October 2022 – 18 March 2023

We had been talking about this for at least a year, and had finally pulled the trigger about 4 months ago. We knew what was involved with moving countries, but this was bigger than France, both longer and more complicated. We were moving houses, moving schools, moving jobs, and 2 years just felt longer than one (‘that’s one fifth of my life Dad!’ as Jessie would say). This was more than just a few backpacks and carry-on bags. This was containers and whole warehouses full of storage. This was to-do lists long enough to stretch to the moon and back. 

We were confident that we were making the right decision – to uplift our very contented lives, and the lives of our (mostly) very contented children from our beautiful house in sunny Sydney (yes, as soon as we decided to move, Sydney put on the summer that we had been missing during 3 years of pandemic ridden La Ninas) and set up shop in not so sunny London. We had made that call in London in October in a pub in Balham while Liz and I were on a parents only reconnaissance trip (what could possibly go wrong with that kind of robust decision making?)

In the last few months, we had aggressively engaged with our very unconvinced constituents – why did we have to leave Sydney? What about my friends? My school? My netball team? My aspiring t-ball career? My everything? The younger the constituent (or the furrier) the more heightened the concern. We had won them over with a series of complex deals, promises and straight up, old school bribery (except for Bonnie, we never really won him over, but he didn’t really have a choice). 

They were now on the bus (or in our case, the back of the Qantas flight to San Francisco via Hawaii), if somewhat reluctantly, clutching at the spoils of their negotiations – a new iphone, new ipad and a new Macbook; and Bonnie was even more reluctantly in his ‘pet motel’ in Matraville. The only thing keeping them from pulling the parachute altogether was the promise of a visit to Auntie Jo in San Jose, and a 4 week trip around the US and Central America. 

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s go back to October…. 

We came back from our exploratory trip to the UK in October triumphant. After to-ing and fro-ing for months we had finally been able to bank a decision. We were going to London. We had satisfied ourselves that the pull of family, the work opportunities, the quality of education and the lure of having another adventure were strong enough to yank us out of our comfortable existence in Sydney. Our beautiful new house, our renovation plans, and of course our Sydney based family and friends would have to wait another couple of years. They were used to it. 

So, we’d made a decision. We were done. Right? 

The to do lists started to emerge even before we left the bar that cool autumn evening. 

School applications. School entrance exams. Job interviews. Finding somewhere to live. Fixing our house. Finding a tenant. Going through all our stuff. Going through Liz’s dad’s stuff. Planning holidays. Medical appointments including vaccines and scripts for various backup drugs). Finding sporting teams. Closing down work in Australia. Organising 10+ going away functions. The list was constantly evolving and unrelenting. There were tasks to curate and ‘groom’ the task list. The list was like a storm that created its own weather systems, destroying everything in its path. In the middle was Liz, gallantly trying to wrestle it to the ground (yes, I realise I’ve mixed analogies here). 

Over the next 4 months, we lived multiple lives. We had our ‘normal’ life in Sydney – filled with school, work, friends and lots of cricket. Then we had our ‘other’ life – where we were slaves to the task list. 

First things first, we planned our dates and booked our holidays. We would take 4 weeks to travel to the UK, trading in our business class tickets (much to Ellie’s disgust) to economy and using that to fund our North American adventure. Jessie’s one criteria was that she could stick around for her netball final on 18 March… so we booked our flights for that evening. 

Preparing the girls for their school entrance exams took about a month as we tried to teach them the 6-18 months worth of curriculum they hadn’t met yet but would need in the UK. Jessie had to do her Year 7 entrance exams in Year 4. It turns out most UK independent schools are selective, and we were keen for them to go through this system to get the full ‘English experience’. When asked their emotions around the exam process the answer was  “stressful, annoying and sad”

Anthony’s interview process took 4 months before we received final confirmation that there was in fact a role to go to in February. In fact, the offer letter came 4 days prior to departure. As of today, we still don’t have a signed offer letter but hey…. We have the old to do list – we can just do it all in reverse if worse comes to worse. 

Sorting through and selling/throwing/keeping all our belongings took 4 months, particularly as it included going through all of Liz’s Dad’s belongings. The commercial baker’s oven and custom built Brooklyn Special Bentley hill racer proved particularly hard to shift … who knew? 

At the same time, we were preparing the house for rental, making everything compliant and trying to make it as bullet proofed as we could for our new tenants. 

Meanwhile, life in Sydney went on. 

Jessie’s aspirations to play her netball grand final were dented by a broken arm courtesy of a fall from her mountain bike in Thredbo in January. She would miss the lead up, but would be available for the final. 

Sienna continued with her cricket and taekwondo – each week wowing us with reports of belt and stripes gained (now white with blue stripes) and stories of terrorising 8 year old boys with her fearsome pace bowling. 

Ellie’s cricket continued, with her Pirates team continuing victorious throughout the season, and the representative season continuing to dominate all our Sundays. The reps did come to a wonderful conclusion 2 weeks before our departure, with the Inner West Harbour-South East Sydney-Canterbury West team victorious in the NSW State Championships.

Our social calendar got busy, with catch up and farewell events scheduled for every Friday, Saturday and most Sundays from February onwards. We hosted whole-of-netball-team sleepovers of 11 girls (we are now universally disliked by all other parents in that group, as this has become ‘the done thing’); whole of cricket team dinners (at the same time as the netball sleepovers), 8 year old sleepovers and small group catch ups to say goodbye to our family and friends. 

Bonnie was acutely aware of what was going on, and was not less than pleased. He expressed his displeasure by raiding the pantry at every opportunity, depositing bags of flour, biscuit wrappers and other snack foods on the back lawn. If he had a middle finger, he would have been sticking it up at us.  And the budgies…. well the less said the better.

I think it’s fair to say that by the time 18 March came around, we were all physically and emotionally exhausted. We had said our goodbyes, fixed and emptied our house, played our sporting finals and done our livers no favours at all. We were as ready as we were ever going to be, but we knew this bit wasn’t going to be easy. 

The day dawned and the alarm went off. We crawled rather than bounced out of bed (courtesy of our final going away party with the Mcleans, Campbells and Pynes) and rallied the kids to get ready for the last ‘big day’. (Thanks again Jess for your amazing hospitality).

Sienna’s last game of cricket at 8am, followed by her end of season party. 

Jessie’s big netball final at 8.30am – the main event around which we had scheduled our entire trip – and, as it turns out, her first game back after 2 months out with her broken arm. 

Ellie’s cricket final at 1pm (not planned, but a happy coincidence that it fell on the same day as the netball finals) – after which time we were rushing straight to the airport for our flight. 

So a nice, relaxing final day in Sydney.  The results were as follows: 

  • Sienna – victorious, including a four and 5 wickets (self reported)
  • Jessie – went down in a 2 goal thriller, followed by many tears and goodbye hugs 
  • Ellie – victorious, conveniently winning 10 overs early, leaving time for celebratory speeches, champagne and goodbyes (all junior cricket should be celebrated with champagne, not sure why we hadn’t thought of this earlier)

From the cricket ground, it was back to pick up our bags and say our last goodbyes to Jess, Nick, Kristen, Amelie and Izzy before jumping into our maxi taxi. This was our same departure point and same type of car as we took when we left for France. This time we had a few less bags (everything else was in storage/sea freight/air freight piles) and it was hot and sunny outside. 

There were a few tears as we drove over the Gladesville Bridge and headed towards the airport. We made our way through bag check, got the obligatory photos at the SYD Departures sign and cleared Australian customs for the last time in 2 years. 

We were off.