2021 felt like the year of waiting. I spent most of my time waiting for a visa, for a job, for a house, for a driving test, for my life to actually start. While many great things did eventually happen in 2021, there was so much more I had hoped would start that never did. Alas, we keep looking ahead!
Finding a Job
At the start of 2021, I was still waiting for my visa to process so I was unable to apply for jobs until February. This meant I was stuck inside doing virtually nothing for four months. Ouch. To make it worse, when my visa did eventually process, the UK was still in the midst of lockdown and there weren’t many places hiring. I ended up landing a retail job at a garden centre near the end of March. Whilst I loved learning about plants and gardening and really liked the people I worked with, I soon realized that retail wasn’t something that I was passionate about. I knew that it wouldn’t be a long term career for me so I started to browse for something that caught my interest.
In September, I saw a job ad for a Writing Tutor at a university that seemed made for me. I went through 2 rounds of interviews and made it to the final stage only to be rejected. I was devastated. This wasn’t the first time I had been rejected from educational jobs in the UK and this rejection felt like the final blow. To be honest, maybe it just isn’t what I’m supposed to be doing.
I kept looking for jobs in the following months and spotted one at a local dog shelter. I’ve loved animals all my life and have spent many years volunteering for various charities. It has long been a goal of mine to work in animal non-profits, but I wasn’t sure if they would find me qualified enough. Despite this, I sent through an application and was hired! I began working there at the beginning of December and am having a great time taking care of all the dogs.
Buying a House
James and I have spent the majority of 2021 looking for our first house. It hasn’t been easy and the house-buying saga isn’t even over yet. Once everything is settled, I do plan on writing an in-depth blogpost about how it has been, but here are the highlights.
James and I saw a home in January that needed a lot of work, but we really liked. We put an offer in just over asking price only to hear nothing back from the agent. Turns out, the house sold for £20,000 more than asking.
In February, we saw a house nearby that we really loved. We put an offer in just over asking price, but another couple had put in the same offer. Generally, being first time buyers puts you at an advantage as you don’t have another house to sell. For some reason, the sellers didn’t want to sell to first time buyers and went with the other couple. The agent was baffled. We were devastated.
In March, we put an offer in on another home nearby to James’s parents (who we had been living with this whole time). The offer was accepted right away and everything seemed to be looking up. However, a month or so went by without hearing anything from the agent or the solicitors. Apparently they hadn’t been able to get in touch with the sellers. The agent had to go around to the house to speak to them, only to find out they hadn’t even been looking for another home and weren’t planning on leaving anytime soon. We had to pull out of the sale.
Fresh off the disappointment of losing the sale, a family friend showed us his empty house he was planning on selling. James and I loved it and showed interest in the home, but the seller said he wanted to make improvements on it before selling it to us. We thought this would be fairly quick, but it wasn’t. We waited nearly six months before being able to move in to the house. Thankfully, the seller allowed us to move in despite not having done all the legal paperwork. Because of this, we’ve been living in the house for two months but still don’t legally own it. Who knows it how long it will be before we do, but at least we are in it!
Relearning to Drive
I’ll be honest, driving in the UK is a whole lot harder than driving in the USA. It also means that my US driving license doesn’t transfer over here meaning I’d need to take a driving test. The UK driving test has two parts: the theory and the practical. Unfortunately, because of the pandemic, the waiting time for taking these tests was so backed up that I had to wait months before being able to take it. I took and passed my theory test in May, but couldn’t book my practical test until December. I know, it was quite the wait.
In October, I started taking lessons with an instructor to learn how to drive a manual car and navigate all the roundabouts. Unfortunately, about a week before my test, my instructor said he would be on holiday during my test so I couldn’t use his car. I tried to relearn some of the difficult manoeuvres in James’s car (reverse parking, parallel parking) but found it hard due to its long size. While I felt fine with the driving, I couldn’t nail the reverse parking and hoped that they wouldn’t ask me to perform this on the test. Just my luck, it was the first thing they asked me to do and I failed.
I re-booked another test three weeks later in hopes that my instructor would be around. Despite my attempts to contact him, I was stood up and forced to use James’s car yet again. While I wasn’t expecting to pass, I did! At long last, I can drive in the UK.
Getting Married (again)
As I’m sure many people know, so many of our travel plans were thwarted due to the ongoing pandemic. James and I had hoped to visit America for Christmas 2020 which didn’t happen due to total lockdown. We then hoped to visit the States in March, but again, couldn’t due to lockdown.
Because our wedding happened during lockdown, we planned on having another celebration at our original venue in the Lake District in late July. We didn’t know for a long time whether it would be able to go ahead, but thankfully, it did! My dad and grandpa even made it over for the celebration despite the many tests and isolating they had to go through.
My mom and her partner also managed to come over in late November and stay in our home. We saw some lovely parts of the UK together and had a wonderful time.
I desperately hope to be able to return to the US soon and see my friends and family that I haven’t seen in so long.
Conclusion
Overall, this year has been a true test of my patience. I am grateful for the good things that have happened, but more hopeful that this coming year will be the year I can truly settle in to my life here. My goals for this year is simple: build the life you want.
