As you can probably guess from the title... we're moving to Australia!
Some of you may have questions.
When do you leave?
Our flights leave London on the 16th of November - two months from tomorrow! After a leisurely 1 hour stopover in Singapore, we should be arriving into Sydney at about 7am on the morning of the 18th.
So soon?
We've actually had the flights booked since January, but in typical Patto fashion I just never got around to writing about it.
Where are you moving to?
That is a very, very good question. In the short term - Stanthorpe, to spend a bit of time with my family. In the longer term, wherever we can find jobs, but hopefully still close to friends and family. Australia seems to be crying out for doctors of all sorts, except overseas-trained haematologists for some reason. Ideally we would be either around south-east Queensland, or somewhere near Newcastle or Sydney, but we'll just have to see what turns up.
Why are you moving?
This is something Claudia and I talked about for a long time before we got engaged. We're always going to be a family that's split between two countries, and so before we make a final decision about where we're going to live permanently, it makes sense to try living in both places and see which one suits us better.
OK, but why are you moving now?
The timing is really driven by the kids. Evie is already 3 and a half, and so we want to do the move now so that we can have a decent amount of time living in Australia before making a final decision. Ideally, we want to be moving into a "forever" home in whichever country we decide to stay before Evie starts primary school. That gives us about 2 years to try Australia and see how we feel.
How are you going to wrangle three small children through a 24 hour trip?
Good question - very much open to suggestions! The last time we did this flight, the twins were only just rolling over. This time, they're in full-on toddler mode so keeping them entertained is going to be much, much trickier...
Anyway, as you can imagine, we've got a lot of work to do between now and then - some fun (quitting work!), some less fun (moving house and saying goodbye to friends and family). I'll try to keep the blog up to date as things happen, but based on previous history I'm not making any promises...
Yours etc,
Patto