Recon mission

Sorry for the distinct lack of updates!
I was over in Gatwick last week trying to sort out childcare/ school, a place to live, a place for Bentley to stay... it was a long week and although I took a lot of photos, none of them are really appropriate to post just yet. Anyway, I managed to secure us a house - yay! It is just around the corner from some friends of ours (who used to live here in Norway and have since moved to England. We visited them last summer on our way home from Wales...) and it is literally across the road from the Ashdown Forest (home of the 100 Acre Woods from Winnie-the-Pooh fame!). It is a gorgeous part of the country and I am excited to live there.
I did not find a suitable place for the kids to be yet. I am still getting to know the education and childcare system over there... I did visit a lot of places and have narrowed the options down to about 4 places but each one involves a compromise of some kind. We are really really going to miss the barnehage here!!
The other bit of bad news is that we neglected to keep up with Bentley's booster shots and I mistakenly believed that since Norway is a "rabies free country", moving from here to the UK (which is also a "rabies free country") would be different than moving from a non-rabies free country to Norway or the UK. Not the case. And so Bentley will have to be in quarantine for 6 months and not able to be free with his family until the middle of October!!! Sooo sad!! I am looking into options for him to stay here in Norway and at least be able to scamper and run and play with other dogs for a few months before coming over and being confined to 4 walls. At least I was able to visit the 2 quarantine kennel options last week and immediately rule out one of them on the grounds that it is a prison and would be hell for Bentley.
Anyway, I am so happy to be back home with my sweet family after my long week of exploring Sussex county. One positive thing is that I am a much more confident and practiced driver of manual transmission cars on the wrong side of the road!