Back from Berlin (a few weeks)

We've been back now from Berlin for ages but I've been so busy with the kids I have hardly had time to think about it properly. We had a lovely time with our friends, but it has made the decision-making process even harder - not easier.

I came back feeling all enthusiastic about Berlin, loved the shops (in particular), the whole concept of Kindercafe's is fantastic, the buildings are 'mostly' beautiful (aside from where we were staying which was a bit grim), and in general it just seemed like a really nice city to be a part of. Plus of course it seems like an ideal city for me with so much going on creatively. On the other hand I woke up with a jolt in the middle of the night, wondering why on earth I would want to move the kids into an apartment in a city where they would have no garden, when surely most people move away from city centres when they have children!

When we got back we decided that the best thing to do would be to err on the cautious side and see if we could go over on a 6 month secondment with RR and see if we liked it enough to stay for longer. That would save us from having to sort out renting our house, and RR would pay for all our belongings to be shipped across which would make life a lot easier.

We had 3 potential routes through RR but with the current financial climate we weren't so sure that any would come through. To date we are waiting to hear from the last prospective route, and it doesn't seem like it's going to happen. So we think we will know by Monday, but we are going to chat about it over the weekend and make our final decision about Stevie leaving RR and going sub-contract. AARRGGHH!

Stevie is pretty much putting the decion on me by saying he is happy to try anything and it's down to me as I will be the one who will be spending my day-to-day time in the community and will have greater need to learn the language etc etc, where as he will just be going to work! And an English speaking office at that!

I feel like we have made our decision already anyway. In my mind we have always been going and my view is that if we don't do it now when the kids are young, then it will be much harder if we want to do this once they have started school and feel settled. So why not? It's not going to hurt!