Finding a New Home

So, whilst the boys were busy settling into a new school; our daughter and I were busy trying to find us a new home. At this stage we were living in a hotel and the novelty was quickly wearing off.

We went to see a beautiful house, it looked like a new build, had a park at the end of the road and felt very community based… there were a few other people also looking around the house and they had a number of ‘open days’ to follow our viewing. So we submitted our paperwork and crossed our fingers. We noticed that there was not much communication once we had submitted our paperwork, so we just decided to continue to search for our new home.

During this week, we saw the good, the bad and the ugly. Some houses were in good locations but were small or the layout felt a little off; whilst others were perfect with regards to size and lay out but the location, not so much. There was a lot to consider and a lot of requests from Ahmed and the kids in regards to what they want and don’t want in a home. Ahmed and our daughter said it MUST have a bath and not just showers, our son wanted a garden and a big bedroom. Oh he also wanted enough space for us to play hide and seek.

Then we found it! I walking in and just knew this was where we were supposed to be. Our daughter thought the same thing and said that she really hoped we were successful this time. I think eight weeks of living with family and sharing a room with her aunty (who is 14 years old) and her brother (10 years old) and two weeks of air bnb’s and hotels was taking its toll. As an 18 year old young woman who had been moved to the other side of the world, she was looking forward to having a home and her own space.

We were on our way back from viewing another property when we got the call. We had been accepted. We were over the moon and started to plan how we would decorate the house and what items we needed first. We had sold all of our belongings in the UK prior to moving to Australia so were starting from the beginning and there was something super exciting about this. We reviewed our finances and used the money we had generated in the UK from selling our furniture etc. and worked out what we needed to buy first and how much extra we might need to add considering we were furnishing a four bedroom house. In the UK, we were living in a three bedroom flat, so we had a lot more space to fill.

In the coming days, we had a number of trips to furniture shops and KMart to get the finishing touches. There was also a lot of time spent putting furniture together. We decided that we needed to get the bedrooms sorted first along with a fridge; if the kids had somewhere to sleep and could eat we were good parents!

The building of the furniture was a great opportunity to learn a little more about how our daughters mind works which is surprisingly like her dads. She opens the boxes, looks at the instructions, sets it all out in order, gets the tools needed and starts work. Me on the other hand (oh and our son) just tip the contents of the box out and start work.

It was a family affair putting the new house together. The children got to decide on their rooms, Ahmed and I worked together to get our room sorted and our daughter put our bed together. It was perfect time wise too as we managed to get it all set up prior to me starting work. One less thing for us to think about whilst we try and navigate the new workforce we were entering and general navigation around a new country with new processes and systems.

We will write another blog soon about our first few weeks in the new house and living our best life!

Thank you so much for reading this far and for keeping up with the Jalloh family in OZ.

Peace, Love and Happiness

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Twitter: @justJallOZ