It’s about me too!

So clearly the main reason for our move is my husband’s job but with 10 days to go I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about what it is I want to get from this experience.  I’ve realised that this is a fresh start and I can be whoever I want to be, no one knows me or my story so I can quite literally start again. This deep philosophical realisation resulted in, yes you guessed it, a haircut! I’m a girl and it’s how we deal with things, sorry! So here we have it, I am now a redhead!



There have been other changes too. I have been sewing:





And there has been the intense buying of Tupperware for storage:



Turns out who I’ve always wanted to be is some kind of Christina Hendricks meets Martha Stewart, who knew!?

We shall see what comes next…

Lexi xx

Bye bye UK bills

So with less than three weeks to go until departure, the dreaded utility company ring round has commenced! 

First call was the council, easy peasy, so far so good! 

Then came Virgin, after a while of negotiating the automated system and selecting the “I’m moving and I don’t want to take my service with me” option I’m asked what it is I want and do I want to connect at my new property. After convincing the lady I really don’t as I’m leaving the country, I’m then asked if I know either the new tenant or anybody else who’d like Virgin so I can claim £50 which might offset any cancellation charges, I don’t but they’ve sent me an email just in case I think of someone – lucky me! We finally ascertain that they can turn me off without me providing contact details for everyone I’ve ever met and will refund the £4 credit I will have straight to my bank.

A very quick call to EDF’s automated system tells me I’m too early and can only call a maximum of 14 days before the move.

Then on to Southern Water who have arranged for my account to be closed and someone to read the meter on moving day. However, getting the money back I’m owed turns out to not be so easy. They need to send me a bill which I need to respond to or they will just keep hold of my money. As we won’t be moving straight into the new house I can’t give them an address. So I now have to phone them about 2 weeks after we’ve moved out, by which point they should have generated the bill and then ask them how much they owe me and they can then process the refund into the bank account that they already have the details for. They’re so generous 😉

x

Welcome to Expat Mum!

Hello all!

So, I decided to start a wee blog partly as I thought it would be fun to chronicle our family’s big adventure moving to Germany and partly because I read an article about Zoella purchasing a £1m house and I thought I’d like to have a piece of that 😜. 

Who are we then? I’m Lexi and I’m happily married to the man lovingly known as Arthur (due to his obsession with only doing ‘alf a job!) and we have one mini me aka Monkey who has reached the wonderful age of trouble (2). 

What are we up to? We’re moving from the South Coast of the UK to the beautiful countryside near Stuttgart due to Arthur getting a new job (his half a job tendency does not apply to work, I promise, just the things I ask him to do!) in the area and me fancying an adventure. We don’t speak German and I’ve been to the country once aged 11 and once for the house hunting trip. Arthur has been for the interview and the house hunting trip. Monkey has never been. So, basically we have no idea what we’re doing!

If you’d like to hop aboard the ferry and join us on our adventure (in a reading the blog way, not in a come meet us at Dover way – that would be creepy!) then please do, but be warned, chaos is inevitable. Ferry departs 12pm Thursday 19th March….

Lexi xx