26/03/2025
✨ Hello Glorious Friends ✨
I truly cannot believe that it’s been a 2 whole years since we’ve had a catch up! Like what??
As most of you know, I made the exciting decision to move to the UK in April 2023. But what you don’t know is that as the British passport holder I had to leave my family behind to find work first. This is one of the routes one can take to bring your family over on dependent visas - it’s the one that we chose as it made sense for us and truthfully was our only choice. 10/10 DO NOT RECOMMEND🥴
Long story short, we were separated for close to a year with me only seeing them once for a 2 week holiday back in South Africa. It was gruelling and let’s just say my body was not coping well with the stress!
I was working a high stress job and missing my boys beyond words. This resulted in constant sickness, hives breakouts, shingles and everything in between.
But friends, we made it! In March 2024 they finally arrived and we have been living our UK dream ( and much is not at all what we envisioned but incredible nonetheless).
Some context for the images:
1. Me holding my boys at the airport parking lot
2. Expanding our mattress the night before they arrived in our new apartment
3. Our first outing in London, just sat and watched the Thames go by in gorgeous sunshine
4. Body said no more and developed excruciating shingles (success is not linear and there will be setbacks)
5. Stunning Summer hols in Devon
6/7. Our first UK Christmas
8. First snowfall experience. We woke up to this 🥹
9/10/11. Had a little getaway to Paris 😍
12/13. And then to Lisbon 🫶🏼
14/15. It’s vintage heaven everywhere you go 🥰
16. My latest upcycle project made from a vintage quilted blanket ♻️follow me on TikTok for more ( my handle is karen.bolus)
Thank you if you’ve gotten this far into my essay! I love and have missed you all. But I’m back now and excited to share more about how I continue to shop/dress sustainably here in the UK 🇬🇧 ❤️
