Before leaving country…

When researching ahead of our trip I found a few really helpful lists of things to do at home before leaving country, but every person/posting/list is different, here’s mine:-

• Hand my notice in – I work as a Personal Assistant and my resignation came with an offer to try working virtually, for me this is very exciting, and a little adventure just for me!
• Invite my lovely grandma to visit for a weekend close to our leaving date, she has never flown in her life so won’t be jumping on a plane for a holiday, but I can teach her how to use Skype (yes my 87 year old Grandma has her own iPad and loves an email littered with emoji’s but wasn’t too keen on Skype in case she hadn’t had her weekly blow dry!)
• Buy suitcases …our baggage entitlement for the flight out is 90kg each so we invested in some new Tripp cases (we wanted to take as much out on day 1 as possible as our shipping container wouldn’t be arriving for approx. 10 weeks)
• Have vaccinations – goodness did I make a fuss about nothing for these, moving to Dubai technically I didn’t need to have any but our nurse was keen to cover me for Tetanus and Hepatitis A, having never had a vaccination as an adult and being a bit of a wimp I will share there were tears at the dinner table about having to have injections, I pleaded with my husband not to make me have them, I was white as a ghost at the clinic and then you guessed it …I didn’t even feel them, how embarrassing – moral of the story: don’t be a wimp!
• One for just the WIVES – have that delightful experience that we receive every three years in the form of a smear test – even though Dubai has fantastic medical care, my nurse informed me medical records are not shared cross-country so it is important to have one done in the UK before you leave …and on a return journey in three years’ time
• Have all four wisdom teeth removed – not strictly something everyone will need to sign up to before a posting, but during my dental clearance check-up it was kindly pointed out to me I had four impacted wisdom teeth and they needed to be removed (I am about to finish 10 months of Invisalign treatment so it didn’t seem worth risking all that time and money to have huge molars push everything out of place) …update, the dental surgeon decided I didn’t have impacted teeth and as they hadn’t caused me any pain (I didn’t know they existed before 2017) he would leave them in, I never knew I loved my wisdom teeth so much, very happy to report they are still deeply buried in my mouth!
• Get new passport photos – luckily my passport was due to run out in 2017 anyway so I managed to get a full ten years of use before having to get a new one issued via my husband’s work – pain free although it took three different photo booths and a blow-dry to get a good enough picture!
• Dinner and drinks with EVERYONE – both our sets of parents were great in organizing family get-togethers (we decided after our wedding last year that our Mothers could get involved and organise the leaving parties, we felt we had earnt a rest), leaving us to schedule evenings with our friends < definitely one of the perks of departing for a posting.
• Rent out the apartment – we decided to use a property agent that is the husband of an ex-colleague, lovely for someone else to pay off the mortgage, not so lovely when you read all the bad rental stories. The apartment we leave behind was my first ever home and I bloody loved buying it and moving in …later joined by my husband, I hope the new tenants are as happy as I was and just as caring of its beautiful white walls and floor to ceiling windows
• Stock up on sun cream – I’m pale, born a red-head, the nurse who administered my vaccinations was much less worried about Tetanus and Hep A then she was about me being in the sun! My husband is originally from Australia so is a bit more used to the sun and protecting himself …on the other hand I turn to a crispy rasher of bacon after seeing the sun on a postcard so I waited for an offer and then scooped up gallons of SPF 50!
• Sort out bills and insurances – reminders everywhere to take final readings and inform whoever needs to know when we leave, my husband’s work offers a reduced rate of contents insurance which we took, I heard horror stories of people coming back from posts and ships capsizing, their containers plummeting into the sea, possessions never to be seen again (I haven’t actually met any of these unfortunate people, but I didn’t want to risk it). Writing up a “shipping inventory” made me realise just how expensive ‘adulting’ is! From bikes to bath-towels, jeans to jewelry, trainers to TVs, I almost felt a bit shamed about how much money I had invested/frittered on all these “must have” items.
• Research research research – I love the internet, I love reading, I love researching things, I compiled a list of things to do in Dubai from big expensive stuff like hot air ballooning to where the best yoga classes are held. Dubai looks like it’s going to be a fun city and close to some fantastic holiday locations so we need to make the most of our four years!
• Take a step back and be thankful – some of the blogs or articles I read are written by what seems like quite sad lonely trailing spouses, I refuse to be one, my husband and I are a team and are doing what’s best for both of us, from the outside this feels like it will be a really amazing opportunity and quite a privileged lifestyle and I am so thankful.

 

What was on your list?

Is there anything you wished you had done before leaving?

Anything you weren’t prepared for?