Marjorie and I have moved around a fair a bit at this point, but have been in Melbourne now for close to twelve years. This is not to say we’ve settled. We both love Australia in general and Melbourne in particular, but it feels a bit like golden handcuffs. We’ve talked in the past about buying a house here (we’ve been to a number of auctions and talked to mortgage brokers even) but it just never seemed to happen, probably in part because of a vague dissatisfaction with the idea.
We also have talked a fair bit over the years about trying somewhere else. Maybe back to the States? Some places we’ve considered, roughly from most interested to least:
- San Fran - cold, expensive, and Marjorie has a better chance of scoring a job some place that’s a seat of government..
- Austin - would be living in Texas.
- San Diego - unknown to Marjorie, and same job issues for her, but we may go look at some point, Still California-expensive.
- Boulder - cold and small?
- Seattle/Portland - cold and gray.
- Atlanta - feels like going backwards.
- New York - too hectic for Marjorie. And expensive and not dog-friendly.
- Boston - cold, both weather- and people-wise (my opinion - I’ve just never latched onto that city. Marjorie likes it a lot more than me).
Add to all of them that the USA just seems nuts to us now. We’ve considered some other places overseas as well:
- Germany - cold, and language barrier
- France - cold, and language barrier
- Spain - language barrier
- Japan - culture shock, language
It’s harder to move now that we’re older (just because it would be harder to find jobs) and because we have a dog we love dearly.
So yesterday (30/1/2016) Marjorie and I had an idle discussion, as we frequently do, about what we’re going to do. And for once, an idea seemed to take hold: move to England. Not London proper, which would seem to be a lot to deal with, but an outlying suburb or anywhere to the south, like Brighton (in hopes of marginally better weather). We’re in the very early stages of feeling it out, obviously, but we both seemed to latch onto the idea and I think it might actually happen. We’ve done the overseas move before so we know what it entails, and know we’re capable of it. And we know enough to keep a lid on things until we nail something down, which is why I’m writing this here.
Lots to do from this point, but it’s exciting.
