USA.... 6 months in

Can't believe we have been in the U.S. six months already, the time has flown by! It's been a strange yet busy time, filled with sadness, adjustment, learning, excitement and exploration!

So lets go back to when we arrived at the beginning of March. Spring was just starting to show itself and we had secured temporary accomodation with Em's sister and her family in Beckley, WV, until we got settled and adjusted to this, our new life.

Our first task on arriving was to buy a car - vehicles are crucial here unless you live centrally in a city and we are not city folk! So within a few hours of us landing Fred went to view a vehicle on our drive from the airport to my sisters, I gather it was one he had been in talks with prior to our arrival so it wasn't quite such an impulse as otherwise it sounds. Deposit paid we then had to understand and set wheels in motion of all the legal requirements of buying a car over here. There is a little more paperwork required if you buy from out of state to where you are registering it and as we were buying it from Virigina and taking it to West Virginia we had a little more to work out. But paperwork done and it is a very quick process, we were able to go and pick the car up and legally drive it back to Beckley within a few days of us landing.

We then were on the hunt for our new home, we had been house hunting ever since we first decided to immigrate here, back in July 2023, we had even put in several offers since that time, but they were not meant to be. Then one day in April after a month of viewing many houses we drove into yet another yard, stepped out, walked into the house and I said "I want to put in an offer" The realtor asked if I would like to see the whole house first, but I just knew this would be our home, it spoke to me. Like me, it is quirky, with not a single level floor or doorway & like Fred, a bit rough around the edges and yet it was a beautiful home with so much potential, you just needed to look deeper, to see past the tired, dated decor, the faulty electrics, dodgy plumbing, uneven floors and overgrown garden and see that this was once a home filled with much love and with the right couple we could breath life back into her and bring her back to being a beautiful loving home, our home. So an offer was put in, accepted and we had the keys to our new home within 2 weeks!! Yep, the speed in which houses are bought was totally unexpected by us, I mean come on - in the UK if you can buy a house within 3 months you are doing extremely well, so for us to have put in an offer, signed all the paperwork, meetings, had all the inspections done all within 2 weeks - INSANE!!! Why can't the UK do that? Of course that's not to say it is always that easy over here but its certainly alot quicker than the UK for sure.

So we now had our new home, it was move in ready as we don't mind living in it whilst we do the renovations! Good job too as our shipping container of belongings then arrived from the UK, this conveniently arrived the one weekend I was away with my sister in Mississipi so Fred had the fun task of emptying the lorry and putting it into storage in our basement, all on his own - kind of gets him back from making me pack up 2 houses without his help!!

Next was our wedding! So we set a date, got the necessary paperwork from the courthouse, picked a venue, applied for the necessary paperwork to allow us to marry in our chosen spot and found a minister to perform the ceremony. The wedding itself was beautiful, a very quiet affair - just as we wanted and in the most beautiful setting along the Endless Wall trail, overlooking the New River Gorge.

Then it was time for me to get the necessary paperwork that is required if I want to open a bank account, buy alcohol or anything else of importance. Fred being a US national already has his. The main two requirements to being able to do anything over here is having a driving licence and social security number. So May saw me take my driving test - I have been driving in the UK for over 30 years - but now suddenly I am not only on the wrong side of the car, the wrong side of the road - somewhat nerve racking for sure - but also understanding the different terminology - pavement is not the same here as the UK!! But I'm happy to report I passed the test. We have since bought my own run around, not such a beast as Freds car, but still perfect for the mountainous terrain.

So 6 months on and we can both honestly say we are loving life!! The house renovations are coming along, with much of the outside work completed, and we're in no hurry to push ourselves to finish. We are also managing to get out sightseeing, with an even bigger emphasis on that since we purchased "Wanda II" - our new RV has yet to make her debut appearance, but we've lots of exciting adventures planned for her... so watch this space!!

Thanks for reading 😊