Establishing a beachhead

The first thing you have to do when starting out life in a new country is sort out the basics of everyday life -- a roof over your head and reliable access to funds. Specifically, a place to live and a bank account. The bank account proved to be surprisingly easy since it turns out that Barclays bank hadn't closed our old account despite me asking them to many years ago, and the account still had fourteen quid in it. So it was simply a matter of organising a new debit card and transferring some funds from Australia. 

The place to live seems to be in hand too, although it's dependent on us passing stringent ID and credit checks. It's a little apartment above the House of Cards shop on a walkway near the Wallingford town square. No parking spots, but Wallingford has good bus connections so we shouldn't need a car. The current plan providing we pass the test, is to move in on March 20.

We spent the first week here with old friends, then booked an AirBnB for a fortnight. It's a comfortable little barn conversion, bed-sit style, in the village of Brightwell cum Sotwell, a delightful little village full of thatched cottages and random winding streets. And the standard labrynthine network of footpaths. I liked this village when we lived in Wallingford and it was a destination of one of my standard weekend walks. The name intrigued me at first and I loved the idea that it commemerates the fallen Brightwell angel, who acquired a serious cyder habit and became the Sotwell ex-angel. But the reality is that the centre of the village as delineated by the Red Lion pub, is where Brightwell street becomes Sotwell street.

There is a good half hourly bus connection to Wallingford, otherwise it's roughly 45 minutes' walk, first via footpaths across fields, then via Wallingford's labrynthine footpath network. After a few trips, I have finally worked out a route  that avoids walking alongside the main road. A good thing about this country is that walking is treated as a serious means of getting from A to B and there are many footpath options for crossing farms without the risk of being shot for a trespasser.