Life Lately: The Stresses of Moving and Our Upcoming Antipodean Adventure

To say it’s been a busy start to 2023 would be an understatement. We’re in the process of moving house(s) and we are off on our Antipodean Adventure in  just four days. Work in practice has been incredibly busy and I have been doing as much as I can to get ahead with my self-employed work so I can meet/beat the deadlines before we go away. Rightly, this has had to take precedence over my blog, although I have been sharing a lot of exciting eyewear posts lately.

It’s Been Complicated…

I wrote about our decision to move house in this post a few months ago. Ian’s house sold quickly and the sale completed just over a week ago. Mine hasn’t been as straightforward. An issue with the Land Registry relating to my house should have been picked up by the solicitor acting for me when I moved in over eight years ago. This delayed things by several months. A further issue came to light more recently, which again is holding things up and adding further stress. However, things are finally falling into place and I have signed everything I need to sign. There is just one more step now. I don’t need to be in the UK for the exchange to go ahead so we are hoping fervently that the chain stays strong and positive and we can move soon after we get back.

I won’t say much about the new house until we have the keys, not because I’m superstitious, but because It’s still someone else’s beautiful home. If everything goes to plan though, Ian and I will have plenty to keep us busy. We have both enrolled on a short woodwork and joinery course and I am enrolled on a painting and wallpapering course. Both start in April. We want to do as many renovating projects as we can ourselves but we want to do our potential new home justice. It will be our forever home and it deserves the utmost love, attention and sympathetic restoration.

Our Antipodean Adventure Awaits

A trip to Australia and New Zealand has been on the cards for several years. My youngest brother and his wife moved to NZ in 2018. Since then they have had a second daughter. For obvious reasons, we haven’t been able to visit them, nor were they able to come to our wedding in 2021. We will be spending just over a week with them on South Island. I can’t wait to hug my nieces. It’s a big birthday year for my brother and I too. He’ll turn 40 and I’ll turn 50 later this year. I predict a party…

Before that though we have almost two weeks in Australia, starting with a week in Melbourne. Ian’s greatest friend and his wife live there. Again, they were unable to travel to attend our wedding. We’ve got so much planned already- amazing restaurants, vineyards, penguins(!)- and I cannot wait to spend time with them in the Australian summer. After that, Ian and I are flying over to Gold Coast where we will stay for five nights.

Needless to say we are beyond excited. I can’t wait to spend time with friends and family, to visit new places, to see some sun and to make new memories with Ian.

My camera  will be to hand every step of the journey; I already know that the sights and scenery will be incredible. I have some fabulous outfits old and new and some equally fabulous eyewear of course. I plan to share our adventures on Instagram  and Facebook so do follow me there if you don’t already. Blog posts will follow in due course about our Antipodean Adventure but I suspect/hope I’ll be surrounded by boxes to unpack so it may be a while.