And now we've been back in the UK for a couple of months, I thought I'd give you a sneak peek at some of the admin work I've been doing while I've been back. Mostly it has been the fairly mundane but actually rather important things that take up more time than you'd expect them too and don't usually result in much change but that really need to be done (and preferably when the boys are asleep/otherwise occupied).
- I've got the boys registered at a GP surgery and sorted out their vaccinations. I had to spend a couple of hours working out what vaccines J had in the UK and in Turkey, what S has had in Turkey and how the Turkish vaccination schedule compares to the UK one so their UK medical records were as complete as possible and so the practice nurse and I could figure out what jabs the boys needed to have while they are back in the UK.
- I've been writing a magazine article.
- In anticipation of residence permit requirements, L and I both had to get police check certificates issued and then apostilled. I'd never come across the term 'apostille' before moving to Turkey, but it is a little certificate that the Foreign Office will attach to a UK document to certify that it is a genuine UK document. Every UK document that we use in Turkey has to have an apostille.
- When we're back in Turkey, we will start the process of exchanging our driving licences for Turkish licences. That requires a certificate that we have completed high school, which we don't have because we have individual GCSE certificates. We will be able to use our degree certificates instead but before we could get them apostilled to use in Turkey, we had to have a meeting with a notary public to get them certified.
- We made the decision to take back resources ready for when J starts to learn to read, as we might not be back in the UK for a while. So L and I had to figure out what kind of route we want to take to teach J to read, research, choose and buy resources.
- We've spent time working out some tax things and their implications.
- I've been working out what things are priorities to buy and take back to Turkey, taking into account luggage space, excess baggage charges, availability and price of things in Turkey and the exchange rate.
- I've been learning how to use (at a very basic level) the accounting software that L uses to track all of our expenditure and whether we're on budget.
That's not an exhaustive list by any means, and then there's all the things L has been doing as well, but hopefully it gives you a small glimpse into some of the things we've been doing, aside from meetings and meeting up with people. We have also had chance to do lots of fun things as well - more on that another day!
