for me the dogs and my brother but I am happy to be here

Jessie saying bye to her boyfriend

all set and ready to go

in the car

break at the Channel Tunnel in Folkstone

Last sunrise in the UK

56 items

Container is on it's way to Germany

All packed and waiting for the van

Leaving night out

my brother and me

my old team

Shelley and me

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Moving on

In 6 days my brother will be here, to help with the move and look after the dogs while I be in London for a few days.

In 6 days is also my last day in the office (although I am only working 4 more days)

In 7 days I will be in London, watching the olympics, meeting friends and seeing my aunty

In 16 days I will have a night out with my friends to say good bye

In 21 days I will be leaving, leaving the UK and starting a new journey

Time is getting closer and closer and despite going to miss my friends I am getting more excited every day about it and can't wait.

I am selling quite a bit of furniture and the house is emptying quickly. I will sell another bunch once I get back from London and I am awaiting an offer on my car.

31 days left

Time is really flying now... I have 31 days left in the UK and only 12 days left at work. While I think time is flying by so fast I am also so looking forward to this. I have lot's of ideas of what I want to do once I am back in Germany but need to see first how the logistics of all of that work out.

From a homestead perspective, rabbits will be on the forefront, either in a few weeks time if I can find what I want or in spring, 1 buck and 2 does to start with and moving on from there.

I am packed more and more and am selling quite a bit too, which brings in extra cash. I have about 5 more boxes to go and pack.

52 days to go

I was right that time would be flying by once I reach the 100 days. I can't believe that in just about 7 weeks I will be back in Germany. There is still so much work and packing to be done it's unbelievable.
I have handed in my notice and my last official day is 10.08.2012 but due to holidays my last working day is going to be 25.07.2012 that is just 4 weeks from now. It feels strange, things are going amazingly well at work at the moment and my team is better then ever, so leaving at this point is very hard but at the same time I am so much looking forward to going to Germany.

My brother has started to do some minor work on my house e.g. painting the window frames and kitchen. I wanted to put a wood floor or laminat in the bedroom and was just told yesterday that under the carpet is a beautiful woodflooring, so I don't need to do extra work to put that in. That is amazing, i so love wood flooring :)

I have lot's of packing and selling to do still, you just cannot believe how much stuff I have. Well I can actually :)

Home

A home is a place you grew up wanting to leave and grow old wanting to get back to

John Ed Pierce

We have gorgeous sunshine at the moment a beautiful May indeed... it also makes me realize how much I'd like to be home right now. Home it's strange, over the last decade home has been a lot of things, home was once the US where I spend an amazing year as Au pair (well a part of my heart still things it home), until quite recently Newcastle used to be home. I can remember countless of times that I steppes out of the plane after a trip to Germany and thinking 'I am glad I am home', at some point over the last few month or maybe even year Seboldshausen became home again and I am so looking forward to going back. At the same time I know that I will miss my friends and the friendliness of the Geordie nation and yes same as the US, a part of my heart will always feel at home in Newcastle but I am also ready to go back home.

It's going to be 73 more days until the removal van will be here (just 2 month really) and I need to be ready and packed by then. I am busy sorting through everything and there just seems to much look through (what was I thinking howling all this stuff from Germany to England by car). It's strange to know that last Christmas I didn't even realize that it was going to be my last Christmas in the UK for while, stange to know that it's the last May for a while, so may last times for time being and at the same time a pull forward knowing that I have made the right choice.

Interesting Development

Last Wednesday I informed my manager that I would be leaving to move back to Germany, talk about shock. For me it was important that they would know as early as possible about this. Being a manager myself I believe that it's only fair to give them enough notice if possible, so that a suitable replacement can be found.
On Thursday when I got in the office Tony our director approached me. I always had a lot of respect for him. From the day I joined the company he's always been very approachable and visible, I got a lot of feedback from him on my performance and support for what I needed to do my job well. On Thursday he told me that Stu, my manager told him that I was leaving and he told me about the office in Germany that the company is currently in the process of opening and if I would be interested in that. Talk about surprise :) Unfortunately the office is in Berlin and too far from where I will be moving but the whole thought process and offer behind it really threw me off. I know I am doing a good job but this was a confirmation of it that I didn't expect, yet it was very much appreciated. 


Another surprise came this morning, my cousin and family (her husband and two kids) are going to be moving to Adelaide, Australia just a few days before I will be moving back to Germany. Greg her husband is a Kiwi and my cousin spend some time in Australia before and always wanted to move there. They decided it's the best for their family and they will be missed but I totally understand where they are coming from. I will go down to London in a few weeks to see them to say good-bye and hopefully can visit them in Australia one day.

Move update - 115 days to go

I remember doing a 100 days coutdown while I was in the US and the time just went by so fast. It's the same now, although on some days I think that the move is so far away but then when I think about it, we are half way through April already. Which leaves me with May and June in the and I am off from the 26.7 for a few days and then it's moving time. Even since February, when I made the decision, time has just flown by...

I have packed a few things but not much yet anyway. The moving company is booked for August 8th and majority of the payment has been made. The last payment will be made 1st of May and then this is one less thing to worry about.

I am working on plans of what to do workwise once I am in Germany. At the moment I am looking into self-employment options that let me work from home. We will see how this goes over the next few weeks.

This week

 

- I travelled 800miles by car driving through 5 contries in the process

- enjoyed walks at dawn through the woods I grew up in  

 

- watched how much the dogs loved the woods

- met up with old friends for a chat and glass of wine

- planted gooseberry bushes in the garden

- enjoyed time with family and friends

- checked out how much work I need to put in to get my house up to scratch when I move (there is so much work to do but oh the plans I already made in my head...)

- watched deers and rabbits in the woods and watched the dogs having fun in the little stream and pond

- enjoyed birds singing at 6am

A slight change of plans

It's been a few days since I last posted and there are some news. I have applied for a few jobs in Germany and responses have been good. So good in fact that I will be going to Germany for a week on the 6th of March.


I will go by car and take a few things with me, so am busy packing and planning. I have thaken book cases and shelfs apart, wrapped my wine glasses, packed boxes and put everythin on the table in the spare room. It looks like so much and so little at the same time.


Car will be packed in a weeks time and then it'll be a 13 hrs drive

Where will I move to?

The above is a view of Seboldshausen, the small village that I will be moving to.
Below is the house I will be moving into (circled in red)

Below is a floor plan of the house that I will move into. The house is a two story house which is split in an upstairs and downstairs house. The downstairs house was my first place that I lived on my own about 10 years ago. It has been rented out since then. My mom and brother live upstairs but the two houses are completely separate from each other with the garden shared. The garden is a good acre too but my mom already said that it’s getting too much for her, so it will be mainly me planting.



I have some plans for the next 5 years on some of the areas of the house that are without heating and insulation. For once I want to move the back door to the kitchen instead of having it in the outer buildings. I also want to add heating and insulation to the empty room that is currently used for hanging up washing in the winter and change it to a bedroom, with a hallway to connect it to the front hall/entry.

189 days - or - 27 weeks and 0 days

until I till permanently move back to Germany.

That might be a shock to many of you but it's something that I have considered and debated for the last 7 month already. Originally I had planned to move towards the end of 2013 but several things made August 2012 a much, much better prospect.

When I left Germany in December 2003, it was mainly because I was hearbroken from having had to leave the US, not wanting to deal with the culture and re-entry shock, wanting to find my own feet and seeing something of the world. I picked Newcastle because of the work offer that I received and had an amazing 7.5 years here. There are two main reasons why I stayed so long a) the amazing people and friends I made here and b) Convergys and both are very much interlinked with each other. To be honest if I had not been made redundant last year, I don't think moving back to Germany would have made it on the list until a few years down the line. Anyway, things happen for a reason and I found myeself as a person over the last few years and know that I want to continue the direction of homesteading and moving back to Germany will help me on this way.

So where am I going? I will be going back to Seboldshausen, a village with 250 inhabitants, nestled in the foothills of the Harz mountains, surrounded by rolling fields and woods. An amazingly beautiful place in the countryside.