Back to the UK….but not for long!

And so, 5 weeks into our adventure in Bermuda I’m returning for a very special weekend to celebrate the marriage of our great friends Kerry and Steve and the christening of their adorable son, Ted.  I can’t wait!  I only wish that Toby could join me and I had a little longer to say hello to you all.  Unfortunately the ratio of ‘travel:time with people’ is not a favorable one.  Thankfully, when I get to my parents there’s a Kindle waiting for me!

The last few days I’ve ensured the house is tidy, laundry done and the fridge full.  It’s over to Toby now to fend for himself – what am I going to do when I return to find he’s perfectly OK?  What’s my role in life?!

I think we were fed a slightly duff line about immigration.  When Toby was offered the job, he was told that I could either come on a tourist visa for 21 days and then would have to leave so I could re-enter on his work permit or I travel out two weeks later.  Apparently at this stage his permit would be ‘far enough along’ that I would be recognised on it.  We accepted it as correct, but thinking on, that just doesn’t make sense!  If Toby isn’t registered as having a permit, how can I as the lowly ‘dependent’ have any form of status?!  I’m hoping I’m wrong because that would save the hassle and expense of another trip to leave again.  Who knows, stranger things have happened!  Update when I return next Monday!

A very excited friend and soon-to-be-godmother signing off for a few days.

xx

 

 

Efforts to find a job…

Having let work run my life for years, it’s an unusual position to find myself without a job.  Particularly now we’re in a new situation, meeting lots of new people who all inevitably ask, “so what do you do?”.  I’d read a great blog before coming out here called ‘Dog or Affair‘.  The author was in a similar position to me as the ‘expat wife’, used to working and now having to redefine who she was while hunting for a job.  This author went for the ‘housewife’ title for a while before playing a game and claiming to be a doctor/accountant/pilot or anything else that came to mind!  After nearly a year of looking, she recently found a job.  That’s a long time!

Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s going to be an easy challenge, so I’m doing my best to maximise my chances.  I’m checking the local paper for permanent jobs but for a company to employ me they’d have to interview EVERY Bermudian who applied and then justify to immigration why they need to employ me over a Bermudian.  Unfortunately, roles similar to my job back home don’t exist so I’m going to have to work my CV to explain why I’d make a great PA or business analyst…better than a local…even though I’ve never done it before!! :-S

There are however a handful of IT resellers/consultancy businesses, whose markets I understand.  ‘Marketing’ isn’t needed in the same capacity but I’ve approached them all and am meeting two for lunch.  Hopefully we can come up with something that suits us both.  I’m aware that Bermuda is a very friendly and hospitable country so ‘lunch’ doesn’t necessarily mean there’s anything I can do now, but at least it’s a step in the right direction.

With my experience, it’s more likely I’ll get a temporary role.   Unlike the locals who can sign up to all the recruitment agencies, I can only pick one.  I then need to apply for a work permit through them and they act as my employer, but of course it doesn’t guarantee I’ll get work.  I therefore have to think long and hard about the agency I use – once I’m signed up, I can’t switch as they own my permit.  If I haven’t got any work after 6 months I can apply to have the permit switched to another agency.  An important decision then!  I’ve met two agencies and spoken to another so I’ll ask a few more questions and then I decide!

On top of this I’ve been to my first ‘breakfast briefing’.  It was a seminar about ‘The Organised Business Person’, hosted by The International Federation of Business and Professional Women.  Now, I’ve been in ‘business’ for a number of years, worked ‘internationally’ and I’d like to think I was ‘professional’!  So, how come I’ve never heard of them?!  It turns out they’re an international community of women spanning 70+ countries, supporting one another as they go.  I’m glad I’ve found them!  They’ve pointed me in the direction of the Bermuda Chamber of Commerce, Bermuda Employers Something-or-other, and Consumer Affairs.  What a helpful bunch!  As networking is as important as what’s on my CV I’ll be keeping this up.

My final route is linking up with US (I’m only a 2 hour flight away) and UK (I’ll be home eventually!) companies who are looking for home-based workers.  One’s already asked for my ‘salary requirements’ so I’m hoping that develops.

It’s going to be an interesting journey.  In the mean time, I’m going to enjoy looking after my new hubbie, get involved with volunteering and grow some veggies on the patio!

We drink rain water!

I don’t know how I’ve not got round to updating you about this sooner!  It’s a slightly strange concept considering the money we dole out in the UK to the water authorities to ensure we have safe and clean water to drink.  The method here is simple and seemingly rather effective…

By law every house has to collect water on it’s roof which gets cleaned every few years and painted every two with a special ‘lime paint’.  This helps purify the water which gets funneled off, via a filter to keep the twigs out, into the water tank.  This is what we use for washing, cooking, cleaning and indeed drinking.  We bought bottled water for the first couple of weeks and made tea with the ‘roof water’ to test it out.  As the person doing the bulk of the shopping and without my trusty scooter I was encouraged to not lug gallons of water home and try out the local stuff!  Toby took a little longer, particularly as he’s spied birds on the roof and he’s concerned they’ll contaminate things!  For once, I’m taking the relaxed approach and assuming all’s good!  And so, we drink rain water all the time now and it’s just fine!

As we’re in the one ‘autumn’ month and about to enter winter we’re being spared the harassment of lots of insects.  When we first moved in the apartment had been vacant for a couple of weeks and there was no interest from the ants.  They’ve sniffed us out though and a couple of days ago a super-highway started up on the patio;

At this point Toby marked out ‘our territory’ with a line of Raid across the doorway and performed his ‘shot across the bows’ by putting a little up their route.  Ants dead.

Yesterday Toby came home to them running amok in the bathroom (and blitzed the place with Raid without removing our things first – bless, he was trying!).  More ants dead.

Today I’ve just found a moving ‘ant design’ on our kitchen wall, centred around the plug socket.  I’ve seen that before, do they come in through there?!  More Raid and yet more ants dead.

Summer’s going to be fun!  Thankfully I’ve been educated on a more environmentally friendly solution to getting rid of the ants!

Our other guest will of course be the cockroaches, or cock-a-roaches as some like to call over here.  I’m yet to know how we’ll deal with them!

The final insect of the day is the Spiny Orb-Weaver.  Scary looking things that seem to dominate every gap of a metre or less;

Poor Toby, not a fan of spiders or wind has learnt to embrace the strong winds we get as it clears the spiders out for a few days!

Sport, sport and more sport

And so our busy weekend filled with as much sport as we expected…

As I mentioned in the last post, Friday was a national holiday and we got to see Bermuda play Barbados in a World Cup qualifier.  Here’s Toby looking cool!

We went for the cheap seats and had to squint into the sun for the most part.  As the winds built up though we appreciated the warmth!  As you can see, even the ‘posh’ seats aren’t quite Wembley!  Guess it’s understandable when Wembley holds nearly 50% more people than we have on the whole island….can’t quite get my head around that!

Here’s Bermuda equalising with a penalty after the Barbados keeper took out their last man and got sent off.  Oh the drama!

Saturday we headed to Flanagans – the bar that can boast the most TV’s per sq metre in Bermuda!  We timed our lunch and a pint with the England vs Spain game (not bad for a friendly and lets admit it, a surprising result!).  We were in good company since the Bermudian team had decided to do the same…guess there’s not too much choice on an island of 21 square miles! 🙂

In the evening it was the ‘Rugby Classic’ final.  General admittance for us – poor Toby must have felt he was slumming it after joining the hospitality tent earlier in the weak.  We caught the end of the Australia vs USA game for the ‘plate’ (I think it was 3rd/4th play off???) – with a chunk of both our families living in Australia, we obviously wanted them to win….but we also like a good game!  So when we arrived to see the Aussies clearly in the lead but team USA far from given up it was great!!  A really good match and in the ‘spirit of the Rugby Classic’, the American’s didn’t go for a drop goal in the final minutes which could have brought them close to winning – this was an exhibition after all – we’ve paid to see trys!!

 

An excellent game!

 

 

 

Next up was the final – Lions vs Argentina.  For those into Rugby, more info here!

Tobes is looking a little shocked here while Jamie and Karen watch the match;

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The warm up beforehand was pretty impressive – these guys wanted to win!  The only names I remember were Andy Gomersall and Colin Charvis…I’d never call myself a fan though!  Going for the line…

Try!!

Even the ‘cheap’ seats give you a good view here.

The Lions lead for the majority of the game but the Argentines were just a little younger, and unlike the American’s, they were prepared to take the drop goal to sneak ahead and win (and get booed!).  They deserved it though and celebrated in style…

Toby senses something good…It’s announced as the ‘Argentinian Haka’!!

Ooooo!

Ahhhh!

 

 

 

 

I’m thinking with all this sport there’s a definite opportunity for Will Povey tours to arrange a ‘Boys-Sporting-Trip-Abroad’!

Sunday we took it easy and went for a little walk before getting back to the sport on Monday – Tobes playing 5-a-side and I was coaching badminton.  I’d love to report we’re both toning up and loosing weight but most of the sport involvement was watching and accompanied by a pint.  Update to follow on that front!

Making the most of a long weekend with Toby

Since I left my job four and a half months ago there’s always been something to do.  Not one, but two weddings to plan.  Decide to move to Bermuda.  Research it.  Both look for jobs and Toby gets one.  More research.  Clear out the London flat.  Move us out here through customs and immigration.  Settle with a new place to live, bank account, mobile phones.  Done, done, done and done.

Eek, what’s my current project?!

This week I decided it’s time to get a bit more constructive with my time now all the big projects are complete.  I’ll be like Hugh Grant with ‘timing chunking’ in About a Boy!  Only I’ve got a longer attention span so maybe I’ll opt for hour chunks rather than 15mins!  An hour for the house, an hour for job hunting, an hour for correspondence, an hour for marketing proposals, and hour for….my time will soon be filled and a bit of variety should keep things a little more interesting as I’m still spending the bulk of my time on my own.  Ahhhhh! 🙂  To rectify that I’m going to join the International Women’s Group in the Island.  Having met a couple of recruitment consultants and had it confirmed that it really could take months or even a year to get me a job I’m over-qualified for….if I’m lucky, I need to be proactive to meet people and ‘enrich’ my life – how ‘self help book’ does that sound?!

In the mean time I’m lucky enough to have my lovely husband for a three day weekend as we get Remembrance Day as a national holiday here.  Thursday night Toby headed off for some Rugby action – Classic Lions vs Classic All Blacks game.  Jammy thing got into the hospitality tent and was a little the worse for wear by the time I caught up with him after midnight.  Lucky for him after my badminton training I’d been to the club bar and had a couple of drinks myself…

We’re very lucky to have a number of sporting events to luck forward to in Bermuda but unfortunately we’ve had two clashing.  Aside from the Rugby World Classic going on for the last week or so, we’ve had a football World Cup qualifier – Bermuda vs Barbados.  We of course went and it was great fun.  Pleased to report Bermuda won 2-1 and the calypso band made it feel like a festival!!

We’re now off to the sports bar of a million TV screens to watch England vs Spain and get some lunch.  Chill out and then off for the Rugby final this evening.  It’s hectic out here!!!

A photobook catch up…

As a picture tells a thousand words, now I have access to photos I may just be able to help explain why Toby was talking about being a Werewolf and I met a Thunderbird!

For Halloween we ‘went American’ and got dressed up.  The weather had been against us but Toby, his colleague Jamie and girlfriend Karen along with myself had managed to pull together some outfits.  The ‘American way’ allows adults to get dressed up too and it doesn’t matter what as!  The evening didn’t start great when an ‘Office Zombie’, a ‘Dead Person’, a ‘Werefolf’ and a ’50’s chick’ entered a bar and we were the only one’s dressed up…

Thankfully, future bars proved more successful (Jamie in the background really getting into character.  Eyes shut?!) ;

Toby and I made some new friends the Yeti and the Thunderbird;

 

 

 

 

 

A good time was had by all!!!

 

I also wanted to introduce you to ‘Front Street’ which runs along Hamilton Harbor on the Hamilton side.

Beautiful.

This road is home to a lot of bars, restaurants and very expensive shops to trap the tourists in as they filter off the cruise liners.  Think the likes of Gucci and Louis Vuitton.  (I don’t shop here!)

In the interests of scale I took the next picture to show you what it’s like when a cruise liner is in town…..

 

 

….it’s huge.  It’s like it completes the other side of the street.  Just sitting there.  Funny!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally, to make you all feel a little sick….  We’d been noticing a number of arches/gates around the island and we weren’t sure what they were.

 

This weekend, before the gales came in, we found out.  They’re called Moongate’s.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It had to be done.  On our weekends we still feel like we’re on Honeymoon!  One very happy married lady signing out!

The new pad!

And at last, the world of photos is opened up to me!  Let me take you on a tour of where we’ll be calling home for at least a year….

Firstly, let’s get our bearings.  We’ve opted to live in Pembroke which is the parish that’s houses the capital, Hamilton.  This means we’re only a 15 minute walk from Toby’s work, and the majority of the sporting, dining and drinking options on the island.  We’re just a few hundred metres from the ‘north shore’ but this is mostly rocky and not for sunbathing and swimming.  The south shore that houses the famous pink beaches is a 20 minute  scooter ride away.  That bit all sounds good but a quarter of the whole island’s population lives in this parish (there’s 9) and it’s also where the majority of the 600,000 tourists (adding to the tiny in comparison 65,000 who live here!) spend a lot of time.  We still think it’s great though!

So, please step through our back door into the kitchen…

Exciting stuff!  The fridge is HUGE, very American – good job we’ve chosen to store everything in there!

Here’s our living room, as you can see there’s plenty of room for us to get creative with throws, cushions and the like! 🙂

It’s a sofa bed and waiting to welcome it’s first guest!  The best bit though, is where I was standing to take the picture……

……The games ‘room’!!!

We’re currently learning to play Backgammon and are eagerly awaiting our sea freight delivery with some more games!

From the living/games room area we have some patio doors and a bit of land for dining alfresco and the compulsory BBQ!

Finally, here’s a picture of the bedroom.  The closets are big enough to walk in and have plenty of hanging and shelf space.  No need to rely on Ikea to sort your storage woe’s here!

Lot’s of space and close to town.  Hopefully we’ve chosen well.  Fingers crossed for a happy year ahead!