One of the comments made quite often to me in the days running up to our move to Spain was that, with technology, keeping in touch with friends and family has never been easier. And in a way, this is true. The internet is a great way to share photos and experiences, to chat to people and do it in a very inexpensive way. Even when we lived in areas where the internet was difficult to access from home, there was always bars and cafes we could go to and have a drink while using their computers.
But, I did find that very quickly I was losing touch with that feeling of being part of peoples lives. I felt I was sitting on the outside reading about it, but not actually sharing it with them.
It was something I struggled with.
My new friends in Spain told me it got easier with time, I actually found it got harder with time and each time I visited the UK, it was harder for me to get on a plane and go back.
Moving back after 3 years meant that I had to pick up the threads of those friendships again, catch up on the changes that had happened while we'd been away. Somehow, not sharing the changes and events meant they hadn't really registered with me even though I had been kept up-to-date with emails, photos, phone calls and visits.
It was just not the same.
It's this type of thing that you can't anticipate how you'll handle it. I was surprised how much it mattered to me. I was making new friends in Spain and meeting nice people but somehow, I missed my old friends and family being close by too much.
After 18 months back in the UK, I feel as if I have caught up with those missing years.
Friday 16 December 2011
Wednesday 14 December 2011
It's taken 18 months but finally.......
It is well accepted in the UK that there is a shortage of places with NHS dentists. By moving abroad we were no longer registered with our old dentist and phoning around various surgeries on our return resulted in a complete lack of any NHS places being available.
And so, for 18 months, any treatment we've had has been paid for on a private basis. Not cheap but necessary.
On my last visit to have a broken tooth sorted I noticed the surgery we have been using has a notice up advertising that they were taking on NHS patients from this month.
So, finally, after 18 months, we have now manage to register as NHS patients and will now receive some funding towards our treatment. I think that's the last thing to sort since we moved back last summer. We are now totally back as UK residents, paying all our bills and taxes in one country.
Finally, I can close the folder and file it away.
And so, for 18 months, any treatment we've had has been paid for on a private basis. Not cheap but necessary.
On my last visit to have a broken tooth sorted I noticed the surgery we have been using has a notice up advertising that they were taking on NHS patients from this month.
So, finally, after 18 months, we have now manage to register as NHS patients and will now receive some funding towards our treatment. I think that's the last thing to sort since we moved back last summer. We are now totally back as UK residents, paying all our bills and taxes in one country.
Finally, I can close the folder and file it away.
Sunday 11 December 2011
Organising the move back.
The main issue when organising the move back was to find someone to bring all our furniture and possessions back. The internet was a necessity for doing this as it saved us a fortune in phone calls.
We decided we wanted a UK company to move us back and needed someone with the facility to store our furniture if there was any delay in getting the keys to whichever house we were moving in to.
After a lot of searching and enquiries we chose our company to move us. We were aware that we would be a part load on a large van but doing it this way kept costs down. This however, means it's less easy to get firm dates. All they would tell us was that the van would be with us sometime during the week commencing - and until the week before they could not give us a definite day. This made it increasingly difficult to plan our trip home. After all if we didn't know whether the van would be here Monday or Friday, how could we book our tickets for the Channel Tunnel.
We did, however, manage to work with this, and trying our best to keep the stress levels under control, we packed everything we could and waited for the confirmed day. On the Monday of the week before we would be moving back, we finally we're told our shipment would be collected on the Friday of the following week. The van would spend the week dropping off part loads as it moved through the UK, France and southwards to us in the south of Spain and would arrive at us as an empty van.
Having collected our stuff it would then spend several days reversing the journey and finally estimated arriving with our stuff a week later.
This meant I could now plan the drive home, book the hotels for the overnight stops on the way home and book the Chunnel tickets.
If cost is not too big a consideration I would certainly book a dedicated company that only move your stuff on the van, but by using a shared van we halved our transport costs which, for us, was definitely worth doing.
We moved within 4 weeks of deciding to return to the UK so it was a fairly hectic and stressful time, however, it was definitely helpful that we'd already done the move out to Spain ourselves as we knew exactly what we needed to do and could just get on with it.
Such things as needing cardboard boxes. Our time in Spain had taught us that whatever you can buy off the internet in the UK, Spain has the same types of supplies. By finding out the spanish for cardboard box and googling it, I found a number of sites which would supply moving packs, cancellation of services is the same as in the UK and we even arranged the re-direction of our post. Jobs that 3 years earlier would have seemed so difficult to organise in a foreign country now all fell in to place without any bother.
I began to realise just how much we had learned during our time in Spain.
We decided we wanted a UK company to move us back and needed someone with the facility to store our furniture if there was any delay in getting the keys to whichever house we were moving in to.
After a lot of searching and enquiries we chose our company to move us. We were aware that we would be a part load on a large van but doing it this way kept costs down. This however, means it's less easy to get firm dates. All they would tell us was that the van would be with us sometime during the week commencing - and until the week before they could not give us a definite day. This made it increasingly difficult to plan our trip home. After all if we didn't know whether the van would be here Monday or Friday, how could we book our tickets for the Channel Tunnel.
We did, however, manage to work with this, and trying our best to keep the stress levels under control, we packed everything we could and waited for the confirmed day. On the Monday of the week before we would be moving back, we finally we're told our shipment would be collected on the Friday of the following week. The van would spend the week dropping off part loads as it moved through the UK, France and southwards to us in the south of Spain and would arrive at us as an empty van.
Having collected our stuff it would then spend several days reversing the journey and finally estimated arriving with our stuff a week later.
This meant I could now plan the drive home, book the hotels for the overnight stops on the way home and book the Chunnel tickets.
If cost is not too big a consideration I would certainly book a dedicated company that only move your stuff on the van, but by using a shared van we halved our transport costs which, for us, was definitely worth doing.
We moved within 4 weeks of deciding to return to the UK so it was a fairly hectic and stressful time, however, it was definitely helpful that we'd already done the move out to Spain ourselves as we knew exactly what we needed to do and could just get on with it.
Such things as needing cardboard boxes. Our time in Spain had taught us that whatever you can buy off the internet in the UK, Spain has the same types of supplies. By finding out the spanish for cardboard box and googling it, I found a number of sites which would supply moving packs, cancellation of services is the same as in the UK and we even arranged the re-direction of our post. Jobs that 3 years earlier would have seemed so difficult to organise in a foreign country now all fell in to place without any bother.
I began to realise just how much we had learned during our time in Spain.
Sunday 4 December 2011
Settling back in the UK
Along side work was the need to find somewhere to live. While we had money tied up in Spain we would need to find somewhere to rent. Having worked in the Estate Agency business for over 20 years I have seen the trends where numbers of properties to rent increases as the sale market reduces. This was good news for us looking for a nice house in a nice area for a long term rental.
There were 2 things that would be a major issue in finding a suitable property - firstly, that we have 2 dogs and secondly, that we needed somewhere to either site or store the hottub which was definitely coming back from Spain with us.
The main concern was our dogs. They needed a secure rear garden, close to some good dog walking areas. As with Recruitment Agencies being a barrier to finding work, the Estate Agents can be a barrier to finding a suitable property.
The majority of agents make a standard clause on rental properties that simply states, no smokers, no pets, no DSS. And depending on who you speak to in the agents this is an unmoveable clause. But, if you put an offer to the agent they should relay this to the owner. I found a number of houses that were worth considering and all of the owners except one agreed to the dogs on the basis that I had offered them an increased bond against damages and that we would have any carpets cleaned on our departure.
Indeed, the one owner that initially said no, actually changed his mind and said he would permit the dogs so, it paid off knowing how to approach the agents on this.
The choice was made by where had storage for the hottub. There was potential for it to go in the garden but in the end we stored it in the garage for the first year.
I managed to find the house on my fact finding trip in May. The contract needed sorting out and that was not so easy to do while living in Spain, however the agent worked with me on proof of ID etc and we managed to get every thing in place for our return. We picked the keys up 2 days after arriving back in the UK. We had somewhere to live and somewhere for our furniture to be delivered to.
There were 2 things that would be a major issue in finding a suitable property - firstly, that we have 2 dogs and secondly, that we needed somewhere to either site or store the hottub which was definitely coming back from Spain with us.
The main concern was our dogs. They needed a secure rear garden, close to some good dog walking areas. As with Recruitment Agencies being a barrier to finding work, the Estate Agents can be a barrier to finding a suitable property.
The majority of agents make a standard clause on rental properties that simply states, no smokers, no pets, no DSS. And depending on who you speak to in the agents this is an unmoveable clause. But, if you put an offer to the agent they should relay this to the owner. I found a number of houses that were worth considering and all of the owners except one agreed to the dogs on the basis that I had offered them an increased bond against damages and that we would have any carpets cleaned on our departure.
Indeed, the one owner that initially said no, actually changed his mind and said he would permit the dogs so, it paid off knowing how to approach the agents on this.
The choice was made by where had storage for the hottub. There was potential for it to go in the garden but in the end we stored it in the garage for the first year.
I managed to find the house on my fact finding trip in May. The contract needed sorting out and that was not so easy to do while living in Spain, however the agent worked with me on proof of ID etc and we managed to get every thing in place for our return. We picked the keys up 2 days after arriving back in the UK. We had somewhere to live and somewhere for our furniture to be delivered to.
Turning agency work into a permanent job.
Monday morning dawned and a review of work showed that while I had done my work for the audit, my colleague hadn't and there was still 2 weeks work to do. Needless to say my 2 weeks trainging evaporated and eventually was condensed into 1 day.
Somehow I managed to fathom enough from my notes to work out what to do and how, and week 1 went reasonable to plan, week 2 was better. I was then due to go in on the following Monday to handover to my colleague on his return from holiday.
Only, he didn't return, instead he sent in his resignation with immedaite effect. So, again I was summoned to 'the other side' and asked if I could stay on placement doing the weekly accounts and at the same time assist in the re-distribution of the work between existing staff on 2 sites.
In all this, I could see that having my contract extended and again would look good on my CV and so, although I knew no permanent job would come from it, I was happy to continue. I had also been flexible with my days. I initially started 5 days a week, covered on 3 days a week and then went up to 5 days a week again. I decided an element of flexibility would also help with assignments, rather than be rigid in my requirements.
In all the assignment lasted 8 months - not bad from an initial 3 weeks and certainly other agencies were starting to consider me for roles that they had previously dismissed me without discussion. Still, that permanent job evaded me. I was firmly of the opinion that my best chance at a permanent role was through a temporary one, maybe the next job would be different.
I was offered another temporary assignment, 3 months with a view to permanent - and although there was a long commute, if it worked out it would be easy to relocate as our rental house would have been beyond the minimum term. The worst of winter was over and the increased hourly rate would cover the extra petrol costs - I agreed to take the assignment.
Week 1 went very well, but I could quickly see that there was no long term job there for me. They thought thety had bigger problems than they had, but really it was a timing issue and once we had re-done the way various work was done and reports were run, there suddenly wasn't a problem anymore. After 4 weeks they left word with the agency that they didn't need me to go back.
In the current economic climate it was no surprise that they would cut out agency costs as soon as they could, especially as even I could see no long term job there, even after only being there a week.
Back to all the agencies on Monday morning and by mid-morning I had an interview for the following day at another local company, so no more long commute. I started with them later that week on a 13 week contract with possible permanent, 4 days a week. Halfway through the assignment they started making positive noises towards me being kept on premanently. I almost held my breath as I worked those final weeks. I loved the job, got on great with the people, had less than 5 minute commute and so wanted it to be made permanent.
At the end of the 12th week they confirmed they wanted me to stay on and on a full-time basis. My flexible approach had paid off.
If you are returning to the UK and need to look for work after being out of the job market for a while, it is not easy but being prepared to do any form of work through agencies and getting some current work experience on your CV should not be under-estimated. Had I not been fortunate enough to get assignments that ran into each other, I was planning to do some voluntary work just to show I was willing to work and could get that detailed on my CV.
I do consider myself lucky to have found a job I really enjoy, working with people I get on with and so close to home. It had taken me 11 months from returning to the UK to getting a permanent role.
Somehow I managed to fathom enough from my notes to work out what to do and how, and week 1 went reasonable to plan, week 2 was better. I was then due to go in on the following Monday to handover to my colleague on his return from holiday.
Only, he didn't return, instead he sent in his resignation with immedaite effect. So, again I was summoned to 'the other side' and asked if I could stay on placement doing the weekly accounts and at the same time assist in the re-distribution of the work between existing staff on 2 sites.
In all this, I could see that having my contract extended and again would look good on my CV and so, although I knew no permanent job would come from it, I was happy to continue. I had also been flexible with my days. I initially started 5 days a week, covered on 3 days a week and then went up to 5 days a week again. I decided an element of flexibility would also help with assignments, rather than be rigid in my requirements.
In all the assignment lasted 8 months - not bad from an initial 3 weeks and certainly other agencies were starting to consider me for roles that they had previously dismissed me without discussion. Still, that permanent job evaded me. I was firmly of the opinion that my best chance at a permanent role was through a temporary one, maybe the next job would be different.
I was offered another temporary assignment, 3 months with a view to permanent - and although there was a long commute, if it worked out it would be easy to relocate as our rental house would have been beyond the minimum term. The worst of winter was over and the increased hourly rate would cover the extra petrol costs - I agreed to take the assignment.
Week 1 went very well, but I could quickly see that there was no long term job there for me. They thought thety had bigger problems than they had, but really it was a timing issue and once we had re-done the way various work was done and reports were run, there suddenly wasn't a problem anymore. After 4 weeks they left word with the agency that they didn't need me to go back.
In the current economic climate it was no surprise that they would cut out agency costs as soon as they could, especially as even I could see no long term job there, even after only being there a week.
Back to all the agencies on Monday morning and by mid-morning I had an interview for the following day at another local company, so no more long commute. I started with them later that week on a 13 week contract with possible permanent, 4 days a week. Halfway through the assignment they started making positive noises towards me being kept on premanently. I almost held my breath as I worked those final weeks. I loved the job, got on great with the people, had less than 5 minute commute and so wanted it to be made permanent.
At the end of the 12th week they confirmed they wanted me to stay on and on a full-time basis. My flexible approach had paid off.
If you are returning to the UK and need to look for work after being out of the job market for a while, it is not easy but being prepared to do any form of work through agencies and getting some current work experience on your CV should not be under-estimated. Had I not been fortunate enough to get assignments that ran into each other, I was planning to do some voluntary work just to show I was willing to work and could get that detailed on my CV.
I do consider myself lucky to have found a job I really enjoy, working with people I get on with and so close to home. It had taken me 11 months from returning to the UK to getting a permanent role.
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