Firstly, I would like to apologise for the delay in getting my Singapore blog written. Our laptops are constantly being used for job applications, emails and research so I haven’t had enough time to get it fully finished yet. I know a lot of you are actually waiting to read it due to some trips you are planning, so I promise, it will be up by the weekend.

Being home has been great and awful all rolled in to one. I’ll try and summarise what we’ve been up to:

1. Arrived back to the UK after a 14 hour flight.
2. Struggled with jetlag for about 4 days.
3. Spent some lovely time with my parents in Swindon.
4. Travelled to Yorkshire and had a lovely, but unbelievably manic week seeing everyone up there.
5. Travelled back to Cornwall (wow, I forgot what a journey that was) and started immediately working on the house.
6. Parents came to Cornwall and helped to decorate 5 rooms in less than 3 days. Thank you Mum and Dad.
7. Over the next few days completed a total of 12 runs back and forth to the storage container to collect all our stuff. Washing machines are VERY heavy.
8. Sorted out a lot of the stuff, including rebuilding furniture, a few charity shop runs and boxing up bits for the loft (we’re not fully unpacking incase we need to move again).
9. Worried about money and jobs.
10. At around 2 weeks, I had a breakdown… more on this later.
11. Started thinking about jobs (we’re at about 2.5 weeks home now).
12. We now spend our days job hunting, applying, CV writing and practising interview techniques.
13. Spent some time with friends, which has been such a welcomed relief.

This brings us pretty much up to where we are today. We have been home now for very nearly 4 weeks. Today, I have a telephone interview for a job I am unbelievably excited about, I’m also going to finish the application process for supply teaching today. Hopefully, that means I will only have to wait for my DBS check to come through before the work starts coming in.

As I’ve said to most of you, teaching full time is not something I’m interested in at the moment. Travelling has opened my eyes to the way I was during those few years and I know that there is a career out there that will make me happy. For the time being, supply will bring in some money from a job that I am good at (I can finally appreciate that now, as at times last year, it was hard to believe I was good at a job that made me so anxious and upset).

So, what has been hard to get used to since being home?

1. The weather. I’m 99% sure I suffer from this seasonal depression disorder. The problem is, it’s not just in the Winter that the weather is poor here, it’s all the time. I haven’t seen the sun or any blue sky since Saturday now (it’s Wednesday). How depressing is that? I love walking, I love being active, but the weather just makes me want to cocoon away and carry on with work on my laptop. What I’d give for a bit of sun right about now.
2. Not feeling at home anywhere. These are all pretty deep, so I apologise. I grew up in Swindon and I love visiting my parents, but Swindon isn’t home. The welcome in Yorkshire is amazing and the people are the best, but it isn’t home. Cornwall, isn’t home even though it’s beautiful and an amazing place to live. So, where is? Travelling for so long meant that there was something new and exciting everyday. Something new to see and do. Here, we’re not seeing a lot of new and exciting things. I know that everyone has to settle and get on with life, but the place we move to, I want to feel like home. There is a plan in place for this, if jobs work out.
3. Being surrounded by stuff. Simon and I have a very average amount of ‘stuff’ in my opinion, but it’s too much. That breakdown I was talking about happened after another run to the storage container meant that I could hardly walk through the hallway. I sat down on the bed for a good 30 minutes and had an epic cry, which did help. Gotta love my unbelievable supportive husband. I hate looking everywhere and seeing ‘stuff’. We’ve spent a huge amount of time sorting through bits and bobs ultimately binning a lot, giving some to charity, we’ve sold some stuff and a lot of it has gone up to the loft to be considered in a few months. I can’t be anymore grateful to Simon for boarding our loft up before we left. I’m not sure what I’d do if I had to have everything around us like before. Living in a 55l backpack for 8 months has truly changed my opinion on materialistic items. I was never materialistic in the first place, but we had accumulated a lot and I will not let that happen again. Please please please do not buy us anything for a good few years. Amazon vouchers would be great 🙂
4. Accepting that nothing has changed. You never fully believe it when you are told this on the road, but you get home and nothing has changed. Everyone else is still going about their business, still loving life. I am so happy to come home to a very happy bunch of friends and family, but it’s very hard for me to see how nothing big could have happened in the time we were away. So many amazing things have happened to us. Obviously, some things have changed. A couple of engagements and a new baby in the family are some examples of some great celebrations we got to come home to.
5. Anxiety. I never was an anxious person. I can blame a certain career for creating a deep and underlying anxiety in myself. I have to say, I am more anxious on a daily basis right now, than I was at any point during the 8 months travel. Every time I speak to someone after a few days I get ‘How’s the job search?’ ‘Are you going to move?’ ‘Have you had any interviews?’ ‘Have you sorted X/Y/Z?’ and I’m feeling that butterfly feeling again. I don’t like it and I know I need to batter it away with a stick, because we are OK for a few more months without work and we are going to be fine. Breathe in and out!!
6. Negative news. Wow! Has anyone ever stopped to appreciate how negative our media is? I have to say, this isn’t something we noticed in Australia and New Zealand. The positive vibes you get out there are 1000 x better than here. Every time I turn on the TV I see news about politics, death, prisons, crime, weather etc. Everything is just so negative!! No wonder I feel so low.

I have to say, despite the bad bits about coming home we have loved seeing family and friends. I love being in my own home surrounded by (a very small amount) of my own things and I love the familiarity of the country.

All i hope for at the moment is that we both find some jobs that challenge us in all the right ways, we can move somewhere that feels like home and we can start planning for our next holiday. Not too much to ask for, I don’t think.