She's Leaving Home

 

One of the first pictures I took - our building is the one in the middle

It is said that moving home is one of life’s most stressful events.  Moving country multiplies that stress factor a hundredfold.  The final weeks before our move were a whirlwind of activity.  I had to give eight weeks’ notice at work and, once I’d done that, it was all systems go.  Quitting my job – even with the knowledge that it probably wasn’t going to exist for much longer – was a massive step.  I came over to Berlin in September to find us a flat.  However, nearly all of the flats I’d planned to view fell through and in the end there was only one to look at.  Luckily, it was suitable and, not wanting this one to disappear, I contacted the agent as soon as I’d seen it to stake my claim.

We then had the business of trying to let out our house, getting odd jobs done – such as having a crumbly bit of garden wall repaired – and selling one of the cars (we decided to keep one at my sister’s for use when we visit).  We notified all of the relevant authorities and cancelled direct debits for things we had no further use for.

Since the seed of the idea to move had been planted in our minds back in May, we had drawn up endless lists and weekly planners.  The whole summer was taken up with planning and visiting special places.  In those final weeks after I'd given in my notice there seemed to be an intimidating number of things to take care of.  However, we ticked things off as we dealt with them and added others as they occurred.

Suddenly we were into the last couple of weeks.  We had been lucky enough to find a lovely tenant for the house and we took leave of our neighbours and the important people in our lives.  With two weekends left, we had some tattoos done and then wound things up in our respective jobs.

On Thursday 24^th October, I spent my last day in the job I’d had for eight years.  It was very emotional.  The job itself was often frustrating, almost always challenging but ultimately very rewarding.  I remain passionately committed to education’s role in the rehabilitation of offenders, but sadly the government and OLASS between them have smashed that particular avenue of reform.

On the morning of Friday 25^th October, I took Alan to Birmingham airport for his flight.  We’d decided that he would go ahead and sort the flat out, leaving me to take care of the last-minute jobs at home.

I spent the succeeding four days in a frenzy, cleaning everything in the house, defrosting the freezer and transporting things that I didn’t think our tenant would appreciate having around (film and concert posters, books and CDs and more clothing and footwear than I ever realised we possessed).  I also had three different leaving ‘do’s’, although one of those was a joint one with my boss who was leaving the following week.

On Tuesday 29^th October, I left the house for the last time.  I dropped a car load of stuff off at my sister’s house, had lunch with my mum and left for Birmingham where I spent the night at an airport hotel before my flight the following morning.  My journey over was a lot more eventful than Alan’s had been, and not in a good way.  I had a wheelie as hand luggage and an enormous and very heavy case to check in as hold baggage.  As I was attempting to drag this unwieldy monster onto the train at Burton station, a wheel caught on the step.  A well-meaning fellow passenger intervened and yanked the case onto the train, and in the process sheared the wheel completely off.  It was impossible to drag with just one so I had to carry it, but the weight meant that I could only manage a few steps at a time.   Being five foot one, eight and a half stone and a total stranger to weight training, it was some feat and by the time I’d gone the length of the concourse at Birmingham New Street to change trains, my arms were shaking and I was bathed in sweat.

The first thing I did when I finally got to my hotel room was go to the airport with my fingers crossed that the luggage shop would be open but I was disappointed.  I spent a terrible night thinking about how the hell I was going to get the case to the check in desk in the morning.  In the end I decided to leave my hand luggage in the hotel room, check the big one in and then return for the rest.  I tried dragging the case on its little plastic legs but it was still a mountain to climb.  By the time it was finally off my hands, the legs were shredded, it had one wheel, it was scuffed from being dragged about and was only fit for the bin, into which we ceremoniously dumped it once it had been unpacked. 

I boarded the flight tired and fraught but, as we were descending into Tegel, I looked out and saw the dome of the Carl Zeiss Planetarium down to the left.  I got my first attack of excitement at that moment because the planetarium is practically next door to our flat.  I looked along from it and, spotting our building I involuntarily clapped my hands like an overjoyed child.  Luckily, there were only about twelve other people on the plane and the man sitting closest to me was engrossed in his newspaper.  Ten minutes later we touched down.  Alan was there to meet me and help with the case which was by now looking embarrassingly destitute but I didn’t care.  I had arrived in Berlin.