Thames to Rhine

 Ooh dear. It's been a while! 

Well, there's a lot to tell! 

Between the last post in 2017 and today, we've had a number of different holidays and adventures, both in the UK and out of it. Tony and I have managed to tick off a few things including a hot air balloon over Henley.

    

The hot air balloon was the bucket list item, not the Henley part 😄. 

We spent an amazing few days on a canal boat through Warwickshire, along the Ashby Canal with Australian cousins, Kerryn & David.

Omaha Beach D-Day Memorial

Monet's house

Monet's garden and lily pond

May 2017, we went to Normandy in France, saw the D-Day beaches and toured Monet's house & gardens in Giverney where the pond of his famous water lily's is located.

 

We went to Epernay in Champagne region of France for a wonderful long weekend May 2018, and toured the cellars of Madame Pommery, one of the most formidable women of her time and industry. The champagne didn't stop there though. We visited a number of champagne houses, learned a lot more about champagne and even Tony found a new appreciation of my favourite tipple. 

We managed to finally spend a New Years on the Thames. Along with fellow kiwis living in London, Jayne and Ian, we had NYE 2017 living it up on the Southbank Centre. Prior to that, we had Christmas in Bruges with a friend Jemma.

Ticking off a bucket list item, we stayed in a castle on our way up to the Lakes District May 2019, and spent  a few days in Malta in the July. Peckforton Castle was amazing, and the room was the castle experience I'd always wanted. The huge tub, the beautiful old beams and a great bed! Truly a dream come true. 

I have been back to New Zealand a couple of times in the past two years, and the both of us were back in October 2019 for some much needed family time. We have had plenty of visitors to our various UK abodes - between Ealing, moving to Twickenham in 2017, and spending the last two and a half years in Teddington (not far from Twickenham), we have moved a couple of times, but we do love it here. 

2020 hasn't been the best year for travelling. It was meant to have been a really big year of travel, being our 20th wedding anniversary back in May (which we finally celebrated in August).  As part of that trip, Tony finally saw some of north Wales, which we had been trying to do for a couple of years. We also managed to get back to where we got married 20 years earlier. Clearwell Castle hasn't changed much, a few little bits here and there, but overall still has gorgeous as it was when we got married. The weather was perfect as well. 

A few other things on the 'list' were meant to have been ticked off including Dubrovnik, Barcelona and a whisky trail to celebrate a couple of very special people's 50th's. 

We have had to curtail the planned trips, and spent a lot of time and some weekend trips in the UK, once it opened up. 

Our visa's for the UK expire in November. Even with the restrictions around COVID we are still having to pack our things and get out of the country. Due to the nature of the visa's we are currently on, we can't get these extended, or apply for the new visa's which come in to play at the beginning of 2021. 

This leads us to our next adventure. We're moving to Germany! I know! and you are probably as shocked as I am. We had a look at a few different options in Europe, with it getting narrowed down to Germany and The Netherlands. Germany won out, as the process (or so we thought), seemed a little more simpler and straight forward. Haha. We were so wrong. We didn't take into account the paperwork we would need to fill out, the various things we need to do and the completely backwards way, it seems, we need to do everything. 

Dusseldorf is going to be our city of residence. It's close enough to The Netherlands with my work, as I spend a bit of time with clients there, and Tony has an office in Dusseldorf he can go to if needed. There are great plane, car and rail connections to the rest of Europe and we'll be on the Rhine. And in fact, the apartment we have got for the first couple of months, is a block from the Rhine. So from the Thames to the Rhine we go. 

We now have four weeks to pack everything up, sell or give away half or our stuff, as we will get furnished rental initially until we know how long we will be there for. The idea is to stay in Germany for 12-15 months, and then re-asses if we come back to the UK (we have a 12 month stand down before we can apply for another visa in the UK) or head back to Australia/NZ. We may fall in love with Germany and decide to settle. Watch this space. 

I am going to try and be better and keep the blog updated more regularly this time. Famous last words, but with the new adventures, German adventures and beyond, we will try and keep you as up-to-date as we can. 

Four weeks and counting. The land of beer, bratwurst and bread. 

Watch this space for more updates! 

Take care and stay safe

Jodi & Tony xx