untold blisses

Part of the reason why I haven’t posted on here this year is because I haven’t been able to share what’s been happening in my life. It’s quite hard to know what to write when I haven’t wanted to give away the huge plans that Husband and I have. Yep, we’re moving 400 miles from the south of England to the middle of Scotland. In a global pandemic.

About a year ago, we were on a trip in the New Forest with our Texan friends. They told us about all the different states and cities they lived as their children grew up, and we told them about our plans to retire to Scotland – somewhere rural, in a much bigger house than our tiny two-bedroom place, maybe with lots of land. Ooo, and an epic view.

Our trip was constantly interrupted with emails and texts from people at work – my team had just found out that a huge number of people were going to be made redundant, and I had started to worry about my own job security. As I became more and more stressed, Jack asked me if the job was worth it, and why don’t we just move to Scotland now instead of waiting for retirement. We didn’t have an answer for him.

Fast forward to Jan 2020 – I’d been making a half-hearted attempt at looking for a job in Scotland, but nothing had really caught my eye. I didn’t want to take a step backwards in my career and as I’m in quite a niche area, there hadn’t been that much to apply for. And then a job advert caught my eye – right salary, right skillset, slightly different type of employer. I sent in my application and crossed my fingers.

A couple of weeks later, I was invited to interview. Husband and I decided to make a mini-break of it – we’d both fly up after work and spend a few days in Edinburgh, one of our favourite cities. The night before my interview, I checked us in to our flight online, BBC News 24 on the TV in the background. I had just sent the boarding passes to the printer and told Husband to download the Flybe app when I heard the news reporter mention Flybe.

Yeah, they’d just gone under. After about 20 minutes staring in shock at the TV, hoping that there had been a terrible mistake, we gave up hope and started looking at alternatives – BA flights were crazy expensive, with the train just slightly cheaper. We booked two seats on LNER, and just hoped we’d get a refund for the original flights (we booked the flights through Virgin Atlantic. Over a month later, and we’re still waiting for that refund…). It meant we had significantly less time in Edinburgh which was a shame, but we did secure an upgrade to first class using Seat Frog which was a blessing as the train was packed with other Flybe passengers.

This was also the very start of the Covid-19 crisis, so my mind was all over the place during the interview. I was convinced that I had done terribly, giving messy, scattered answers. The interview took place north of Edinburgh, so I made my way back to the hotel we were staying at, looking forward to the commiseration kanelbullar that Husband had just bought me from the Soderberg nearby. Just before I got to the room, my phone rang with the call that would change my life – I had got the job. I got back to the room, told Husband, and burst into tears of relief.

That evening, we went to Bread Meats Bread on Lothian Road for the most incredible celebratory burgers, maple bacon sweet potato fries, and poutine). In a couple of months time, we’d be moving to Scotland, and my dreams of a proper grown-up house with an epic view would come true.

Well, I’m sure you can see where this is going. The day we were due to put our house on the market, the Covid-19 lockdown started in the UK and we’re a bit stuck. The job is still on, the move is still on, but I just don’t know when the new house is going to happen. We may need to rent for a while if we can’t buy (or sell!) but we still want to take that risk. I don’t want to get this close to living my best life only to lose it, so although it’s going to be hard, we’re going for it.

The photo at the top of this post is where I’ll be working. How could I say no to that?