How this book is built

This book follows the five stages of a move in the order they actually happen. Dreaming, Planning, Moving, Arrived, Settled. Every chapter is built the same way, in four movements. The story of that stage as it happened to us, with nothing taken out because it was inconvenient. What the stage is really made of, the knowledge you only have once you are on the other side of it. The practical spine: the offices, the documents, the order, the costs, the things that went wrong for us and what they cost to put right. And a single question. If you are in a hurry, read the practical spine of the chapter you are standing in. The book will wait.

The Dreaming stage does not end with certainty. It ends with the first small step you take while you are still uncertain.

Every difficult thing in this country has an online version that will defeat you, and a human version that will not.

Buy your car six months before you move, or accept that you will pay for it twice.

What is inside

• I. Dreaming. The years a country lives in your head, and the small step that ends them.
• II. Planning. Passports, visas, money, regions, and the route we took the hard way.
• III. Moving. The van, the drive down through Europe, and what the leaving cost.
• IV. Arrived. The first fortnight, the offices in the right order, and the house that saved us.
• V. Settled. The calendar this country runs on, the school window, and the year that was already here.

And an epilogue. One ordinary morning, after.

The living edition

Rules change here. Fees move, windows shift, offices get renamed. When you buy the book from this page, you get every updated edition free, for as long as the book exists. I keep it true, your copy stays true. Practical information is current to July 2026 and dated on the page.