It all started when my husband got a postdoc offer from the University of Exeter. It was the end of March, nonstop thesis writing for him and EGU preparations for me. 5.5 hours by train didn’t seem much at the time, but future multiple trips between Norwich and Exeter showed that it is. So, my husband moved and I joined him later as soon as I finished tutoring and selling the furniture.

It was an unsettling experience to live in a gradually vanishing home. Things that you grew to love have been finding their new homes, day by day leaving you with more empty space. But knowing that there is another place waiting for me helped to keep my spirits up.

It’s been over a week since we moved, and I still think about our 6-hour drive from Norfolk to Devon, across East of England and South East to South West. It was beautiful! Starting with familiar sights of sunlit Norfolk countryside, we passed populous and bustling London and entered the world of rolling hills and moorland. This landscape looked particularly spooky in the evening light, and as it got darker, the combination of an overcast sky and a black ground lit by scattered lights from distant houses had an effect of a world turned upside down, with starry night sky below and features land above.

It feels strange to move to a new place but to continue to do the same, in my case doing my PhD. But I welcome this change as it gives me an opportunity to work more independently from my supervisors, which is encouraging and scary at the same time.