Building work in South Wales

It's not just Dubai that I'm photographing in regards to construction, although it does happen a lot faster over there than any other where I've experienced.

These photos were taken on a wet and windy day in Monmouth, shortly before I left the UK to escape winter.

The land here is used by a variety of people for local businesses, taxi company, artist, car maintenance and parking. The land has been bought by a developer and notice has been given to vacate by the end of 2018.

This is the view from the communal landing. I can see the castle from the bedroom, but this is a much better place to document the changes from.

Outside the lounge window. The access road will be going through here, the house opposite is losing a parking space, with agreement at time of purchase, and I'll assume our fence will be removed also. There's been no further information given to any of the residents since the initial proposal was submitted and only heard about the land being vacated in the local pub.

I'm returning in February 2019 and I look forward to seeing what, if anything has changed on my return. I'll update you then.

Week 158 Dubai Bluewater Islands and Dubai Eye. Man made island a 210m high Big Wheel
Week 159 Dubai Dubai Marina - Reflections
Week 160 Dubai Dubai Frame. A window between the Old and New Dubai and a 150m high glass floor.

Week 161 Dubai Dubai Marina 3 years apart.

Week 162 Dubai Dubai Water Canal Bridge Construction and reconfiguration of roads

Week 163 Dubai New Metro Line for Expo 2020
Week 164 Arizona and Nevada Hoover Dam 2002 - 2010
Week 165 Dubai Dubai Opera House What a difference a year makes
Week 166 Dubai Unfinished buildings. The Pentominium
Week 167 Coventry Mixing the old and the new. Coventry Catherdral
Week 168 Dubai New Dubai Metro Station 
Week 169 Dubai The new extension of the Dubai Mall and Burj Khalifa 
Week 170 Dubai Hotel fire After the Address fire 
Week 171 Dubai Unusual designs The Opus Building
Week 172 Dubai District Cooling. Keeping the desert cool.
Week 173 Dubai Can I visit the Burj Al Arab
Week 174 Dubai The Almas Tower
Week 175 Dubai The Cayan Tower
Week 176 Toronto The CN Tower
Week 177 Nevada The Paris Hotel 
Week 178 Dubai Ibn Battuta Gate
Week 179 A Wedding Our first child got married
Week 180 Dubai The World's Tallest Tower
Week 181 Dubai and Wales Al Fahidi Fort and Chepstow Castle 
Week 182 Dubai New Metro Station in Al Furjan 
Week 183 Dubai Ski Dubai
Week 184 Another Wedding
Week 185 South Africa Life in a township
Week 186 Austria Ski Jump 
Week 187 Dubai Green Plant Bio Dome 
Week 188 Dubai Update on the Metro Station
Week 189 Dubai My view from the balcony changed in 8 months
Week 190 Greece Just how instagramable is it?
Week 191-192 Dubai Before and After. 3 months out of Dubai
Week 193 Dubai Building a boat in the sky
Week 194 An African Sunset
Week 195 Building with boxes Charity work in South Africa
Week 196 Another family wedding and a year of travel
Week 197 What are they building now? World Trade Centre

Missing the South African lifestyle with HDYGG?

Too hot to be in the garden, so I thought I'd share some of my favourite pictures from South Africa over the next few weeks seeing as I will back there next month and I can take some new ones.

Our first house in Centurion on the Golf Estate. 

 Over looking the 16th green, viewed from the 2nd floor balcony

 Front entrance to the house

 The yard at the front of the house

 The pool viewed from the 2nd floor balcony

 A lovely secluded little spot, where the kids couldn't find me

 The river at the bottom of the garden

 The house viewed from the bottom of the garden

 Looking up towards the garage, a lovely shaded area where parrots nested

 The secluded area, with dining room and entrance hall above

 View from the secluded spot

There are many reasons I love South Africa and many things I miss about living there and lifestyle and housing is the biggest.

5 weeks into an expat move and we're still living in a hotel.

The house is ready to move into. Only 1 month after the contract was signed and has involved lots of phone calls, shouting, crying, walking away, almost throwing the towel in, being ignored, listening to the relocation people, land lady and agent pass the buck and even accuse me of time wasting yesterday. It is cleaned (not 'Suzanne' clean though) and now the battle begins to get the visa's, until they are ready we cannot get our air freight sent from South Africa or our container released from customs. Nor can we get wifi, phone line, tv or postal delivery sorted.

Visa application is as follows:

After 3 weeks in the UK, preceded by applying for documents, having them signed by a solicitor, sent off to the Foreign Office then having them attested at the UAE Embassy in London, they were submitted for application in Dubai on November 29th.

HR did not inform us that this was for pre approval for permission to apply for a work visa.
It was only on Christmas eve we were informed of that, assuming that it would be ready when we arrived and we could've applied for the residency, sent for the air freight and cleared customs and moved into the house NOW.

It will be another week before the work visa is in place then 3-8 days for the residency visa to be done. I will need to leave Dubai as my 30 day visa will have expired (watch out I may come back to the UK or SA, but probably just fly to Oman and back in a day), then we can apply for my visa and move into the house around the same time.

We are now in our 5th week of living in a hotel, our allowance only covers 30 days accommodation. Packing air freight was a waste of time and our container is in storage.

My Sunday Photo - Dubai

Hubby and I arrived in Dubai yesterday with the purpose of renting a house from December 16th.

There's going to be a big change in our life style.

Top photo our current house, bottom photo similar to our new house 1 of a row of 4 and double the rent.

Are you an expat considering repatriation?

Some interesting issues have arisen since I returned to the UK to evict my tenants for none payment of rent.

The first being that despite having insurance it doesn't always kick in and when it does there's a lot of paperwork to complete and it takes time.

The second being that the tenants have rights, even if they break the contract and you as the home owner don't.

I'm not returning to live in the UK, but imagine I if I was. Imagine the following if you're thinking of repatriating to the UK (I can't speak for other countries)

14 yo son is returning for boarding school in September. Now imagine your child's education is suffering and they need to do GCSE's and you can't afford private school. So you want to return in August to live back in your home and you've issued the tenants with a Section 21a eviction notice and they refuse to move.

Now imagine all the money you need to spend to repatriate, furniture, storage, relocating pets, closing down bank accounts, waiting to get your deposit back from the house you rented, flights etc, etc.

Now imagine, like me, you've returned to the UK early to sort out the school places, prepare the house to move back into (in our case it's to re rent it, but still) and it becomes apparent that your tenants are not moving out.

Infact, just imagine that your tenants have informed your agent that the housing association has told them to stay put, not to move out until you serve them with a warrant for eviction from the courts (can take up to 5 months) or they won't get rehoused because they've made themselves intentionally homeless. In my opinion they made themselves intentionally homeless when they stopped paying my rent. (they are in employment)

You've been in the country for 8 weeks, sleeping on peoples sofa's. Imagine now you have to fly back to your host country (like I do on July 21st) so you can pack up your son's belongings and move him back to the UK, mid August. Now imagine that you're leaving your host country forever and expect to move back into your house at the same time, all repaired and ready to receive your furniture container.

But you started the process to evict your tenants in Feb, it's now July and they're still not shifting, so you approach housing yourself and after explaining the situation they helpfully inform you.....

You have chosen to repatriate, you have not secured yourself housing, therefore you have made yourself intentionally homeless and we won't house you.

Now how is that fair?

Meanwhile your tenants name moves further up the housing list, you carry on paying your mortgage, rent a temporary property, pay for storage of your furniture