Thread 19 - TalkLair: "The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long"

[Kucinghitam]

(Previous thread 18)

Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat...

In the TalkLair, the fairy lights are festooned on the mantlepiece, the tree is twinkling with baubles, the mince pies are in the oven, the MN legendary chicken is ready to feed the hordes. The denizens of the lair are a welcoming bunch, always eager for general chit-chat on all manner of topics. We just won’t mention the gnawed bones of our prey over there in the corner of the cave…

Thanks for being my sounding board

I do worry a bit that DH is partly motivated by knowing that I've never settled here, while I don't hate this city I don't particularly like it either, that my hatred of our house has mellowed into general meh-ness but I'm never going to love it, etc. We came here for (1) his career (2) his parents. And have ended up living here longer than any of the other places we've lived. So perhaps now he feels like he needs to look elsewhere for something that suits me.

What elements of moving were the most stressful for you, Kuc? Is there a way to mitigate at least some of those? If some of it was to do with settling the Cells in school, then at least that won't be the same issue - I'm not saying it won't be AN issue, but they are far more independent than they were last time you moved, so hopefully that will help.

Also, is PossibleNewCity anywhere within striking distance of London? If so - yay! Cliquemeets ahoy!

I was thinking about the Cells. Whether you move or not, you'll probably end up with one of them at Newcastle and the other at ... I dunno ... Exeter. Or they may do what a neighbour's son did. He had a place to read medicine at Edinburgh but had second thoughts and decided to take a year out. He went to the Radha Krishna temple in Cardiff. 6 years later he's still there, very happy.

@SqueakyDinosaur The biggest stress for me is everything to do with house-selling (and to a lesser extent house-buying). It feels like in England, everything about the process is designed to be as horrible as possible. And the past two moves, we had nice-ish done-up properties to sell, this time it's a bit of a wreck if you look beyond the superficial.

I'm not that worried about TheCells, they're generally as sensible and mature a pair of teenagers as a parent could hope for. Only issue would be juggling us oldies moving universities at the same time as each Cell moving to probably separate universities (as @Gonners predicts!).

A.N.Other city is indeed within easy (well, easier) reach of London

C'mon, Kuc, admit it: it's Brighton, isn't it? 😄

Hove, actually. 😆

Sounds like a movie to me, but a tad more refained than the original.

It's quite a good time to move in some ways - gets all the disruption over with at once, and gives a clean slate with the Cells' rooms rather than deciding at what point they become just 'rooms'. Very stressful while it happens though.

Would you be able to get a role like your current one elsewhere, or would it mean a move to a different type of post?

You may have left the country before "Hove, actually" became a thing, but it was allegedly what the self-identified posh folk of Hove used to say when accused of living in what they considered to be raucous, vulgar Brighton.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5541328-i-need-the-most-annoying-toy-for-a-5-year-old

I suspect my job is going to be a slight problem, as I moved from academic to admin. As anybody who's worked in a university can tell you, normally the twain never meet.

I was 'lucky' because my previous research role was coming to an end due to a lack of grant funding, so the uni put me on the internal redeployment register which automatically bumped me up in priority for any vacancy at my grade. So when my new job was pre-advertised internally and I thought "Hey, I could do that" and I put together a good case for how I could do the job despite having zero relevant experience, they basically had to interview me

If we move to A.N.Other university, I doubt a serendipitous similar admin job would be waiting for me. But I could probably slide quite easily back into a lab research role, although now I've got used to a cushy desk job with predictable hours...

Ah good luck with it all and wishing for smooth transactions and transitions for all of you Kuc

The answer is probably just to see how DH gets on in the interview - crucially does he like them - and then, if he does (and if he gets the job), just throw everything up in the air and see where it lands. This has mostly worked out for us, with the notable exception of Guangzhou ... and Kent! 😆

I read the beginning of the moving abroad for the winter thread and was baffled by the strength of the responses and the assumption that students would be returning home all the time. In three years at university I returned home in term time precisely never and by third year only for a weekend or a few days in the holidays. Things do seem very different now.

Hope your DH aces his interview @Kucinghitam and you get to choose whether or not to go for it.

I did 1 term-time visit home. We were putting on a musical for Rag Week - 24 hours from audition to performance, so no time to shop for a Flapper costume and I knew there was something suitable in Mum's wardrobe. Finished rehearsals at 11pm, midnight train home, a couple of hours sleep, 5am train back clutching costume, arriving in time for rehearsals to resume.

Don't who's on X here but I've been looking at this guy's profile and he's living in a Dream World just now. It started a couple of days ago, when some Scotland fans over for the world cup moved in to stay at an Airbnb over the road from his house and started playing bagpipes at 6.30am the next morning. After that, it developed into beers that evening, making them bbq sausages for breakfast and now he's got a ticket to a game. He's absolutely thrilled which is lovely.

x.com/MDMorrison82/status/2065027998009409888

That is lovely. Bagpipes at 6.30 am could have gone quite differently.

I think the locals are too fascinated by it all to be annoyed. Just as well since they were treated to more bagpipes this morning.

@Kucinghitam I'm not that worried about TheCells, they're generally as sensible and mature a pair of teenagers as a parent could hope for. Only issue would be juggling us oldies moving universities at the same time as each Cell moving to probably separate universities.

I've always had the impression that TheCells are competent, reasonably independent young women who will be absolutely fine. At 17 (late July birthday) I quietly turned down an alternate course offer from Lancaster (I'd missed by one grade in Latin, so naturally they offered me a place to read Latin ... WTAF?) and moved to London, having got a job over the phone. The next year I went to LSE (wrong course, wrong time) and cheerfully dropped out after Christmas when the students went on strike. So did the post office, so my parents (by then in Cyprus) didn't get to hear of it for months. It was all fine. Building resilience is A Jolly Good Thing.

I also got on the wrong course to start with and dropped out after my first term, then went to a different university and did a completely different degree the next year. I did not consult my parents about any of this. I was 18, then 19 at the time.

Ha! Parallel lives, though it took me 20 years to go back. And not to LSE!

Those of a sensitive nature should avoid
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/sporner_corner/5542945-ear-wax-lump-from-hell?page=1

I was going to post that earlier but thought it was too close to breakfast time. Impressive wax, eh!

Blimey! That’s some serious wax.

In first world problems, an Annoying Thing happened this morning: I took out my house keys to open the front door and my keyring fell apart. It's a Disney Mickey Mouse brass keyring, with Mickey standing in the middle of the brass initial of my name (G for Gonners), a small leather strap and then the keyring. It was the leather that broke.

I was cross because it was a silly gift from an ex- who was at Disneyland Paris just before it first opened (in his defence he was a fund manager, there for work). Then I looked up when Disneyland Paris (can't abbreviate that to DP here, obviously!) opened - April 1992. So it has lasted more than 34 years and I have grown to love it.

I've ordered a replacement - £35 for a keyring!!! On the bright side, unless I live to 110 it will probably see me out.