What was I doing before I even left Wisconsin? Yes…house-hunting online! It turned into an addiction. I was obsessed with finding The Perfect House. Well, within a 20-mile radius of base. I pored over pages and pages of homes. I sent lots of pictures and links to my mom for feedback. Yes, I was a woman on a mission. So what was my first priority when we got to England? Um…duh! Honey, let’s look at houses!

Andrew was not in nearly as much of a hurry, sadly. So we went to the Housing Briefing. And we waited. We were probably in England for 2 weeks before we actually started calling around to look at houses. I could hardly contain myself! We ended up seeing 8 houses in the area, all of which I had researched before setting foot in this country. I had my favorite picked out before we even boarded a single plane.

We saw several houses in the surrounding towns. Most of them were in our price range, although 2 were too high (but we looked anyway, of course). They were all on the small side, and not all of them had garages. Some had nice gardens (lawns), but others were pretty tiny. And most of them also had one big eyesore: an oil tank in the back. That’s new for me! Something we saw few of: decent closets. I still wonder where the heck British people put everything! I’m sure they think we Americans are a bunch of hoarders!

Despite all the houses we saw, my favorite remained my favorite. And now we live here!

Is it perfect? No, of course not. But Andrew and I truly love this house. It is our first home together, and the things we love vastly outweigh the things we don’t love. Some things we love:

The backyard:

It is a great amount of space, surrounded by trees, and the back goes straight into the woods! We love walking back there, and Andrew has gone running several times on the trails. Hopefully I will also get my butt out there to run as well!

The patio:

Perfect for grilling and enjoying a fire on nice evenings!

The HUGE conservatory:

We also have 3 bedrooms, which means (drumroll, please) I get my own CRAFT ROOM!! It’s small, but I’m more than thrilled about it, if you couldn’t tell! I promise to take more pictures one of these days.

We moved in at the end of September, but our household goods didn’t arrive until a week before Thanksgiving. More on that later. 🙂

Once we arrived in London, the next few hours were pretty much an exhausted blur. No, I didn’t really sleep on the plane. Where was a bottle of wine when I needed one?! We landed at Heathrow Airport around 11am…which was only 5am back home. Ugh. We were picked up by a friend of Andrew’s from tech school and his wife. I’m so thankful we didn’t have to figure out that leg of transportation! They drove us around the general area we would be living in (which I barely remember) and took us to a local place for lunch. They also let us use their phone to call home…but no one answered, haha. Oh well, at least they knew we weren’t lost in the Atlantic. 🙂

I could hardly stay awake in the 15 minute car ride from their house to the base! I HAD to take a nap, and then, of course, I couldn’t sleep that night. It probably took me a good week to fully get adjusted to the time change. Besides that, the biggest thing I had to get used to was hearing jets all day. They are LOUD! And the fact that everything seems to close at 4:30pm. Off of the base, anyway.

Oh yeah… and driving on the other side of the road. And the other side of the car!

Oh my brave husband! We rented a car after a few days on base, but it took me nearly a month to work up the courage to try driving. Scary things I didn’t want to face:

1. Very narrow British roads
2. Very fast-driving British people (at least to me, who dared not drive over 30mph)
3. Shifting with my left hand (I hit my right hand on the window several times…how embarrassing)
4. Roundabouts with multiple lanes! Ahh!
5. Cars parked ANYWHERE

Well, eventually I did face those fears. And now (with our American car here), I feel completely at ease driving. Except for those big roundabouts. Those still intimidate me a bit! And I still detest parked cars. Seriously, people can park on the sidewalk, facing either direction, in the traffic lane… it’s so annoying. But I’ve gotten pretty good at navigating for the pair of us. Thank goodness for the GPS feature on my phone!

Andrew had briefings to go to right away, so that left me sitting alone in our hotel room (billeting) a lot. I watched a lot of British TV shows… mostly game shows and antiques shows. We didn’t have an actual kitchen, so we ate a lot of sandwiches and microwavable meals. And we ate out. A lot:

I think you get the idea. Lots of pub food, for the most part. We did eat at a few really great restaurants as well though. Of course, they were more expensive, so we didn’t go to those very often! Needless to say, I seriously couldn’t WAIT to get into a house to cook some real food!

I suppose I should start at the beginning. Not THE beginning, but the beginning of “life in England.” Since 1) I had never moved to another country, and 2) I had never been moved by the military (in my adult life), it was a fairly stressful experience.

First, Andrew moved in. We spent our first 4 months of marriage apart, since he was finishing up his technical training in North Carolina. Another person in a 1-bedroom apartment is a little cramped. I had tried (really hard!) to make room for his clothes, but it was a tight squeeze! Well, that was nothing compared to the apartment after 2 bridal showers and all of Andrew’s belongings that had been in storage. I think the movers are still amazed that it all fit into one little apartment.

Next, the movers came. I think it took them about 6-7 hours to box everything up and move it to the truck. Andrew was in charge of helping the movers (mostly observing and making sure things were packed well), while I stayed in the bedroom to keep Tigger (my kitty) company. And to prevent escape attempts when the movers had to move the bedroom furniture.

Ah, I miss that cute little bridge by the apartment. And having my car. 😦 Yes, that was the next thing: selling my car. Thankfully, my friend Steve wanted a car to replace his reliable but aging van. So that was a smooth transaction. I just miss the freedom of being able to drive wherever I want, whenever I want.

We spent the night at our friends’ apartment (also newly married!). It was nice to spend some time with them before we had to leave the area (and the country). We had to get up bright and early again to be at the apartment when another set of movers came to pack up our to-put-in-storage items. It was mostly books and glassware, I think. So it didn’t take them long at all. Then we headed up to Shawano to visit Andrew’s grandparents and parents. It was nice… they have a cottage on a lake, so it’s relaxing. I’m just not sure how much I could really relax knowing we were moving in a few days.

Then back down to the Milwaukee area to pack up the car (we each could bring 2 pieces of luggage) and get Tigger. Time for… a road trip! Ah yes, 10 hours in the car with a cat who doesn’t like car trips. Fun! It actually wasn’t too bad. Tigger did pretty well once I let her sit on my lap instead of in the carrier. The worst part was traffic in Chicago (what’s new?) and being crammed in like sardines. Besides the luggage, we also brought some things for my sister (mostly food items we couldn’t pack & candles, which we also couldn’t pack) and my parents. My sister even got my vacuum cleaner out of it — we didn’t pack it since we needed to clean the apartment once everything was out of it.

We arrived in Nashville pretty late. We were really tired, but I don’t think I slept that great. Nerves, I’m sure. Tigger seemed to get used to her new surroundings fairly quickly. I’m SO grateful Becki was able to take Tigger in. There was no way we could afford to bring Tigger to England, and with her being 14 already, I just couldn’t handle putting her through such a big move. But there was no way I was bringing Tigger to a shelter either! Happily, Tigger and Becki continue to do great together!

After we took Becki out for brunch, I said my sad good-bye to my kitty, and we started our drive to Chattanooga, where my parents live. That was a pretty quick drive, thankfully! They took us out to eat at Sticky Fingers: Delicious! Here are Andrew’s actual sticky fingers 😛

It was nice to see my parents and my sister (and her boyfriend) before leaving. Why did we drive all the way to Chattanooga to go to England? Well, Andrew was shipping his car over, and there are no ports in Wisconsin. The closest was either the New England area or Atlanta. And my parents happen to live just a few hours from there. It made me really happy that we had family to see us off!

We may be smiling, but it was a sad moment. I really didn’t want to stop hugging them and saying good-bye, but eventually, we just had to go. Our first flight was to Texas (I know, silly to be going backward instead of forward!), where we had dinner before hopping on our flight to London.