Facts

Alison is a mum of two children from Kent in England. She spent most of her life in the UK, until she met her future husband.

She worked hard to be a solicitor, but in the end gave up on her own career to accompany her husband and travel the world.

Alison has already moved countries four times and is now awaiting her next destination.

I got to know Alison two years ago. Although our children are in the same school, our paths did not cross until we both volunteered to take over the school’s second-hand uniform shop. 

In the time we spent together selling uniforms I got to know her better and when I started this blog, I knew that I would DEFINITELY have to tell HER story! In fact, she was one of the mums that inspired me to start that blog in the first place.

I had to be quick with Alison though, as she was about to move this summer! When we met for a coffee at very short notice, their plans had changed again…

Alison’s “normal” life

Alison’s life seemed to be very UK-based with no plans to live abroad. She started studying in Aberdeen, where she met her future husband and after changing her subject to law, she ended up studying in London. 

When they both completed their degrees, Alison’s boyfriend had to go to the Netherlands for work and Alison joined him for a year before she would start her own career as a solicitor in the UK.

There, she did a short intensive Dutch course and also volunteered at a local international school. Additionally she wrote and edited articles for her husband’s work expat magazine.

When Alison started her solicitor training in London, they started to fly back and forth for weekends and holidays, as her boyfriend’s contract in the Netherlands was for four years altogether.  

They got married in East Sussex in the UK and when friends and family questioned them, where they would be living as a married couple, they had no answer to that and were just continuing a separate, although married life for another year.

Keen to resolve this issue of being MARRIED but still living APART, they were trying hard to find a solution, when Alison’s husband was offered a job in Houston in 2006!

Alison’s work was both interesting and challenging, with getting to know and learn in a new law department every six months, but something had to change and her husband got her thinking about a total transformation of her life.

The weekends away or even the long drives to and from the airport to collect her husband on a Friday night and send him off on a Sunday night again were getting a bit stressful. It sounded like an exciting opportunity to go to Houston and she would not have been offered such a chance in her own job.

Alison was also keen to have children around that time anyway and she had seen colleagues struggle with their job as solicitors when they became a mum. There were always problems with childminders and deadlines and it all seemed to be rather stressful.

She now had the choice between trying to find the balance amongst having children whilst staying in her job or escaping it all to a whole new world! Four years in Houston would not harm anyone, she could have children and then return to her job in the UK after that time!

Alison would never had thought that the start of the assignment in Houston would send her off to be an expat mum for many years to come!

Houston

As Alison and her husband had never properly lived together before, they had to have two shipments to Houston. One from the UK and one from the Netherlands.

Alison had taken a HUGE exciting step to a new future and quit her job even without ever been to Houston before!! At least, they would finally live together.

The day after they had arrived in Houston, they were shown four houses, from which they chose the first one without making a big deal out of it. Everything seemed so easy being just the two of them!

On the other hand, it was rather hard for Alison to meet new people being just the two of them. The Houston expat scene revolved around the international schools, so without having children, it was a lonely beginning for Alison.

After a while, they got a Golden Retriever to keep Alison company and she found some expat ladies for coffee mornings, whose children already had left their house. It was lovely to talk to other women, as you need the exchange with people in a similar situation as yours, but they were still in a different stage of their life’s than Alison.

As Alison had done that before, she once more volunteered in a school and helped out with Maths and English what brought her joy.

When her first child was born in 2008, she automatically came in touch with a lot of mums and she started to enjoy motherhood with all the experiences that Houston had to offer, e.g. hurricane season or poisoned snakes!

Alison was living a happy life, but she knew that the next change was around the corner. It was the week, when she found out that she was pregnant again, that they found out about their new destination…

Brunei

It certainly was an EXOTIC new destination they had agreed on in 2010 although both Alison and her husband never had been ones of these big world explorers. Still, they both had decided, that Brunei would be a good place for their little family. 

As with Houston, Alison had never been to Brunei before, but this time, having a little child and also being pregnant, she was more anxious as with their last move!!

For the first month they had an apartment which was not in the best condition and even kept hidden hazards for a small child! Therefore, Alison was very relieved when they were able to move into a much nicer house.

Very shortly after arriving in Brunei, Alison had to find out, where it would be best to deliver a baby! She was lucky that English and Malay were joint first languages in Brunei.

She decided she would not opt for the government hospital but for the sultan’s hospital, which was supposed to be better. The only tiny dilemma was, that they were not as experienced in delivering babies!!!!

Speaking of babies, what do you do with your first born if you fancy having your husband at your second baby’s birth when you just moved to a country million miles away from your family???

Well, as it is common to have maids in Brunei, the maids without a job would just knock on people’s doors and offer their labour. Alison of course never had a maid before nor did she know how to hire one, but she knew that she had to go to the hospital for a check-up soon. She finally hired one of the knocking maids for that appointment to see how it would go.

The trial run of looking after her child during that first appointment in Brunei went well and the maid then moved in with them.

As if that wouldn’t have been enough to stress out a highly pregnant woman, there were huge thunderstorms and heavy rains in the week before Alison gave birth to her second child!!

To finish up the unbelievable story about Alison’s first experiences in Brunei as a pregnant woman, it was just as well that she had found help early, as around three weeks later, another routine appointment, where she left her two-year old first born with the maid, took a little bit longer than expected…

…and when she came back home to her first born, she already had given birth to her second child!!!

After this rather crazy first six weeks in Brunei, Alison slowly got used to her new life. 

In contrast to Houston, in Brunei they had more than a proper expat community. Here, they lived on an expat camp in their closed expat world. 

All of the expat children were going to the same school and even food shopping was mostly done in a special international supermarket located just off the camp.

The only needed clothes were summer clothes, but it was not easy to buy „our“ type of clothes in Brunei and Alison was shopping for the whole year when they were on vacation in England once a year.

There were a lot of house parties on the camp, and with most people having childcare, sometimes it felt a bit like being back at university.

Of course, also this time, Alison found herself jobs to keep herself busy. As everything on the camp was run by volunteers, it got rather easy to feel useful. She was helping out in the school again and she was on the committee of the camp dance school.

Nevertheless, when after three and a half years the opportunity appeared to go back to Houston, Alison was rather happy to move on!

Houston AGAIN

This second start in Houston in 2013 was a lot easier. This time they knew exactly where they wanted to live and what Houston had to offer. At least this time Alison had been to her “new destination” before!

Although they moved to the same community, some of their friends there had moved on, but so had Alison. As this time she had children which were in school already, she easily got in contact with the other mums.

Again, she volunteered at a school, but also helped out in the Houston food bank.

She very much enjoyed having daily morning dog walks with the other expat mums after dropping off the children to the bus. There, they could exchange sorrows, laughs and issues, what is so important when you are so far away from friends and family.

Time flew by quiet easily and soon it was 2016 and for the first time Alison was hoping that her husband would not get the job in the even more adventurous country they had agreed on beforehand. Bolivia.  Her hopes were heard and her husband did not get that job.

When his next application was approved, Alison was super excited, as Norway was her DREAM DESTINATION!!

Norway 

As Alison moved so many times already and she really was looking forward to Norway, she didn’t feel anxious this time.

Unfortunately, she still went through some kind of culture shock, as she did not speak Norwegian at all! Of course, most of the people around Stavanger will speak English to you if you ask them nicely, but until now, all her destinations had English as a first language!

It took some time, but with the first friends came the feeling of settling down. Institutions like the PWC (People Who Connect) definitely helped her, as there loads of expats get together and do several activities together.

Of course, Alison could not be without any jobs to do, and so she volunteered in our children’s school and shared the responsibility for the second-hand uniform shop with me.

Alison loves to live in Stavanger and enjoys her time here very much!

Summing up…

So, when I rushed to meet up with her, she was nearly leaving for Kuala Lumpur or maybe London. She then told me, that plans had changed, they will stay in Stavanger until December!

It seems, that in December they will go back “home“ to the UK, but until then it’s a lot of months and everything can change 180 degrees again!

Although Alison does miss her job sometimes, she loves being an expat and would have made the same decisions again. She is convinced that the expat life gives her a safer and more content life, than they would have had if her and her husband would still work in London and commute half of the time!

Alison seems to be a MASTER of finding herself jobs in the community as well as finding other expats in organizations like the PWC in Stavanger to enjoy herself in her free time. She seems to have found the perfect BALANCE between not mourn after her job, being there for her children and in the same time feeling content and needed through several tasks she takes on at every one of these assignments.

Some might think, that it is a lot of pressure for the children to move every three to four years, but Alison’s children are happy with how their life is! Maybe it also comes down to their mum being around whenever they would need her. On the other side, Alison enjoys being around her children when they come back home from school. Something, that in her “old life” would not have been possible.

Her children also seem to be very open to new situations and are getting along with everything new or different rather easily. That will definitely be useful in their further life’s.

If they will return to the UK in December, Alison will have to retrain after such a long break in her job. She definitely would want to have some kind of job, but actually she is not even sure if she wants to return to her profession.

Alison’s dream would be, to end up living in the UK close to some of her expat friends. Of course, she still has some old friendships in the UK, but a lot of these crumbled off, as everyone is continuing with their own lives and she and her family often do not fit in anymore.

Alison is sure, that repatriation in your home country is the hardest bit of the whole expat process, but still, she would always do it again and never change a thing!!