Really I feel like we’ve been here a month already! Where do I begin? Well as as the song goes…let’s start at the very beginning…of the journey.

As our final days in Atlanta drew to a close, we had a yard sale and gave everything away that we didn’t sell. It’s ridiculous what you can collect over 18 years…and of course nothing electrical could come with us, it’s just not worth all the adaptors! We also finalized the sale of the house which was ridiculously stressful. In the US the buyer pays for a full inspection, and can negotiate fixes etc. even the most irrelevant things like ensuring the sprinklers ‘work properly’. Well that’s all open to interpretation of course, so we had lots language to edit in our contract. Yup pretty stressful! The good news on the house is it all closed last week, so we are now ready to begin our search for our new home, with intensity, here in Leeds.

The flight itself was easy – we were even upgraded! Thanks to my husband’s meticulous planning the dogs were boarded and collected as planned, and we jumped in a rental car to Leeds! It was pretty weird to say the least, driving across the M62 to a city we’d never lived in before! Our rental house is fine. Small, but big enough for temporary accommodation, and best of all just moments away from Roundhay Park, allowing us regular runs and walks around the lake.

Hugh has already started school – in fact he started 3 days after we arrived! It’s a lovely small local school which he adores, especially as he can walk himself to and from school, thus gaining the independence we had promised him. Poor Poppy has had to do tests for streaming, as we didn’t have SAT scores for her. She starts on Wednesday this week and has already taught herself to tie her tie with YouTube videos. She’s made friends there too – a lovely Australian girl showed her around, so it’s great that they can both be the ‘foreigners’ together! Most importantly for Poppy she has a cheer team. She’s tried out for the various levels and made her presence known.

I’ve not stopped eating since we arrived and joked the other evening that I felt a little bit ‘This Country’ in my sweats, eating fish and chips watching the World Cup. Kerry would be proud.

As we’re settling in I’ll be posting more regularly again. For now thanks for tuning in. We love our new life so far, and are happy to report no regrets.