It's my fifteenth wedding anniversary. It's over a year and a half since my husband walked away. It still hurts.
I've been having these rage dreams lately, just every now and then. In them, I'm arguing with a family member (the person changes, and they don't seem to be triggered by actual events). I end up screaming and crying—these gut-wrenching screams and sobs—and they ignore me, utterly unmoved while I'm humiliated by my impotence and lack of control.
So, yeah... that's not good. A lot of it is probably due to current events, anxiety over the move and the things Still Not Done, but the feeling of impotence has been a theme since the end of the marriage. In many ways, I'm still in shock. Something that meant so much to me and that I would have done anything in the world to save... but I couldn't. Either I didn't get the opportunity or I missed it.
Even now, the recurring question is "Why couldn't he love me?" Of course, we talked extensively about that last year, so logically I understand why he stopped loving me. But I don't understand it on an illogical level. On the level where you love somebody just because you know them so well and they know you so well that you're part of each other. We lived together for sixteen years. For me, that's more time spent together than with anybody else. He's shaped me more than anybody else—He shaped my family.
I remind myself daily of him in little things I do and say, habits and phrases I picked up from him. As a family, we continue to tell the in-jokes he created, and our playlists are full of music he introduced us to. He had so much positive impact on us, it's impossible for me to move on from him, because there is so much of him that I should be taking with me.
So logically, I'm no longer in love with my husband. So much happened and there's been so much pain... but illogically, he's my family, he's part of me, and I'll always care deeply for him.
It's brutal then, to consider this from his perspective. How could he walk away after sixteen years of me being part of him? The simplest answer is that I'm not part of him. He adored me early on, far more into me than I was into him... but did he ever really allow me into himself? Did he always wall me out and I never realised? Or is it purely that other circumstances took over and it didn't matter. Either way, it's deeply unsettling when the person who knows you best in the world considers you dispensable.
That's really the recipe for the anxiety and depression I've had since January 2018: A combination of the ultimate rejection and of losing a huge part of myself. (The functional aspects of suddenly not having a partner in life are not insignificant either.) The therapist I was seeing in the States said I may never get over my husband, but I can accept that grief and balance it out with the rest of my life.
Sure enough, it's not all doom and gloom. I still have a family, even if the dynamic is radically different and functionality is a lot harder. For all the confidence I've lost, I've gained some too as I continue to achieve things on my own... I'm terribly insecure about the things I've yet to achieve, fearing that I just can't, and it's good for me to look back on what I have already managed despite those fears. Like driving down narrow Cornish lanes! (We'll ignore the couple of occasions this week when I made a wrong turn into too small a space and made a terrible mess of getting the car around to get out—the important thing is, I did get myself out both times, even if it took several minutes.)
Being single itself isn't bad at all, probably because I'm not looking for love. I quite enjoy online dating, even if I don't go on many dates. It's interesting to talk to other people my age who are single, who have had to shed a dream of happily ever after or who are pursuing an alternative to the traditional domestic bliss. Actually going out with somebody in a purely adult setting is a bonus... it's nice to be a woman rather than a mother sometimes.
Marriage was very good for me and I have often thought that I would do better by remarrying. But I have never fallen in love easily. Falling in love with my husband required moving in with him and having a nervous breakdown. (Long story.) As candid as I am, I'm always wary of letting people in, and having the children is only going to exacerbate that. Maybe it will happen even though I don't expect it, but I'm not going to try to find love again. When the kids leave home, that could change... it's only ten years before my youngest would go to university, and I've no reason to think I'll be too decrepit to enjoy a new a relationship or a new start at 51!
Until then, I'll just take fun and romance where I find it. I'll celebrate my family and continue building my life. There's a void that will never really be filled, but that grief is part of me now and I must find the value in that. I'm still looking for who I am.
Not all those who wander are lost, but since I'm lost, I may as well wander.
Wednesday, 11 September 2019
Wednesday, 4 September 2019
Making a House a Home
I've been putting off posting due to The Overwhelming Nature Of All Things.
We have our own place now—a three bedroom ground floor flat in a new barn conversion. In the end, it was really our only option after another place we applied for suddenly decided that they wouldn't take pets after all.
That said, it's a lovely place that ticked off a lot of the things on our 'want' list: a living room large enough to fit our enormous sofa, a village with a primary school and a corner shop—both very impressive—and an amazing view. We're on a hillside, with nothing but fields and valley out back, and while our garden is small, the back wall is low enough to climb on while the side walls offer some parkour opportunities!
The downsides? Well, the rent is more expensive than I was hoping and living at a brand new address poses its own problems as not everybody can find us. But the biggest issue is that there's no storage space. No loft, no garage, no cellar, no cloakroom, no broom cupboard, no linen cupboard.... Not even a utility room. We have an airing cupboard, which by default houses my laundry baskets, but it doesn't have shelves for anything else. I have an en suite shower in my room, so I'm storing the mop and bucket in there.
The first thing we did was buy and build a large shed, just so we would have extra space to put our boxes when they showed up. My father spent his anniversary building that with me, but it turned out to be a mere taster for what was to come....
A week after we left the States, a moving company came and packed up our belongings. Everything was then shipped across the Atlantic, taken through customs and finally driven down to Cornwall. They couldn't get the truck into the courtyard in front of the flats, so they drove down the field behind us, and everything was unloaded over my back wall and taken in through the patio doors.
That's when I learned that the furniture had been been disassembled.
This didn't happen when we moved to the States. It seems that the general UK policy is not to take furniture apart, while the general US policy is to disassemble and reassemble at the other end. My parents (who did the US to UK relocation ten years ago) told me that their furniture had also been taken apart, but the movers rebuilt it for them.
Nobody did any reassembling for me. The moving crew was only two people and they had their work cut out for them just unloading the container. To make matters worse, the packers hadn't provided any indication of where the hardware was. Sometimes screws were taped to the item. Sometimes... not. I picked up a towel that had been left loose rather than packed in a box, and the screws for the cat tree fell out—luckily they had 'armarkat' printed on, because there were no labels. In fact labelling was not the packers' strong suit: every box was labeled, but the labels were not indicative of everything that might be inside the box.
I complained to the shipping company which triggered a lot of arguing over whether the US or the UK side was at fault. Theoretically, it's their responsibility, so I should wait until they send somebody out to put the furniture together. Realistically, we have to live here. We need tables and shelves and beds... (Never mind the fact that I slept on a mattress on a floor for two weeks before I found the screws for my bed.)
I'm the tallest person in the family at 5'2" and the only adult. The children don't have the first clue what to do for unpacking and setting up a house. They've wanted to help, but unless I'm literally walking them through what they need to do step by step, there's precious little they can contribute. We can't even do general chores when there are boxes everywhere (and we essentially had to restock our cleaning supplies from scratch anyway.)
Therefore, for the past month, and largely singlehandedly, I've been assembling furniture without instructions, unpacking boxes into what furniture we do have, purchasing various storage solutions from Amazon, chasing down the parcels when the delivery men couldn't find our address (on three occasions, a package was dropped off at a random house in the village), assembling those storage solutions once I found them (with instructions. Luxury!), unpacking more boxes, getting rid of things because we went from a four bedroom house to a three bedroom flat and we don't have room for everything—and basically ignoring emails, phone calls and any other forms of message because I don't have time to sort out anything else (like, um, utilities. The fairies will keep our water and electricity going, right?)
It's been overwhelming, and there were some pretty dark moments. Aside from one break for an old friend's wedding (which was lovely!), I haven't really done anything social. So much other stuff has fallen by the wayside that I do a lot of panicking that I've forgotten something vitally important. Such as the kids' school uniform which has been halfway pulled together this week. It's their first day tomorrow and they'll definitely have a complete outfit each for that, but they need more of everything and the PE kit didn't occur to me at all.
But tomorrow is also one month since we got the keys and four weeks since our things arrived... and this place does feel like a home now. The bedrooms are still a disaster, the television doesn't work because I never found the apple TV or aerial, and until I figure out how to reassemble my desk, we won't have a functional printer either... but we've gone through all the boxes and the kitchen, living room, garden and bathrooms have all taken shape. The cats have their nooks and we're finding ours...
I still feel that I can't see half of what needs doing, and that's terrifying. But I'm excited and happy to be living here. After all, the view from here is pretty damn awesome.
We have our own place now—a three bedroom ground floor flat in a new barn conversion. In the end, it was really our only option after another place we applied for suddenly decided that they wouldn't take pets after all.
That said, it's a lovely place that ticked off a lot of the things on our 'want' list: a living room large enough to fit our enormous sofa, a village with a primary school and a corner shop—both very impressive—and an amazing view. We're on a hillside, with nothing but fields and valley out back, and while our garden is small, the back wall is low enough to climb on while the side walls offer some parkour opportunities!
The downsides? Well, the rent is more expensive than I was hoping and living at a brand new address poses its own problems as not everybody can find us. But the biggest issue is that there's no storage space. No loft, no garage, no cellar, no cloakroom, no broom cupboard, no linen cupboard.... Not even a utility room. We have an airing cupboard, which by default houses my laundry baskets, but it doesn't have shelves for anything else. I have an en suite shower in my room, so I'm storing the mop and bucket in there.
The first thing we did was buy and build a large shed, just so we would have extra space to put our boxes when they showed up. My father spent his anniversary building that with me, but it turned out to be a mere taster for what was to come....
A week after we left the States, a moving company came and packed up our belongings. Everything was then shipped across the Atlantic, taken through customs and finally driven down to Cornwall. They couldn't get the truck into the courtyard in front of the flats, so they drove down the field behind us, and everything was unloaded over my back wall and taken in through the patio doors.
That's when I learned that the furniture had been been disassembled.
This didn't happen when we moved to the States. It seems that the general UK policy is not to take furniture apart, while the general US policy is to disassemble and reassemble at the other end. My parents (who did the US to UK relocation ten years ago) told me that their furniture had also been taken apart, but the movers rebuilt it for them.
Nobody did any reassembling for me. The moving crew was only two people and they had their work cut out for them just unloading the container. To make matters worse, the packers hadn't provided any indication of where the hardware was. Sometimes screws were taped to the item. Sometimes... not. I picked up a towel that had been left loose rather than packed in a box, and the screws for the cat tree fell out—luckily they had 'armarkat' printed on, because there were no labels. In fact labelling was not the packers' strong suit: every box was labeled, but the labels were not indicative of everything that might be inside the box.
I complained to the shipping company which triggered a lot of arguing over whether the US or the UK side was at fault. Theoretically, it's their responsibility, so I should wait until they send somebody out to put the furniture together. Realistically, we have to live here. We need tables and shelves and beds... (Never mind the fact that I slept on a mattress on a floor for two weeks before I found the screws for my bed.)
I'm the tallest person in the family at 5'2" and the only adult. The children don't have the first clue what to do for unpacking and setting up a house. They've wanted to help, but unless I'm literally walking them through what they need to do step by step, there's precious little they can contribute. We can't even do general chores when there are boxes everywhere (and we essentially had to restock our cleaning supplies from scratch anyway.)
Therefore, for the past month, and largely singlehandedly, I've been assembling furniture without instructions, unpacking boxes into what furniture we do have, purchasing various storage solutions from Amazon, chasing down the parcels when the delivery men couldn't find our address (on three occasions, a package was dropped off at a random house in the village), assembling those storage solutions once I found them (with instructions. Luxury!), unpacking more boxes, getting rid of things because we went from a four bedroom house to a three bedroom flat and we don't have room for everything—and basically ignoring emails, phone calls and any other forms of message because I don't have time to sort out anything else (like, um, utilities. The fairies will keep our water and electricity going, right?)
It's been overwhelming, and there were some pretty dark moments. Aside from one break for an old friend's wedding (which was lovely!), I haven't really done anything social. So much other stuff has fallen by the wayside that I do a lot of panicking that I've forgotten something vitally important. Such as the kids' school uniform which has been halfway pulled together this week. It's their first day tomorrow and they'll definitely have a complete outfit each for that, but they need more of everything and the PE kit didn't occur to me at all.
But tomorrow is also one month since we got the keys and four weeks since our things arrived... and this place does feel like a home now. The bedrooms are still a disaster, the television doesn't work because I never found the apple TV or aerial, and until I figure out how to reassemble my desk, we won't have a functional printer either... but we've gone through all the boxes and the kitchen, living room, garden and bathrooms have all taken shape. The cats have their nooks and we're finding ours...
I still feel that I can't see half of what needs doing, and that's terrifying. But I'm excited and happy to be living here. After all, the view from here is pretty damn awesome.
Tuesday, 9 July 2019
Tales of a Middle-Aged Drop-out
One of the more ridiculous hurdles I'm trying to overcome is the fact that I can't drive. I never succeeded in passing my test in the UK, although I eventually did pass it in the US. Legally speaking, I can drive on my Virginia Licence for a year (if only on automatic cars).
Except...
Until then... well, let's recap the status quo:
Perspective, perspective, perspective...
OK, so obviously this is a transitory stage of my life, born out of convenience as part of a larger plan leading to self-sufficient adulting. (Besides, I'm doing my own laundry, I swear!)
Yet I die a little inside every time I have to select "Living with Parents" from a drop-down menu—which comes up a lot more often than I ever expected, but half of relocation is this endless reverse cascade of online forms, where you start one and then discover that you haven't got the information they require, so you have to fill out another form to set that up, and then another form in order to complete the second form, etc, etc.
I digress. This is the sort of undisciplined behaviour that has got me stuck living with my parents in the first place.
For the first week here, maybe the first ten days, I was in something of a recovery period from The Move anyway. Being totally dependent on somebody else was fantastic, because I was ready for the bare minimum of responsibility. Even as I muddled through my relocation to-do list, it mostly felt like we were on our annual summer holiday.
Two weeks in, and it doesn't feel like a break; it feels like limbo. There are many lovely things about living with my parents, but the kids are bored out of their skulls and I'm getting stressed because I can't see an end to the form-filling nor am I actually achieving my new life. (I assume I am making progress. Except during insomnia, because then my brain will only consider the hypothesis that I'm failing miserably.)
My cat, Meg, is perhaps the only one of us who is happier since The Move than before. She adores my parents' garden and loves having so many people in the house all day long. She'd prefer more freedom to bully my parents' dog, Sam, and make his life a misery, but she's going along with our insistence that the dog is entitled to exist.
The rest of us are in a funk. We need a social life—never my strong suit unfortunately, and one made worse by my inability to drive myself. We need a place of our own. We need to feel like we live here instead of just visiting. We need to feel like we belong.
But mostly, we need to suck it up and remember it's just for a few weeks. For a few weeks, I can take the humility of being forty-one and dependent on my parents. Yes, I'm not going to be activating my Bumble profile until I can drive myself to and from a date, so it's a few weeks of spending every evening drinking hot cocoa made by my Mum—
Every evening.
Hot cocoa.
Made by my Mum.
Maybe I'm winning at life after all.
Except...
- I am terrible at every skill required for driving: concentration, spatial awareness, sense of direction, distinguishing right from left... you name it; I'm bad at it.
- Virginia roads are flat, straight and wide: a narrow road is one without a passing lane. Cornish roads are hilly, twisty and narrow: a wide road is one with a lane for both directions of traffic.
- At no point in my Virginia test was I required to perform any sort of manoeuvre. I can't parallel park to save my life and have never dreamed of reversing into a parking space, let alone down a country lane in quest of a passing place.
Until then... well, let's recap the status quo:
I'm single, unemployed, and not only am I living with my parents, but I'm reliant on them to drive me around.23 years of adult life well spent, everybody! Thank you for reading; I'm delighted to be your Drop-out Guru.
Perspective, perspective, perspective...
OK, so obviously this is a transitory stage of my life, born out of convenience as part of a larger plan leading to self-sufficient adulting. (Besides, I'm doing my own laundry, I swear!)
Yet I die a little inside every time I have to select "Living with Parents" from a drop-down menu—which comes up a lot more often than I ever expected, but half of relocation is this endless reverse cascade of online forms, where you start one and then discover that you haven't got the information they require, so you have to fill out another form to set that up, and then another form in order to complete the second form, etc, etc.
I digress. This is the sort of undisciplined behaviour that has got me stuck living with my parents in the first place.
For the first week here, maybe the first ten days, I was in something of a recovery period from The Move anyway. Being totally dependent on somebody else was fantastic, because I was ready for the bare minimum of responsibility. Even as I muddled through my relocation to-do list, it mostly felt like we were on our annual summer holiday.
Two weeks in, and it doesn't feel like a break; it feels like limbo. There are many lovely things about living with my parents, but the kids are bored out of their skulls and I'm getting stressed because I can't see an end to the form-filling nor am I actually achieving my new life. (I assume I am making progress. Except during insomnia, because then my brain will only consider the hypothesis that I'm failing miserably.)
My cat, Meg, is perhaps the only one of us who is happier since The Move than before. She adores my parents' garden and loves having so many people in the house all day long. She'd prefer more freedom to bully my parents' dog, Sam, and make his life a misery, but she's going along with our insistence that the dog is entitled to exist.
The rest of us are in a funk. We need a social life—never my strong suit unfortunately, and one made worse by my inability to drive myself. We need a place of our own. We need to feel like we live here instead of just visiting. We need to feel like we belong.
But mostly, we need to suck it up and remember it's just for a few weeks. For a few weeks, I can take the humility of being forty-one and dependent on my parents. Yes, I'm not going to be activating my Bumble profile until I can drive myself to and from a date, so it's a few weeks of spending every evening drinking hot cocoa made by my Mum—
Every evening.
Hot cocoa.
Made by my Mum.
Maybe I'm winning at life after all.
Thursday, 4 July 2019
Cats vs Dog
The biggest logistical hurdle of our move was easily the cats. Staying with my parents solved many of these issues as they didn't mind hosting the cats along with the rest of us while we look for a house and wait for our things to be shipped over from the States.
One minor hiccup there... my parents have a dog. A black labrador called Sam. Sam does not like cats. Meg and Trogdor don't like dogs. But the three of them are going to be under the same roof for a good month if not more.
So we planned:
The Set Up
In a pinch, we could have left it at that. Kept the cats and the dog completely separated. But my cats are assertive and used to being free range. They get destructive if confined to a small area. So we didn't attempt to keep them in the bedroom, but we did keep a careful eye on proceedings.
Evening 1: Casing the joint
Meg immediately began exploring and left the room within ten minutes. Trogdor dove under my bed and stayed there for half an hour until I checked on him. Then he came out, but he restricted himself to eating, exploring the room, hiding under the bed at the slightest provocation and peering out of the window at this strange new world.
Meg calmly took herself downstairs and into the kitchen where she got her first glimpse of Sam. Luckily, Sam did not see her—instead he stared up at us in anxious confusion as we all told him 'no!' while Meg bushed up, backed out of the room and retreated upstairs.
Meg left her scent behind and this was how Sam discovered there was a cat in the house, five minutes later. He was... attentive.
Days 2-3: Enemy Encounters
Both cats and dog were now aware of each others' existence, but the cats were in for a second shock: That first morning, Meg ventured into the living room only to see a herd of cows on their daily stroll past the garden fence. So far as I know, Meg and Trog have never seen an animal larger than a human. For a moment, Meg froze, looking appalled as only a cat can. Then, for a second time in as many days, she bushed up, backed out of a room and retreated upstairs.
We missed Trog's first view of the cows—most likely it was from the children's bedroom window, but they were something the cats would have to figure out on their own. We were carefully supervising any encounters with Sam every time they came downstairs.
There was a learning curve for us here. We kept telling Sam: "No!" to stop him from charging at the cats, but this left him with a complex: from his point of view, he was getting in trouble if a cat walked into the room. My parents also had a habit of talking to Meg and Trog in the same voice they addressed Sam with, which inevitably brought him running, looking for attention. We had to learn not to make exclamations over the cats and also to reassure the dog that he was a good boy.
Sam really is a good boy, fortunately, and very obedient to commands, even though he's getting on a bit at eight years old. All his life, he's charged cats whenever he sees them; the first two encounters with ours, he held his ground at a hand on his collar. The second two encounters, he held his ground at a spoken command.
We had one lapse, when Sam saw Trogdor come into the room before the rest of us did. Dog really charged at cat then, getting all the way to where Trog had been standing before we reacted and yelled at him. I'm not sure if Sam stopped because of our reaction or of his own accord, but he didn't continue the chase.
The following morning, he made a momentary charge at Meg, but we scolded him instantly and he stopped almost before he got going. That was the last time, and since then he's shown them no aggression, though he does get anxious whenever they're in the same room.
The cats were considerably more anxious about Sam after those charges though, and Trog stopped coming downstairs altogether.
The First Week: Upstairs, Downstairs
The cats made the upstairs their domain, enjoying the variety of beds and a plethora of windowsills. We never had window sills in the States; now they had a house full of perches with fascinating views. Meg spent an hour on my parents' bed one evening, her gaze fixed on the cows in the field. There are rabbits in the field as well, and birds all over the place, while the windows at the front show the neighbours coming and going along with their dogs.
Every evening, my parents brought Sam upstairs and Trog would leave whatever he was doing and go out onto the landing just to hiss at him. The same ritual would be repeated when Sam went down in the mornings, much to the dog's depression. Sam now looks both ways when crossing the upstairs hallway as if he's crossing a road.
Most mornings, Meg would come and sit downstairs with me before Sam came downstairs. It was the perfect time for her to sniff around, drink cheekily from his water bowl and sit in the conservatory to watch the birds having breakfast at Mum's feeders. One morning she sat with great attention watching an invading village cat; the invading cat was totally oblivious to Meg's spying as it was sat with great attention at the foot of the feeder where mice hide in the stones.
What surprised me was how unworried the cats seemed about being kept inside. They've always been allowed to range outdoors and, historically, have got very distressed if denied access to the outside—particularly Trog. (Typical behaviour is making a toilet out of something other than a litter tray; crying loudly and scratching/plucking at doors and windows.) However, as they've got older, they don't range as far and spend more time inside. In this new place, the upstairs seemed enough for them to start with and none of their usual behaviour issues appeared.
Yet while they didn't seem distressed, it couldn't be said they were behaving as usual either. Our cats are typically very social, demandingly so. Now their environment was more isolated, a storey removed from the living area and household activities. Meg and Trog became more tolerant of each other than they had for years, often napping on the same bed. The children sometimes read or played on their iPads upstairs, and the cats would join them on the bed for that too. Yet they weren't talking to us as they normally did, and Trog wasn't giving his trademark headbutts. They didn't seem happy.
Downstairs, we had the back door open a lot, because the weather was so warm, but only when somebody was sat next to it, monitoring for cats. Both Meg and Trog did have a moment where they came down and ventured to the threshold with great interest, but neither put up a fight when we removed them and closed the door.
Then on Sunday, Meg walked to the front door and began asking to be let out. We ignored her, but she slipped through when the kids set out to the local playground and they had to catch her. So we went to the pet store and got new tags for both cats with my parents' number on. Whether or not we were letting them outside, Meg at least was now a flight risk.
July and the Great Outdoors
Along with asking to be let out, Meg abruptly began coming downstairs more and being a little bolder around Sam. This was key, since I wouldn't let her out if she would be reluctant to come back. On Monday morning, my daughter and I took the opportunity of Sam's walk to open the back door for Meg and let her go outside.
We took it in turns trailing her around the garden, trying to make sure she didn't venture outside of it (not really enforceable when it comes to cats). She had a great time as my parents' garden is really more cat-friendly than dog-friendly, with lots of little nooks and crannies and different levels of wall to climb.
After about twenty minutes, Meg asked to be let back into the kitchen door... Sam came in to the other end of the kitchen moments later and we had a small standoff, before I hoisted Meg onto the bench at the breakfast table and walled her in slightly with a cushion. She hissed at Sam but he was able to walk past her without any interaction between them or intercession from us.
It can't be said that Sam was happy when Meg settled down comfortably against her cushion. He wanted to go outside, to get away from this miserable presence in his kitchen, but we kept him in. We wanted to prove to him he was allowed in the room even if one of the cats were there.
So Sam lay down on the doormat and Meg lay on her bench and both sulked. My son tried to give Meg a love and nearly got his eye taken out, which was unusually cranky even by Meg's standards. But she stayed there.
It was the turning point for Meg. She returned downstairs at will for the rest of the day and the next, and she went out at every opportunity—once she had shown herself willing to come downstairs in spite of Sam, I was no longer worried that she wouldn't return home. On her second trip, she managed to get out of the garden and next door, returning ten minutes later, well pleased with herself, but overall, she's preferred to stay in the security of my parents' garden.
On one memorable occasion, she was sat behind the pond under the fence to the field when the whole herd of cows went by. Meg froze, her eyes wide with horror. She didn't dare look directly at the cows, but instead flicked her gaze between us in the conservatory window and the reflection of the cows in the dining room window. Once the last cow had passed, I called to her and she cautiously crept around the pond and back inside... the moment she was through the door, she bolted to the living room, before turning around and glaring fiercely at the now safely-distant field.
While Meg's continued to go out frequently, she's become a more consistent presence inside the house. She'll still retreat upstairs for a more peaceful nap, but she's often seen downstairs now: she keeps a close eye on the dog and hisses at him mercilessly, but she has no problem being on the floor at the same time as him, and his presence will not deter her from claiming our attention. She's back to her usual self.
Trog, on the other hand... not so much.
This Week: Applying... Persuasion.
Trog remained upstairs, to our increasing concern, so we gave things a nudge on Wednesday. I brought him down in the morning while Sam was upstairs, and he stayed with me for perhaps ten minutes before creeping upstairs again (Meg asked to be let out, and he did attempt to follow her, but I kept him inside. I don't trust him to return of his own accord.)
We repeated this when Sam went for his walk. After lunch, I took Sam for his walk and my Mum brought him down this time. When he crept back upstairs, she followed him. He had stopped halfway up, so she took him back and finally he settled down on the armchair and stayed.
When I came back, I sent Sam through to the garden where Trog could see him. He watched him attentively for a few minutes and then relaxed again. When Sam eventually came back inside (via the kitchen), Trog lifted his head, clearly listening, but he didn't attempt to move, even when Sam came into the conservatory and stood next to his chair.
It took Sam a while to notice Trog, but when he did, he simply looked back at us, dejected. We loved him, assured him he was a good boy and eventually suggested he curl up on his bed in the sitting room where he could see us but not the terrible, terrible cat.
Trog hissed at Sam, but held his ground, either too wary to move or too stubborn to give up the chair now he'd got comfortable—notably, he never so much as changed his paw position. I slow-blinked at him a few times (a cat signal for "all's safe; you can trust me") until he relaxed again. He stayed on that chair for at least another hour.
I'm still not willing to let Trog outside, but he's not asking yet either. The reassuring thing is that he's shown himself able to stay downstairs with us again, and we're going to keep encouraging that. What I'm waiting for is the moment when he jumps up next to me on the sofa and proceeds to headbutt me and my laptop to oblivion, purring at top volume all the while. That's when I'll know I have my Trog back.
One minor hiccup there... my parents have a dog. A black labrador called Sam. Sam does not like cats. Meg and Trogdor don't like dogs. But the three of them are going to be under the same roof for a good month if not more.
So we planned:
The Set Up
- Before we left, I ordered a cat tree, cat food and a litter tray to be sent to my parents. They picked up some litter and an extra scratching post. I packed the cats' bowls, a couple of toys, disposable litter trays and a scratching mat.
- A house rule at my parents is that the dog isn't allowed upstairs, except at night when he sleeps next to my parents' bed. Because of this, Sam never goes into the two guest bedrooms.
- In my bedroom / bathroom (luckily, it's en suite), we set up the scratching post, the cats' bowls and a litter tray, giving Meg and Trog all their needs in an area the dog never goes.
- When we arrived, my Dad took Sam into the garden, while my Mum and I smuggled the cats upstairs and into my bedroom.
In a pinch, we could have left it at that. Kept the cats and the dog completely separated. But my cats are assertive and used to being free range. They get destructive if confined to a small area. So we didn't attempt to keep them in the bedroom, but we did keep a careful eye on proceedings.
Evening 1: Casing the joint
Meg immediately began exploring and left the room within ten minutes. Trogdor dove under my bed and stayed there for half an hour until I checked on him. Then he came out, but he restricted himself to eating, exploring the room, hiding under the bed at the slightest provocation and peering out of the window at this strange new world.
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| Yet to be convinced by this green and pleasant land. |
Meg calmly took herself downstairs and into the kitchen where she got her first glimpse of Sam. Luckily, Sam did not see her—instead he stared up at us in anxious confusion as we all told him 'no!' while Meg bushed up, backed out of the room and retreated upstairs.
Meg left her scent behind and this was how Sam discovered there was a cat in the house, five minutes later. He was... attentive.
Days 2-3: Enemy Encounters
Both cats and dog were now aware of each others' existence, but the cats were in for a second shock: That first morning, Meg ventured into the living room only to see a herd of cows on their daily stroll past the garden fence. So far as I know, Meg and Trog have never seen an animal larger than a human. For a moment, Meg froze, looking appalled as only a cat can. Then, for a second time in as many days, she bushed up, backed out of a room and retreated upstairs.
We missed Trog's first view of the cows—most likely it was from the children's bedroom window, but they were something the cats would have to figure out on their own. We were carefully supervising any encounters with Sam every time they came downstairs.
There was a learning curve for us here. We kept telling Sam: "No!" to stop him from charging at the cats, but this left him with a complex: from his point of view, he was getting in trouble if a cat walked into the room. My parents also had a habit of talking to Meg and Trog in the same voice they addressed Sam with, which inevitably brought him running, looking for attention. We had to learn not to make exclamations over the cats and also to reassure the dog that he was a good boy.
Sam really is a good boy, fortunately, and very obedient to commands, even though he's getting on a bit at eight years old. All his life, he's charged cats whenever he sees them; the first two encounters with ours, he held his ground at a hand on his collar. The second two encounters, he held his ground at a spoken command.
We had one lapse, when Sam saw Trogdor come into the room before the rest of us did. Dog really charged at cat then, getting all the way to where Trog had been standing before we reacted and yelled at him. I'm not sure if Sam stopped because of our reaction or of his own accord, but he didn't continue the chase.
The following morning, he made a momentary charge at Meg, but we scolded him instantly and he stopped almost before he got going. That was the last time, and since then he's shown them no aggression, though he does get anxious whenever they're in the same room.
The cats were considerably more anxious about Sam after those charges though, and Trog stopped coming downstairs altogether.
The First Week: Upstairs, Downstairs
The cats made the upstairs their domain, enjoying the variety of beds and a plethora of windowsills. We never had window sills in the States; now they had a house full of perches with fascinating views. Meg spent an hour on my parents' bed one evening, her gaze fixed on the cows in the field. There are rabbits in the field as well, and birds all over the place, while the windows at the front show the neighbours coming and going along with their dogs.
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| Studying the enemy for its weakness. |
Every evening, my parents brought Sam upstairs and Trog would leave whatever he was doing and go out onto the landing just to hiss at him. The same ritual would be repeated when Sam went down in the mornings, much to the dog's depression. Sam now looks both ways when crossing the upstairs hallway as if he's crossing a road.
Most mornings, Meg would come and sit downstairs with me before Sam came downstairs. It was the perfect time for her to sniff around, drink cheekily from his water bowl and sit in the conservatory to watch the birds having breakfast at Mum's feeders. One morning she sat with great attention watching an invading village cat; the invading cat was totally oblivious to Meg's spying as it was sat with great attention at the foot of the feeder where mice hide in the stones.
What surprised me was how unworried the cats seemed about being kept inside. They've always been allowed to range outdoors and, historically, have got very distressed if denied access to the outside—particularly Trog. (Typical behaviour is making a toilet out of something other than a litter tray; crying loudly and scratching/plucking at doors and windows.) However, as they've got older, they don't range as far and spend more time inside. In this new place, the upstairs seemed enough for them to start with and none of their usual behaviour issues appeared.
Yet while they didn't seem distressed, it couldn't be said they were behaving as usual either. Our cats are typically very social, demandingly so. Now their environment was more isolated, a storey removed from the living area and household activities. Meg and Trog became more tolerant of each other than they had for years, often napping on the same bed. The children sometimes read or played on their iPads upstairs, and the cats would join them on the bed for that too. Yet they weren't talking to us as they normally did, and Trog wasn't giving his trademark headbutts. They didn't seem happy.
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| This is probably one of the portents of the apocalypse... |
Downstairs, we had the back door open a lot, because the weather was so warm, but only when somebody was sat next to it, monitoring for cats. Both Meg and Trog did have a moment where they came down and ventured to the threshold with great interest, but neither put up a fight when we removed them and closed the door.
Then on Sunday, Meg walked to the front door and began asking to be let out. We ignored her, but she slipped through when the kids set out to the local playground and they had to catch her. So we went to the pet store and got new tags for both cats with my parents' number on. Whether or not we were letting them outside, Meg at least was now a flight risk.
July and the Great Outdoors
Along with asking to be let out, Meg abruptly began coming downstairs more and being a little bolder around Sam. This was key, since I wouldn't let her out if she would be reluctant to come back. On Monday morning, my daughter and I took the opportunity of Sam's walk to open the back door for Meg and let her go outside.
We took it in turns trailing her around the garden, trying to make sure she didn't venture outside of it (not really enforceable when it comes to cats). She had a great time as my parents' garden is really more cat-friendly than dog-friendly, with lots of little nooks and crannies and different levels of wall to climb.
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| Meg becomes a fan of the English country garden. |
After about twenty minutes, Meg asked to be let back into the kitchen door... Sam came in to the other end of the kitchen moments later and we had a small standoff, before I hoisted Meg onto the bench at the breakfast table and walled her in slightly with a cushion. She hissed at Sam but he was able to walk past her without any interaction between them or intercession from us.
It can't be said that Sam was happy when Meg settled down comfortably against her cushion. He wanted to go outside, to get away from this miserable presence in his kitchen, but we kept him in. We wanted to prove to him he was allowed in the room even if one of the cats were there.
So Sam lay down on the doormat and Meg lay on her bench and both sulked. My son tried to give Meg a love and nearly got his eye taken out, which was unusually cranky even by Meg's standards. But she stayed there.
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| Every accent pillow needs a cat glowering from it. |
It was the turning point for Meg. She returned downstairs at will for the rest of the day and the next, and she went out at every opportunity—once she had shown herself willing to come downstairs in spite of Sam, I was no longer worried that she wouldn't return home. On her second trip, she managed to get out of the garden and next door, returning ten minutes later, well pleased with herself, but overall, she's preferred to stay in the security of my parents' garden.
On one memorable occasion, she was sat behind the pond under the fence to the field when the whole herd of cows went by. Meg froze, her eyes wide with horror. She didn't dare look directly at the cows, but instead flicked her gaze between us in the conservatory window and the reflection of the cows in the dining room window. Once the last cow had passed, I called to her and she cautiously crept around the pond and back inside... the moment she was through the door, she bolted to the living room, before turning around and glaring fiercely at the now safely-distant field.
While Meg's continued to go out frequently, she's become a more consistent presence inside the house. She'll still retreat upstairs for a more peaceful nap, but she's often seen downstairs now: she keeps a close eye on the dog and hisses at him mercilessly, but she has no problem being on the floor at the same time as him, and his presence will not deter her from claiming our attention. She's back to her usual self.
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| Success also looks surprisingly like the apocalypse |
This Week: Applying... Persuasion.
Trog remained upstairs, to our increasing concern, so we gave things a nudge on Wednesday. I brought him down in the morning while Sam was upstairs, and he stayed with me for perhaps ten minutes before creeping upstairs again (Meg asked to be let out, and he did attempt to follow her, but I kept him inside. I don't trust him to return of his own accord.)
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| One cat down; one to go. |
When I came back, I sent Sam through to the garden where Trog could see him. He watched him attentively for a few minutes and then relaxed again. When Sam eventually came back inside (via the kitchen), Trog lifted his head, clearly listening, but he didn't attempt to move, even when Sam came into the conservatory and stood next to his chair.
It took Sam a while to notice Trog, but when he did, he simply looked back at us, dejected. We loved him, assured him he was a good boy and eventually suggested he curl up on his bed in the sitting room where he could see us but not the terrible, terrible cat.
Trog hissed at Sam, but held his ground, either too wary to move or too stubborn to give up the chair now he'd got comfortable—notably, he never so much as changed his paw position. I slow-blinked at him a few times (a cat signal for "all's safe; you can trust me") until he relaxed again. He stayed on that chair for at least another hour.
I'm still not willing to let Trog outside, but he's not asking yet either. The reassuring thing is that he's shown himself able to stay downstairs with us again, and we're going to keep encouraging that. What I'm waiting for is the moment when he jumps up next to me on the sofa and proceeds to headbutt me and my laptop to oblivion, purring at top volume all the while. That's when I'll know I have my Trog back.
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| There are not nearly enough pictures of Sam in this blog, but he is the Best Boy and we will take him on All The Walks. |
Wednesday, 26 June 2019
The Move
We did it. The Move happened.
As I had every morning that week, I was awake at 5am on Sunday, 23rd June. Before we left the house, I would need to pack and make sure everything was organised for the packers on Thursday. We made time for a last, hurried breakfast at the Sandfiddler Cafe with my brother and sister-in-law, but otherwise, it was all work—and maybe one or two points of shouting at the kids because I was too frazzled to accept anything but instant comprehension and compliance.
Their father came over shortly after 10am to pick up the cats. They had seen our suitcases, so they knew something was up but they were expecting us to leave and were most perturbed when we put them in the car. It's a 3-4 hour drive to DC from our place, and we didn't want to add that time in a carrier, so we put them loose in the car with some food/water and a disposable litter tray in the footwells. I'd been trying to take them in my car semi-regularly to get them accustomed to traveling that way, but this was a different car and a different person. They weren't buying it.
When their dad tried to get in the car, Meg made a run for it, jumping out of the car and then leading us around the bushes before slipping back through them and into the garage—luckily my daughter caught her there, and we popped her back in through the car window. Reportedly, they behaved pretty well through the whole trip, but they never used the litter tray... it was worth a try!
With the cats gone, The Move had officially begun. My daughter and I hugged each other there in the garage as we started crying. Two hours later, my brother was driving us to the airport.
I've never had such a hard time leaving a house. We loaded the car, and I went back upstairs for a final check, but what I was really doing was taking a last blurry look at the view: our lake, our trees, our birds, our sky... When our plane took off, it was over the Botanical Gardens, where the children and I had so often picnicked while watching planes coming and going, and over our inlet, where we could strain to see our house... and then Norfolk was behind us.
The good part of being en route was that I no longer had to worry about what else I should be doing. This was either going to work or it wasn't. Even the children were upbeat now that the day of reckoning had arrived; they were focusing on the prospect of British chocolate being readily available and beans on toast being an anytime meal instead of a gourmet dinner.
We landed to the notification that the cats had been checked in safely, although there had been some logistical difficulties when the carriers had to be scanned in without the cats but once scanned could not be taken out to the car to bring the cats into the building. Their dad had had to carry them in from the car, fearing an escape attempt the entire way.
I spared a thought for the cats somewhere out there as the children and I found a pizza place and picnicked on the floor of the airport before boarding our second flight. This also went smoothly, though my son had a minor migraine and spend the first few hours struggling with the artificial light until they finally turned it off for us to sleep. Thankfully, he didn't throw up.
As I had every morning that week, I was awake at 5am on Sunday, 23rd June. Before we left the house, I would need to pack and make sure everything was organised for the packers on Thursday. We made time for a last, hurried breakfast at the Sandfiddler Cafe with my brother and sister-in-law, but otherwise, it was all work—and maybe one or two points of shouting at the kids because I was too frazzled to accept anything but instant comprehension and compliance.
Their father came over shortly after 10am to pick up the cats. They had seen our suitcases, so they knew something was up but they were expecting us to leave and were most perturbed when we put them in the car. It's a 3-4 hour drive to DC from our place, and we didn't want to add that time in a carrier, so we put them loose in the car with some food/water and a disposable litter tray in the footwells. I'd been trying to take them in my car semi-regularly to get them accustomed to traveling that way, but this was a different car and a different person. They weren't buying it.
When their dad tried to get in the car, Meg made a run for it, jumping out of the car and then leading us around the bushes before slipping back through them and into the garage—luckily my daughter caught her there, and we popped her back in through the car window. Reportedly, they behaved pretty well through the whole trip, but they never used the litter tray... it was worth a try!
With the cats gone, The Move had officially begun. My daughter and I hugged each other there in the garage as we started crying. Two hours later, my brother was driving us to the airport.
I've never had such a hard time leaving a house. We loaded the car, and I went back upstairs for a final check, but what I was really doing was taking a last blurry look at the view: our lake, our trees, our birds, our sky... When our plane took off, it was over the Botanical Gardens, where the children and I had so often picnicked while watching planes coming and going, and over our inlet, where we could strain to see our house... and then Norfolk was behind us.
The good part of being en route was that I no longer had to worry about what else I should be doing. This was either going to work or it wasn't. Even the children were upbeat now that the day of reckoning had arrived; they were focusing on the prospect of British chocolate being readily available and beans on toast being an anytime meal instead of a gourmet dinner.
We landed to the notification that the cats had been checked in safely, although there had been some logistical difficulties when the carriers had to be scanned in without the cats but once scanned could not be taken out to the car to bring the cats into the building. Their dad had had to carry them in from the car, fearing an escape attempt the entire way.
I spared a thought for the cats somewhere out there as the children and I found a pizza place and picnicked on the floor of the airport before boarding our second flight. This also went smoothly, though my son had a minor migraine and spend the first few hours struggling with the artificial light until they finally turned it off for us to sleep. Thankfully, he didn't throw up.
My biggest concern for the entire trip was figuring out how to get the five of us (cats and humans) from Heathrow Airport to Cornwall.
- I wrote off driving myself fairly quickly as I'm a mess on UK roads at the best of times.
- I had looked at taxis down to Cornwall, but was worried about finding somebody who would take pets—not to mention we weren't sure when the cats would be ready to go which made booking difficult.
- The train posed more problems as we would still need a taxi to and from Heathrow Animal Reception Centre, and then going from Heathrow to Exeter (not in Cornwall, but close enough for my parents to pick us up from) would require two changes. We had two suitcases, three carry-ons and the cats in their carriers. We couldn't handle all that through a station.
Enter Charlotte. I'd known her in my first year of University, and we'd met for dinner last year. She lived half an hour from Heathrow, so I had reached out to her asking if she could help me at all. She immediately arranged for her husband to send her children off to school that morning and promised us herself and her people-carrier for the day, along with a picnic. Over the course of several excited Facebook messages, we decided that she would transport us from Heathrow to HARC to get the cats to Reading Station where we could get a direct train to Exeter.
It's always a pleasure to be see a friendly face at the airport, and Charlotte with her boundless enthusiasm proved to be the perfect person to take us in charge. She had even brought a thermos of tea with her! We first tracked down the HARC to check when the cats would be ready—no easy feat, as Google Maps proved to be very ambiguous with its lane preferences in navigating Heathrow. We got there shortly after 8am, and were told that the cats would take about 4 hours. The good news was that they had passed their pre-check on the second submission so everything was in order. Also, they had survived the trip, which I had been secretly nervous about, my son had been secretly nervous about and my parents had been secretly nervous about.
I'd eaten the plane's breakfast, but the children hadn't been hungry that early, and now they were pushing for food. I needed to buy a railcard so that I could get cheap tickets, so we drove to Hayes' station and stopped in at a greasy spoon cafe for sausage, egg, beans, and a decent cuppa. Not a pancake or waffle in sight.
While this was a fantastic return to British-ness, the cafe was a very low-budget one and lacked a toilet. So did Hayes station, which was more of a ticket desk and platforms. After acquiring a railcard and making sure I actually had train tickets on my phone, we attempted but failed to find a shop where I could get a phone plan. By this time, two cups of tea had worked their way through my system and I was in pretty desperate need of a loo, but we couldn't find a public one and I didn't recall seeing one at Heathrow Animal Reception Centre either. (As it turns out, there's one in a neighbouring building.)
Just as we were giving up on Hayes and heading back to HARC anyway, we spotted a Lidl. Chain stores for the win! I bought the kids a couple of comics, and we made good use of their facilities before returning to HARC. It was about 11am now and I was hopeful the cats might come out early.
While we were out, I received an email from the UK government informing me that my Transfer of Residence had been approved and granting me the number I'd been needing. This was awkward timing as the cats' paperwork had long since been submitted, but I asked a member of staff at HARC if it was too late to add in the number. She looked a little blank: "I've never been asked that before!"
After some consultation with other members of staff, they told me to notify Virgin Shipping, which was handily on speed dial in the waiting room. They said there was still time, so they took the number and I avoided having to pay an unknown amount of VAT on two cats with no official monetary value.
(In case anybody's wondering how much it costs to ship pets across the Atlantic, I paid $2,439.80 for their plane travel. That doesn't include the $50 apiece for their airline approved carriers nor the $38 to endorse their health certificate. It's just as well they're the only part of the move we have to pay for.)
We were assured that the cats were next in line, so we settled in, crossing our fingers that we would be able to catch the 12:30 train but confident that we would at least get the 1:30 one. Here, Charlotte really came through for us. She had brought games so we learned how to play Dobble and Rush Hour while snacking on our picnic: we had been promised sandwiches; what she actually brought was an insulated bag of sandwiches, crisps, fruit, pork pies, biscuits, brioche, chocolate, juice cartons and a bottle of prosecco. It was fantastic.
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| Party at the HARC! |
Some years back, the HARC had been the subject of a reality / documentary series called Animal Airport and episodes of that were playing the waiting room, which allowed us to see what would be happening to the cats behind the scenes: I was reassured to see that they would be in their own enclosures with food, water and a litter tray. The children were fascinated by the show itself. They never got bored in that waiting room... they had a TV, games, food—and when they did get rambunctious, Charlotte took them outside for a run around the building.
However, as 12:15 came and went, I started getting anxious about the delay. Finally a woman came out with a piece of paper for me to sign, assuring me that once I had done that, the cats would be brought out. Fifteen minutes later, she came out with another piece of paper and the same assurance. It was now past 1:30, we had watched numerous other people being reunited with their pets, and every time the door opened we gazed at it hopefully... but our cats were nowhere to be seen.
I don't know whether there was some delay or if HARC just aren't reliable when it comes to assessing times, but eventually our cats did indeed get brought out. To my relief, Meg looked quite perky and wasn't growling at all. Trog, however, was trembling in his cage. The man who brought them told us that Meg had only come out of her carrier right at the end to eat, but she hadn't used the litter tray. Trog hadn't come out at all.
Unfortunately for the cats, I didn't want to get them out of their carriers until we were done with the train journey, so they had another few hours of confinement ahead of them. We loaded them in my friend's car—luckily, it had a high roof and the carriers fit nicely on top of our suitcases, and we set off for Reading station, 45 minutes away.
Our ETA was 2:23. The last train I could use my ticket on was at 2:30. We tried to make it, but we knew ahead of time this was unlikely and discussed alternatives. Sure enough, Reading is not an easy station to navigate with luggage nor were the guards interested in assisting us. By the time we found a trolley and stacked the cat carriers on it, we had already missed the train. Charlotte waited with the cats, posing glamorously, while I went to the office to upgrade our tickets to slightly-less-off-peak.
The next direct train was at 3:30, so I notified my parents and we settled in on the platform for an hour's wait. We were all exhausted by this point, and I was definitely feeling the frustration of just wanting the journey to be over—thank heavens for Charlotte, who stayed cheerfully upbeat for us all.
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| Looking for platform 9 3/4 |
When the train arrived, we made for the back, but the mildly horrified train manager caught up with us, enquiring if we'd paid for excess baggage and if we'd notified the guards that we had this much with us. Paying excess baggage had never even crossed my mind (oops!) but the guards had most certainly been aware of our luggage issues and they weren't present, so we cheerfully pinned the blame on them.
Looking severely put upon, the manager patiently escorted us to the rearmost vestibule and let us load our various belongings, though he almost shut the door on Charlotte before we managed to explain that she wasn't traveling. We all hugged her goodbye: she'd more than earned that!
Once the train was moving, my son discovered that the luggage racks at the opposite end of the carriage were all but empty, so we awkwardly transferred all our things through the carriage, apologising to the passengers as we lurched past them. We took shifts in standing there with the cats, since Meg got cranky every time we walked off (it didn't seem to make much difference to the wide-eyed Trog).
The train got delayed, so the journey took twenty-four minutes longer than predicted, but I didn't really mind. The main concern had been getting us onto it in the first place. The children were a little concerned that we wouldn't be able to all get off again in the time we had on the station, but I felt confident we could manage that. I had told my father exactly which door we would be coming out of, and sure enough, he was waiting there as I more or less threw cases outside followed by the cats. (Though I did allow passengers with connections to disembark first. We're not barbarians!)
At the car, we took out the litter tray from my daughter's carry on, along with a bag of litter (this had got dusted for drugs at airport security, but the guard never batted an eye when we explained what it was). Trog was put in the back with the kids; Meg went in the front, while my father and I disassembled their carriers, as they wouldn't fit in the car otherwise. Neither cat was wildly happy, but as we set off, they settled down. Trog used the litter tray at length (I had brought one in memory of how, thirteen years earlier, he had peed on the floormat of the rental car following our flight to the States,) while Meg settled on my lap and purred and purred.
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The last hurdle was for us to wait in the car while Dad greeted his dog and took him into the back garden before we sneaked the cats upstairs.
Then that was that. We're Cornwall-resident, though The Move won't be properly concluded until our things get shipped over and we're in a house of our own. Next update: Cats vs. Dog.
Saturday, 22 June 2019
T minus 1 Day: We'll teach them how to say goodbye...
We've arrived. It's my last time sitting on my sofa and looking out of the window into a night broken only by lights reflected on the water.
Did I ever get my Transfer of Residence number? No, no I did not. Instead, I signed a statement to indicate that I am aware I will have to pay VAT on the cats and claim it back once I do have my number. However, I misread the checklist when sending in my precheck documents and failed to include the US health certificate—ordinarily, pets with passports wouldn't need it, but as the cats have had rabies vaccinations outside the EU, they still need an international vet's certificate along with their passport.
So the cats have failed their pre-check. I've submitted the correct (I hope!) documentation now and we'll see if that goes through before they leave tomorrow. I think they can still fly even without passing their pre-check, but I need to call the airline to check that.
It's been a crazy few days, frantically working and just as frantically playing in the knowledge that it's the last time I'll get to be with these people, these family clusters of friends, or the last time we get to go to these places that we've taken for granted for ten years. It has not been a few days with a lot of sleep.
So on Wednesday dinner with friends turned into karaoke with friends and getting to bed at midnight. I was awake at 5am Thursday, in order to submit the cats' precheck documentation for their flight and take pictures of them alongside their carrier so Virgin Airlines could confirm it was the right size.
Then we went to the bank as soon as it opened to get a power of attorney statement notarised so that the house can be sold without my signature. We rushed home, dumped it on the breakfast counter and texted the agent that it was there for her to pick up. Then we went to Water Country USA for the day, because I'd promised the kids we'd go before we left.
I found myself feeling a bit blue at Water Country; we normally do it on a weekend before the schools break up when it's quieter; it's also been a family tradition for the kids' entire lives. But I was missing having another adult there and it hit me for the first time how much I was leaving. I started to catch myself on the verge of tears. Thankfully, the kids are older now and I was able to send them round the lazy river a few times while I took a nap in a deckchair. After that, I was able to get more into the swing of it and we had a blast together until a storm drove everybody home. We got back to the house late evening and I immediately went online and bought cat supplies (food, litter, a cat tree) from Amazon UK to be delivered to my parents. I ended up in bed at 11:30pm, for another five or six hours of sleep before I woke again with the anxiety of things that needed to be done.
Today, the last day, I've had a stream of messages, going back and forth with friends—some goodbyes, some coordinating. Several friends came round to help me by looting my house of toiletries, medicines, food... all the things you can't thrift but you don't want to just throw away. It was chaotic and glorious. We all had one last swing before it came down: I was quite regretful, until my son pushed me so hard I thought I was going to flip over at which point I was OK getting away from it. We'll take the swing to the UK with us, but we'll never have such a high branch to hang it from again.
The kids went out with their father, and I spent most of the day working with assistance from friends. (Shout out to Terri who brought in the dragon statue from the deck and never noticed the wasp's nest hanging from its wing. I spotted it after she left and had to take the whole thing back outside so I could knock the nest off. Somehow nobody got stung today.) I took a break in the evening to go down to the local ninja course with the parkour group for some adult playtime and then out for dinner.
After a crazy but largely positive day, the mood dropped devastatingly when the kids' father brought them home. There was no good way for them to have that goodbye... but at least they had it. It was after he left that I started crying... for all the joyful get-togethers with my friends, for all those celebrations of the times we've shared.... there's one friend who I don't get to say goodbye to: the friend with whom I set out on this crazy move to the US in the first place. It had been preying on my mind off and on this week, knowing that we're out of time to miraculously fix our friendship before I go. Out of time to be able to hang out with each other again. Instead, we said a goodbye as perfunctory as the one I said to my son's orthodontist.
I sent the kids to have a shower while I cried. I wasn't fooling them, but at least I didn't have to cry in front of them. I couldn't afford to stop working either, so I went to bring in a few things from the deck... and stopped.
Outside, it was our last sunset. All the sounds of nature, the occasional hum of boats going by and sending ripples on the water. The golden light as the sun started to get low... it was peaceful and perfect.
The kids came down stairs and I called them to join me. There we talked about it being the last time, the end... but only the end of a chapter. Not the end of the story. (The ten year old loved that metaphor—to him, it's not a cliche.) And then we watched the sunset and celebrated our house.
One last time.
(One Last Time is also the name of the Hamilton track that Katie and Cathy sang to me on my driveway before they had to leave. I may not have the goodbye I wanted, but I've definitely had some amazing goodbyes.)
Did I ever get my Transfer of Residence number? No, no I did not. Instead, I signed a statement to indicate that I am aware I will have to pay VAT on the cats and claim it back once I do have my number. However, I misread the checklist when sending in my precheck documents and failed to include the US health certificate—ordinarily, pets with passports wouldn't need it, but as the cats have had rabies vaccinations outside the EU, they still need an international vet's certificate along with their passport.
So the cats have failed their pre-check. I've submitted the correct (I hope!) documentation now and we'll see if that goes through before they leave tomorrow. I think they can still fly even without passing their pre-check, but I need to call the airline to check that.
It's been a crazy few days, frantically working and just as frantically playing in the knowledge that it's the last time I'll get to be with these people, these family clusters of friends, or the last time we get to go to these places that we've taken for granted for ten years. It has not been a few days with a lot of sleep.
So on Wednesday dinner with friends turned into karaoke with friends and getting to bed at midnight. I was awake at 5am Thursday, in order to submit the cats' precheck documentation for their flight and take pictures of them alongside their carrier so Virgin Airlines could confirm it was the right size.
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| Sample picture provided to illustrate acceptable pose |
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| Take 1 |
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| Take 2 |
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| Take 4 |
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| Take 6 (final) |
I found myself feeling a bit blue at Water Country; we normally do it on a weekend before the schools break up when it's quieter; it's also been a family tradition for the kids' entire lives. But I was missing having another adult there and it hit me for the first time how much I was leaving. I started to catch myself on the verge of tears. Thankfully, the kids are older now and I was able to send them round the lazy river a few times while I took a nap in a deckchair. After that, I was able to get more into the swing of it and we had a blast together until a storm drove everybody home. We got back to the house late evening and I immediately went online and bought cat supplies (food, litter, a cat tree) from Amazon UK to be delivered to my parents. I ended up in bed at 11:30pm, for another five or six hours of sleep before I woke again with the anxiety of things that needed to be done.
Today, the last day, I've had a stream of messages, going back and forth with friends—some goodbyes, some coordinating. Several friends came round to help me by looting my house of toiletries, medicines, food... all the things you can't thrift but you don't want to just throw away. It was chaotic and glorious. We all had one last swing before it came down: I was quite regretful, until my son pushed me so hard I thought I was going to flip over at which point I was OK getting away from it. We'll take the swing to the UK with us, but we'll never have such a high branch to hang it from again.
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| Some of the family are more blase about the swing... |
The kids went out with their father, and I spent most of the day working with assistance from friends. (Shout out to Terri who brought in the dragon statue from the deck and never noticed the wasp's nest hanging from its wing. I spotted it after she left and had to take the whole thing back outside so I could knock the nest off. Somehow nobody got stung today.) I took a break in the evening to go down to the local ninja course with the parkour group for some adult playtime and then out for dinner.
After a crazy but largely positive day, the mood dropped devastatingly when the kids' father brought them home. There was no good way for them to have that goodbye... but at least they had it. It was after he left that I started crying... for all the joyful get-togethers with my friends, for all those celebrations of the times we've shared.... there's one friend who I don't get to say goodbye to: the friend with whom I set out on this crazy move to the US in the first place. It had been preying on my mind off and on this week, knowing that we're out of time to miraculously fix our friendship before I go. Out of time to be able to hang out with each other again. Instead, we said a goodbye as perfunctory as the one I said to my son's orthodontist.
I sent the kids to have a shower while I cried. I wasn't fooling them, but at least I didn't have to cry in front of them. I couldn't afford to stop working either, so I went to bring in a few things from the deck... and stopped.
Outside, it was our last sunset. All the sounds of nature, the occasional hum of boats going by and sending ripples on the water. The golden light as the sun started to get low... it was peaceful and perfect.
The kids came down stairs and I called them to join me. There we talked about it being the last time, the end... but only the end of a chapter. Not the end of the story. (The ten year old loved that metaphor—to him, it's not a cliche.) And then we watched the sunset and celebrated our house.
One last time.
(One Last Time is also the name of the Hamilton track that Katie and Cathy sang to me on my driveway before they had to leave. I may not have the goodbye I wanted, but I've definitely had some amazing goodbyes.)
Monday, 17 June 2019
T minus Six Days: What did I miss?
The exciting update since the last post is that I finally got through to the Transfer of Residence helpline: shortly after 5am this morning, I actually got put through to the hold queue. Half an hour later, I was privileged enough to speak to a real live person.
Granted, it was a real live person with a thick accent on a terrible line. But with some effort, he managed to make me understand that my application needed some more supporting documents... namely a different proof of address and the cats' pet passports. He promised me faithfully that if I sent those, he would prioritise my application. I would have felt more confident had he also given me a different set of contact details than I had before, but instead everything got sent to the same address, and if I don't hear back, all I can do is call the same too-busy helpline.
In a week's time, we will be in the UK. Hopefully at my parents' house with the cats. I'm not entirely sure what happens with the cats if I don't have my ToR number, but let us be optimistic. What I do know is that this is our last week here, and things are officially frenetic.
We have the last medical appointments to work through. The last get-togethers with friends. The last sessions of our various hobbies. And somewhere in all those things that we absolutely don't want to miss, we need to fit in the last preparations for the move.
This means the week is packed, and my brain is so crammed full of Things To Know that it has decided to conserve storage space by shutting down most of its lesser functions. I'm now incapable of many day-to-day life tasks, and I certainly have no recollection of why anything's on the to-do list... I just know it needs to be done.
This has all but annihilated my ability to adapt. A few people today had to cancel/reschedule our plans, and I couldn't handle the adjustment. I'm not sure if I freaked out over them or went into a catatonic state, but it definitely wasn't a poised and appropriate reaction. Everybody around me has to be very patient right now.
Luckily for me, most of them are also being completely awesome. As I am overwhelmed by moving minutia, other people have arranged for me to get a break from the madness. The parkour group made sure I crossed off the biggest item left on my Virginia bucket list: hiking Old Rag (see picture below). My reprobate mom friends took over the house of an absent aunt so that the kids and I could have one last pool day (see picture above). Others have reached out on an individual basis for one last get-together...
And that's the sadness amid the joy. This isn't a week where we have time to look forward. The more fun we have with our friends, the more we think about what we're leaving behind. So as much of a celebration of our American life this week is, it's also a week of grieving.
Fortunately, grieving is healthy too. We will have our moments to grieve and then, next week, we'll move on.
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