100 days to go…

As we head into double digits in our countdown to our move to Perth, excitement is really starting to kick in for the both of us and I’ve personally never felt more ready for this huge change in our lives than I do right now.

Even through the constant activity that comes with caring for a toddler who has a busier social life than me and is toilet training as well as a ‘close to being mobile’ baby, I seem to be flying through our to do list (which seems to be added to daily!).  Over the past few weeks we’ve also attended a family wedding and a christening, enjoyed a visit from the in-laws and spent a long weekend with family at Center Parcs.  The final paperwork for our shipping container has finally been completed, car boot sale done to get rid of unwanted items (mainly baby toys and clothes) and we”ve sorted out our one way emigration insurance.  I’ve also joined the brilliant forum http://www.perthpoms.com (PP), which is a great site dedicated to British expats who are all at different stages of the emigration process including some expats who made the move some time ago but who continue to offer advice and recommendations to us ‘newbies’.  The forum has already proved invaluable as I’ve met some like-minded people who are going through the same highs and lows as we are and some who have children the same age as our girls so we will definitely look forward to meeting these fellow expats and comparing notes when we arrive.

I’m also very proud of the fact that with the help of a very large glass of wine I’ve managed to complete the huge task of organizing all of our paperwork into folders to go into our shipping container and smaller files to take with us on our flight.  So relieved that is a job ticked off my list!  I’ve also started to put together a checklist of what we need to do upon our immediate arrival in the first few weeks including contact phone numbers and addresses of our local banking branch, medicare centre and real estate agents.  Oh and I’ve started to research a lot of suburbs within our price range and have put together yet another spreadsheet showing average rental prices, house prices, school rankings, commute time to work and local amenities etc in these areas, which is definitely giving me more of a feel for different neighborhoods. We have planned several outings to visit potential suburbs in our first few weeks as I’m sure some will differ to what we’ve researched and I’m hoping we get a good ‘feel’ for a suburb which will suit us and our family’s needs.  Having chatted about schooling to fellow expats on PP, I’m quite thankful the girls won’t be impacted too much if we choose to move and buy elsewhere in the future as they won’t start pre-primary until they are 5.  This gives us a bit more flexibility and time although I am keen for them both to start kindergarten at 3 or 4.

As we continue on our journey and into double digits I’ve decided to create a little something to reflect back on when we think about our final few months in the UK…..I’ll post this once we are in Perth and I’m hoping it will help us remember our final 100 days as English residents! Australia here we come!!

Let the countdown commence!