A wish list…

Pre-warning this is a really long blog post …may require a cup of tea to tide you over!

When I first started writing this post it was purely about all the fun things I had read about on Time Out or seen posted on Instagram that I wanted to have a go at in Dubai, but on reflection I am hopeful that this move will be about so much more than signing up for a fancy spin class, meeting penguins at the ski-slopes and a hot air balloon ride (of course they are all made top 10 on the list) but everything felt a little materialistic and I asked myself who gets the chance to pack up their suitcase and move 3,000 miles across the world to live in another country, with their lovely new husband and have everything taken care of …not many, and with just 5 weeks to go I don’t want to waste an opportunity for a new start, dreams of a happier, healthier “new me” spring to mind, so, in true Kimberley-style, I have started a second list…

Healthy eating; breaking out of the unhealthy cycle and onto the healthy choices

I’m currently stuck in a vicious cycle of years and years of “healthy” eating and dieting followed by having a blow out on chocolate and takeaways then missing a few meals to make up for it, feeling bad about myself and starting all over again! There is so much information out there about what to do and what not to do that my head is permanently swimming in good fats, high protein, dark chocolate, eat carbs, don’t eat carbs, do more cardio, lift more weights, that I’m hoping a new country will bring a fresh start and a chance to break some old habits and gain some new ones …an active lifestyle, fresh clean food and some balance to meal times.

Feeling fitter; being consistent without being stuck in a routine

I’m not the world’s most unfit person I can run 5k, perform a variety of squats and lunges and can hurl around a few kettles bells but what I lack is consistency, I snooze my alarm too often and get easily disheartened when after one week in the gym I haven’t completely transformed my body (what a shock!). I’m a real believer in healthy body = healthy mind, so this week I’ve enlisted a Personal Trainer to get back to basics and help write up a workout plan I can trial for the next few weeks and then take away with me (luckily there is a gym and pool in the apartment complex) and there is a plethora of fitness classes to try out in Dubai – updates to follow!

Drink more water …weekends need water too!

Sounds simple enough, whilst I’m at work I get through a few litres a day but I know as soon as the weekend hits I seem to forget where the tap is, I’ve put a fancy water bottle on my birthday list (surprise – another list!) and promise to keep it filled up with h2o goodness and next to my side at all times, especially in the hot weather.

Managing my money …is there such a thing as the saving-bug?

Luckily I have a husband who is fantastic with money, he loves saving and isn’t too keen on shopping, but they say opposites attract and they are right! I love spending money (mainly clothes and make-up nothing too outrageous) and to me any money that goes into my “savings” account is just a pot of money for shopping. As I get a little older I have started to realise maybe I don’t need a 42^nd pair of jeans, maybe that money could be saved for the future. I will start small with a little to go into savings each month …and maybe I will get the saving-bug …or a nice new handbag!

Keeping in touch with old friends

I’m keen to know your views on this? How do you handle being away from friends and family for so long, trying to keep in touch with regular face time, but also jumping in with both feet and starting a new life somewhere without clinging on to the past? I think there is probably a healthy balance somewhere between WhatsApp messages detailing every little thing that happens to returning home in 4 years’ time people struggling to remember who you are and why you were friends in the first place? Help!!

…and making new ones

I’m terrible at this, I like the easy familiarity of meeting an old friend for coffee and just being 100% me, if anyone has a guide for being an awesome expat that people want to invite out to parties/dinners/days at the beach send it over, …oh to be 4 years old again and just chat to anyone!

Date nights

My husband is awesome. Truly awesome. And he is very good at being a husband. Me on the other hand I seem to let us get stuck in a rut too often and need to inject some fun and spontaneity into us. We used to have one or two date nights every week, but in the run up to leaving the UK and lots of plans with friends and family we have lost our weekly outings …I’m hoping Dubai will give us a chance for some new date nights, a change in work schedules, different places to visit, new things to experience, looking forward to walks on the beach and evenings spent on the balcony; date nights with a different view perhaps.

Relax / enjoy myself / be in the moment

I am a natural born organiser/planner/spreadsheet-lover. And I love nothing more than writing a list and creating an itinerary BUT something I realised last year whilst road-tripping from San Francisco to LA is I was so busy reading the map and working out what time we would arrive at our destination and triple-checking reservations that when I suddenly realised I hadn’t looked out the window at the beautiful landscape for nearly an hour (…one whole hour of coastline that I hadn’t seen and may never see again) I felt so disappointed, regretful. It feels like I need to set an alarm every day to remind myself to stop what I’m doing and just enjoy life for a moment or two …but I suppose the alarm would defeat the object of living in the moment wouldn’t it? So I’m writing this and leaving it here as a reminder to myself …life is good, stop worrying all the time, relax and enjoy the here and now!

What a different list from the first one I wrote, looks like my hopes are all about being happy, making healthy choices (shout out to my amazing sister-in-law, who is all about the “healthy choices”!), important people (friends, family, husband, new people yet to be found) and enjoying some new experiences. In no particular order, the new wish list….

• Healthy eating …breaking out of the unhealthy cycle and onto the healthy choices
• Feeling fitter …being consistent without being stuck in a routine
• Drink more water …weekends need water too!
• Managing my money …is there such a thing as the saving-bug?
• Keeping in touch with old friends
• …and making new ones
• Date nights
• Relax / enjoy myself / be in the moment

For those of you wondering, my original warm weather wishlist is here…

1. Night Swimming at Le Meridien Mina Seyahi
2. Underwater spinning class at L’Atelier Aquafitness
3. Meet the penguins at Ski Dubai
4. Urban yoga class at Aspect Tower, Business Bay
5. Hot air balloon ride over the sand-dunes
6. Farmers Market at Zabeel Park on a Friday
7. Comedy night at Tribeca Restaurant
8. Jogging at Al Barsha Pond Park
9. Horse racing for Dubai World Cup in March
10. Dubai museum at Al Fahidi Historical District …coins, camels and coffee
11. Chill out at the Ice Bar lounge in snow gear drinking a hot chocolate
12. Grand Prix …not strictly Dubai but Abu Dhabi looks close enough
13. Stand-Up Paddle-boarding, I wanted to try this in Oz but the sea never seemed warm enough, and… well… sharks!
14. Brunch …where are the best places for brunch for fantastic food?
15. Cycling on the track at Al Qudra …this one will have to wait until out bikes arrive in

Am I being too unrealistic?

Is a posting just the same life in different surroundings?

What were your hopes when you moved?

How do you keep yourself happy and healthy whilst away?

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?

1000 Google searches…

Two years ago when my then-boyfriend first asked the question, very casually over dinner one evening, ‘fancy going on a posting’ and I started my first of what feels like one thousand Google searches…

“Living overseas, working abroad, moving away, expats, working visas, emigrating, business class travel”

I found a whole new world and a tonne of information, nothing really specific to me but lots of helpful hints and tips. Then I stumbled across Clara Wiggins’ book The Expat Partner Survival Book which after reading every single one of Clara’s blog posts I purchased her book and have found it a fantastic resource. She talks about the whole process from start to finish and then dives into the details of really what happens when your partner leaves for work on your second day in country or when you are missing family and home comforts.

Skip forward to present day and we have just 8 weeks to go until we move overseas (to Dubai, and considering this is our first posting, I think we lucked out!) and I don’t want to forget the things happening now …I have a terrible memory and potentially this could be the first posting of many, of course it could all be an absolute nightmare and be the first and the last …either way I’m determined it’s going to be an adventure…

So two years on from that ‘fancy going on a posting’ dinner my boyfriend is now my husband, the job offer has long been accepted, blogs have been read, medical/dental care has been signed off, vaccinations injected and the time seems to be ticking away rather quickly and excitement levels rising.

My lovely husband works for the Government and whilst he is exceptionally interesting, of course, lots of his shop-talk doesn’t quite make it to the dinner table, so whilst we are in quite the fortunate position of his work relocating us and taking care of most of the details (and me feeling quite lucky/spoilt/smug after reading some blogs where spouses are left to do a lot of the work) I won’t talk too much about that side of things (my husband, his work) …for fear of saying something I shouldn’t …but so far we haven’t had too much involvement in the actual move and therefore our to-do list is being ticked off in a timely manner.

 

So what?

So if I’m not here to talk about my husband and I haven’t got much involvement with the relocation (we have been given an apartment and the flights are booked) what on earth am I hear to ramble on about? When I started my online search into the world of overseas posting I found lots of facts (how to rent out our UK apartment, how to take a final water metre reading, how to complete a visa application, where to buy and drink bottled water) all that good stuff that you need to know, but I also stumbled across quite a few ‘trailing spouse syndrome’ blogs about depression and divorce and not fitting in and wanting to pack up and return home and I was quite frankly, terrified I had made the wrong decision for the foreseeable future.

I’m not a rose-tinted glasses kind of girl but at the same time I love an adventure, my husband and I make a great team and I wondered if the blogs I was reading were by – cue to unintentionally alienate the masses – written by my mother’s generation, she was a trailing spouse without a job, with no internet access, no Skype or FaceTime, no laptop, and she spent her days hand writing letters back to the UK …but its 2017 now and I can work virtually, I spent a year travelling in 2011/12 and have been taught that I can “have it all” …independence …the vote …an Instagram account. I jest, somewhat, but I wanted to write something different – something positive, with my rose-tinted glasses on (where possible, although secretly hoping I wont need them!) There are worldwide communities available to leap right into thanks to Instagram for everyone’s idyllic travel pics and home workouts, LinkedIn for work opportunities, InterNations for meet ups and Expat websites galore …but is that really the case, is it just that easy to pack up and move and fit right in? I’m hoping to find out.

Maybe my mother’s generation were right and I will have to make sacrifices …or maybe there’s a new type of trailing spouse who trails significantly….?