Déjà vu

I will admit to feeling quite cross.

Whilst there is a lot to be positive about (a return to good schools, a challenging new role for the Pioneering Accountant, friends and family, Radio 4, Tesco deliveries, bike rides and green open spaces) I feel like a pawn in someone else’s chess game.

We would have liked to have set the agenda and timescale for our return ourselves, to have had the time to consider where we would like to return to. After three years here it is possible to imagine that we would have had enough of urban living. We might have sold up and moved out of London, sent the children to country schools and recreated ourselves as active participants in village life. Who knows? Pressure of time has removed those choices from us. Instead of a year to six months to think about it we have approximately six weeks.

Whilst it is true that planning for any big event tends to expand to fill the time available without improving the quality of the finished product I feel slightly robbed. Not so much of the remaining two years of our three year term, but of our last months here. Instead of enjoying the summer term, new places to visit and discover, time spent at the beach and the pool, my summer will be spent looking for a place to rent, selling a car, a job lot of dehumidifiers, helping Clarabel find a new job, sorting through the children’s clothes and toys and saying goodbye. Again.