Winds of Change

Posted on May 18, 2013 by Jen Watkiss

With all the griping I did about our move, you would think I do not like change.

This is not true. I like it a lot. Perhaps too much. I am rarely content to leave well enough alone. I just prefer when I’m the one initiating it, rather than having it imposed upon me.

So after a bit of a yell and a bit of a cry about the unfairness of the world, etc. we picked ourselves up and got on with it. Saturday morning we headed down to the property management office, and by Saturday afternoon we were viewing a property right around the corner. Monday morning we had an accepted tenancy application. We move in on July 11th.

One thing that’s been made really obvious on this ExPat adventure is how much change there is in the world. Without the usual, familiar anchors of neighbourhoods we know like the back of our hand, social systems we’ve been navigating all our lives, long-known friends & family nearby, a house we don’t have to move out of until we decide to, or jobs we’ve been in for a long time, we feel all the other little changes quite a bit more keenly.

Basically, we are coming to realize that we can’t actually count on anything staying as it is.

New friends come and go as people move in and out of our jobs/daycare/neighbourhood/city. Businesses we have come to rely on & enjoy close, or change owners, and we need to find new ones. Landlords adapt to the changes in their own lives, which trickles down to ours. The constant ebb and flow of bureaucratic processes surge in and out, interrupting and changing our plans as we weave our way through our dealings with government offices and institutions.

It’s actually kindof amazing to ride the rollercoaster of emotion that comes with each change. Sadness and disappointment are keen, but tempered by knowing that they’ll pass. And in contrast, joy and excitement are so much sweeter, and really relished, knowing that they could be fleeting.

With each change, we learn a little more, broaden our horizons, gain a bit of wisdom, grow a bit more resilient.

And wait for the next wave to crash.

Wind Of Change – Scorpions – Official Music Video from Chito Mañosca Francisco on Vimeo.

On the Move

Posted on May 10, 2013 by Jen Watkiss

Just last week we were talking about how gloriously happy we were in our current place. Great space, lovely neighbours, excellent location. So of course, we received a call today that the landlord wants to move back in, and won’t be renewing our tenancy when it expires on 31 July.

Fuck.

We have just shy of three months to find a new place. It’s not impossible, but it’s going to be very hard to find a place in our budget that gives us the space and location we love about our current digs. This is exactly the kind of thing I was worried about when we jumped on the renting bandwagon.

Not that purchasing a place is really possible for us right now anyhow.

As soon as we got the news, in an effort to not be unceremoniously punted out of our next place (and the one after that?), we called the bank to ask about buying. And being new to the UK has burned us again. I can not apply for a mortgage without being a permanent resident (known here as having Indefinite Leave to Remain – ILR). That’s in the process, but certainly won’t be done by the time we need to move. So we’d have to qualify on Neil’s salary alone. That doesn’t leave us much to work with in this neighbourhood.

It’s just another of the ways I’m feeling particularly screwed by the immigration process lately.

I am mired in the procedure and bureaucracy of the arduous processes to get a driver’s license, because they need to take my passport for a month to verify my identity. Unfortunately, the UKBA Home Office has it for the 6 months they take to process ILR applications.

I have basically given up on the idea of getting a credit card in my own name (I am currently a secondary cardholder on Neil’s), because I do not know a bank officer, doctor, postmaster or chartered accountant who lives in the UK, has known me for two years, and will sign a certified copy of my passport swearing that I am who I say I am for the anti-money-laundering regulations.

And, immigration-wise, we have it relatively easy. Neil is a UK citizen, so he has fewer hoops to jump through to get a driver’s license (though he does still have to pass a road test on a manual transmission). His company set up a bank account and credit card, so we’re ok on that front. He did have a hard time getting a national insurance number, though.

We’re even moving faster than most on the whole ILR thing; we coincidentally received my and Isaac’s visa just a couple weeks before they changed the rules, so it means we do not have to serve the mandatory waiting period (used to be 2, just changed to 5 years) before even applying for settlement.

I do not know how other people get through that period, to be honest.

I don’t even have a lot of the barriers many other immigrants do of coming from a totally different culture or language. I don’t look or dress like I’m ‘from somewhere else.’ We are allowed to drive here for a full 12 months on our Canadian licenses, and can exchange them for UK ones, even if it is only for automatic transmissions. Nobody recognizes my university or my degree, but I am at least able to practice my profession here (unlike foreign-trained doctors, etc.) Hell, I’m even allowed to vote here (thanks, commonwealth!) But just when I feel like I’m fitting in and settling down, I keep running into these roadblocks that make me feel like a second-class citizen.

The things I worked for, achieved, or had earned in Vancouver mean nothing here. No credit history, no reputation. Nobody cares. I am an unknown, and generally not to be trusted. It all feels profoundly unfair.

“Starting over” sounds aspirational and romantic. Mostly, it’s a logistical nightmare.

I have so much empathy now for anyone who makes a much bigger leap than we have, to begin a new life in a new place.

Anyhow, having this rental rug pulled out from under us, when it was one of the only things I was feeling really good and confident about, is hard. Really hard. Making me question why we ever bothered coming here hard. Making me want to cut our months of time and thousands of dollars in losses and just get out hard.

But I have never been one to do things the easy way.

And so we plod on.

Six years later

Posted on February 25, 2013 by Jen Watkiss

It’s grey here today. Exceedingly grey. And cold.

And there is nothing like reminders from Timehop about the fact that this time one year ago, I was in Cuba, and two years before that, in Thailand, to make me feel extra grumbly about the grey and cold.

So I scrolled further back in the past, and whaddya know, it was six years ago today that we were in Oxford. My first trip here.

Six years ago, Neil and I were engaged, and planning to move into our condo in Kits (which wouldn’t actually be completed for an additional 6 months). There was still no plan or idea of Isaac. The dog didn’t have a hint of grey in her now salt-&-pepper muzzle.

Neil didn’t yet have a UK passport, and wouldn’t for another 4-ish years. Moving abroad wasn’t anywhere on the radar. Heck, I had barely traveled anywhere at all before that year.

And yet, there was something about our visit. Something that sparked the idea of moving abroad at some point. Something that made us think, as we wandered around the city, that maybe one day we could live here.

It wasn’t so much about Oxford, as just going somewhere Other Than where we were. Making our world a little bigger than it had been. It became a gauge by which we’d categorize all trips we’d take: interesting, but could I live here?

It was six years ago that we ventured the furthest from the hotel we’d gone, into another neighbourhood via a narrow street lit by bare overhead bulbs. Where we turned right, onto a street anchored by the iconic Oxford University Press and full of interesting looking boutiques and eateries. Where we looked up one of the side streets and saw the bright streak of pastel row houses, and I said “if we ended up in an area like this, I could totally live here.”

It was six years ago that I stepped into the road to take the photo currently used in the blog header.

Neighbourhood and street names long-since forgotten, we found ourselves actually moving to Oxford. And against all odds ended up moving to that neighbourhood. I only recognized it because of the pastel row-houses, and had to dig out the picture to be really sure. They are the same houses. Observatory Street.

And we found them, via Walton Street in Jericho, by heading down Little Clarendon street, illuminated at night by bare bulbs strung across the street. Now our regular stomping ground, but feeling eerily familiar, in a dream-like way, from having seen them so many years ago.

Six years ago it happened to be sunny this week. Uncharacteristically so. Except for that one day in Henley-upon-Thames when it was so rainy and windy that my umbrella blew inside-out and practically tied itself in a knot. And the river was flooded that year, just as it is now.

But that little blast-from-the-past now has me thinking a lot less about today’s cold and grey, and about the immense amount of adventure the past 6 years have held. And how absolutely clueless about it all I was back then.

And I’m wondering what, or where, on earth I’ll see in another six years.

Tea-mendous

Posted on February 18, 2013 by Jen Watkiss

Moving house can often lead you to see your possessions in a new light.

Especially when you have packed in a hurry, without making much effort to thin your piles of stuff before beginning. And are then distanced from that stuff for half a year.

Because who the hell brings tea (from the new world, at that) to England?

Us, apparently.

Amber just posted round two of her Tea Stash Challenge, which reminded me how overwhelmed and somewhat incredulous I feel every time I look at the shelf containing all our tea.

It doesn’t look too bad, until you unpack it all onto the kitchen counter:

There are multiples of different types of tea, thanks to my old work-desk stash making its way back home, some tea gifts, and impulse purchases of various lemon/ginger-type blends bought on a whim when I’ve felt sick. There are random bags and samples I’ve picked up along the way. There are tins from at least two tea shops that have gone out of business.

The small green tins down the right side are all leftover wedding favours (we gifted tiny tins of mint tea, to tie in with our Moroccan honeymoon) from nearly five (!) years ago, and the large tupperware on the left is Moroccan mint tea, bought on said honeymoon.

Does tea even last that long?

Honourable mentions go to two tins of drinking chocolate, a box of spiced cider sachets, and a couple orphan packs of Starbucks VIA coffee; also on the shelf, but not pictured, since they’re not tea.

Of course, the tea that actually gets used is the box of standard PG Tips, going through a pot or two a day. Runner-up is the loose or bagged Rooibos, for when I’m feeling overcaffeinated.

I would never describe myself as a “tea fiend,” but I clearly have some sort of tea hoarding issue.

It’s obviously time to start introducing some variety into my daily cuppa, or bin the lot and reclaim a shelf.

Are you a tea fiend and/or unintentional hoarder? Do share!

2013: a little more conversation, a little more action.

Posted on January 15, 2013 by Jen Watkiss

I was going to go for a run today. Instead, I am watching the “fitness” app on my TV update. And will then proceed to do nothing about it once it has. I’m really just curious about the app, not interested in exercising right this moment.

That is very much 2012 speaking.

I took a glance at my resolutions at the beginning of 2012, and had to laugh about how irrelevant they are, considering where we ended the year. But, scanning through what little I’ve blogged in 2012, and reflecting on the year I’ve just had, I definitely have a resolution for 2013: Lean In.

I feel like I have been hanging back for a while. Carrying around a bunch of baggage. Nothing big on its own, but enough pieces that, combined, I’ve let slow me with their weight.

So in 2013 I’m resolving to lighten that load.

Moving abroad has made one thing crystal clear to me: I need to DO more. To lean in. To “Ship.”

I feel like I’ve had ideas about things like connecting with friends, making new friends, and finishing stagnant projects for a couple years. I’ve been telling myself that when things “settle down” I’ll have time for all these. Time to do them properly.

Therein lies the error of my ways. Things do not “settle down.” And in the meantime, I’m a continent and an ocean (in either direction) away from friends and family who don’t often hear from me, and I continue to unpack projects that I need to either do or dump. It would also probably do me well to get over myself and ask one of the casual acquaintances I’ve made over for tea.

It all sums up to dropping the baggage and quit waiting for everything to be just right before I send an old friend a note, or ask a new friend to tea, or take the next step in a project, or do something about getting up off my ass with that fitness app. To stop worrying about perfection, and do it anyhow.

So, here’s to 2013. Let’s do this thing.

Home for the Holidays

Posted on December 31, 2012 by Jen Watkiss

I’ve always wondered what it’s like for people who take trips “home” for the holidays. When they live somewhere either away from family or the place they’re from, and make their way back to that place at Christmas time.

Now I know.

And it’s simultaneously very nice and very strange.

First of all, I have been trying not to refer to Vancouver as “home” anymore.

Not only does it make it harder to really lean in to our experience in Oxford, conjuring up bouts of melancholy homesickness, but “home” as we knew it in Vancouver doesn’t exist anymore. While we have family and friends here, and enjoy being surrounded by some of the places and things we left behind, our life in Vancouver (the place we lived, the jobs we had) doesn’t exist anymore. We can’t truly go “home” that way.

It’s been really excellent to spend time with friends and family, but there’s also a tinge of detachment overhanging it. The experience is temporary. The gang’s all here, but most members are making plans for next week when the status quo returns; we’ll be gone again.

This all sounds quite melancholy, but it isn’t, really.

It’s (so far) exciting to pack up and head out on another trip. To share the holiday experience of returning “home” with airports full of others.

It makes the experience of spending time with those friends and family sweeter, more intense. I find myself being much more present with friends & family now, because chances to spend quality time with them are fewer and further between.

It solidifies which traditions are really important and worth preserving, despite the challenges of timing, weather, and distance.

It makes it very obvious that as much as so many other things have changed over the years, others stay predictably, comfortingly, blissfully the same.

Even Jetlag is no match for Santa

On a Boat

Posted on November 18, 2012 by Jen Watkiss

This past Sunday we spent an afternoon on an English Canal Boat. And I kindof fell in love, a little bit.

I spent much of my youth RV (rather than tent) camping, and this is basically camping, but with less woods, more waterways.

We all know that the essence of camping is alternating relaxing, adventure, tomfoolery and naps between meals. And the waterways of the Canal and River Trust seem like a perfect way to do that.

The boats are fitted pretty similarly to how I remember our RV; small galley, head, fold-down dinette that converts to a bed. The bigger boats have dedicated bedrooms and bigger lounge areas. Many have aerial antennas and small TVs.

And you’re not confined to the canals. Pull up next to a pub to stop for lunch (there are many directly on the canals). Consult the local ordnance maps and stop next to an access point for a stroll or cycle along a public right-of-way. Or just throw stale bread to the ducks off the bow. Mix up a jug of Pimms and remain just sober enough to operate the locks along the way.

It’s entirely civilised.

So who wants to go boating next summer?