An exhausting three weeks

Has it been three weeks since I last posted? It’s been a pretty full on few weeks as well, with a potentially huge life change coming up. In summary I am definitely being made redundant although the company are refusing to make any confirmation until the 30-day consultation period is complete. They asked for any proposals to be kept on at the company, which I submitted, and they then declined my consultation sugestion. As time has gone on though I just don’t want to be in the office anymore. I think once someone says they don’t want you, and then confirms they don’t want you by rejecting a proposal to keep you on, your motivation to stay dissipates. My team are being great, and the weird atmosphere in the office has subsided a bit, but it’s not a great place to work anymore. And as the June 10th deadline for the consultation period to end looms it is getting harder and harder to leap out of bed in the morning and launch into a work day enthusiastically. As an aside to all this the consultation meetings seem to be dragging on and that is adding a bit of stress to everything. I am going on holiday on June 10th and I want all of this resolved before I go. I definitely don’t want to come back in the office after I get back from holiday. I have confronted HR about sorting this out and just get fobbed off with ‘things have to take their course’ bullshit.

I have been approached by another company to go and work for them. I have spoken to the senior staff there and hopefully they are going to take me on. It would involve us all leaving London and moving to the South coast of England to Portsmouth. The job sounds interesting although it will be a challenge to begin with. We have lots of family who live in and around Portsmouth so the move would be ideal for us in many ways. We have talked about moving down to the coast for a while, but then put off the move until the economic situation improved – we figured it would be better to keep a stable job until things get better (how wrong was that call!). We are thinking about trying for a second child so it would really help us to have family close. And the atmosphere is much more chilled than London so it all kind of fits. Just need to get the job now!!

The logistics of moving down there will be a bit complex though and we have tried to prepare as much as possible already. The best solution we have come up with is to rent down there for a few months while we sell our place in London and buy a place in Portsmouth. Ideally we don’t want to have to move all our stuff from London to one house, and then move everything to another house afterwards. Moving is stressful, things get broken and it’s crap, so I want to do it the fewest number of times possible. We have played around with several ideas including me working down there during the week and then coming back to London for the week-ends, but I really didn’t like that either. A house move will take a least 3 months and I can’t be away from my girls for that long. So renting somewhere is the best option. Renting somewhere furnished so we can leave our stuff in London while we sell the house is the next decision. We thought about renting in the area we would like to buy, but there are very few furnished places. Then we hit on the idea of renting somewhere by the sea for a few months. It’s the Summer, we could go to the beach every day, and Portsmouth is small so it wouldn’t matter much to be a couple of kms from where we plan to buy. Suddenly the plan seems to be coming together. And I quite fancy living by the beach for a few weeks! Of course it all hinges on the decision about the job, and everything that can be crossed is about that one!!

Without wishing to tempt fate it’s funny how life works out sometimes. Without the redundancy I probably wouldn’t have been approached about this job. Without the redundancy we wouldn’t even have considered a move for a while. Meg doesn’t start school proper for another year so the timing for her is ideal, as we can settle into the new area and not have to change her schooling after it has started. As much as we love being in London it’s starting to get tiring now, and living near the coast is like a dream. Most people I spoke to said that redundancy was a great thing when they looked back on it. If this all works out then I will second that!