Raising a Family in Spain, Portugal, and Madeira with Louise Wiles | Expat Empire Podcast 23

Louise Wiles

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Episode Description

In this episode of the Expat Empire Podcast, we will be hearing from Louise Wiles. Louise moved with her family to Spain, Portugal, Madeira, and back to the UK over the last 25 years through her husband’s career. She’s navigated building an international education and career as a trailing expat spouse as well as raising a family across many countries and cultures. Louise has many years of experience coaching expat families heading on adventures all over the globe, so take in all the insights that she has to share!

In this episode, you will learn:

• How to adjust to life abroad and take advantage of opportunities when you have to move due to your significant other’s career
• Tips for managing your expectations when you move abroad to improve your chances at a successful relocation
• The pros and cons of living on an island destination like Madeira
• Advice for how to do your house search in a new city and avoid big disappointments and challenging legal situations

…and much more! You can find Louise here:

Eli Hermit produced the music for this episode, please check him out on Bandcamp at elihermit.bandcamp.com/.

Please leave us a review at ratethispodcast.com/expatempire.

Learn more about Expat Empire and schedule your free consulting call to plan your move abroad at expatempire.com!

Episode Transcript

Intro

Welcome to the Expat Empire Podcast, the podcast where you can hear from expats around the world and learn how you can join them.

Hi everyone, thanks for joining us today for the 23rd episode of the Expat Empire Podcast.

Before we jump into today’s interview, I want to remind you that we at Expat Empire are offering free 30-minute consulting calls to anyone interested in moving abroad. It’s never too soon to start planning for your next big life change! Whether you’re looking to make your first move abroad, transition into life as a digital nomad, or just want someone to talk to about your moving dreams, we’re ready to help you think about the next steps in your journey. Send us a message at expatempire.com and let us know your plans for this year!

With that said, today we will be hearing from Louise Wiles. Louise moved with her family to Spain, Portugal, Madeira, and back to the UK over the last 25 years through her husband’s career. She’s navigated building an international career of her own as a trailing expat spouse as well as raising a family across many countries and cultures.

Without further ado, let’s start the conversation.

Conversation

David McNeill: Hey, Louise; Thanks so much for joining us today on the Expat Empire Podcast.

Louise Wiles: You’re very welcome, really excited to join you. Thank you very much for the invitation.

David McNeill: Yeah, absolutely, you have really an awesome background, not just working in the different countries and moving around with your family. But also working in a very similar space here in the relocation kind of industry and helping people to move abroad. So definitely want to touch on that in our conversation today. But if you could start us off by just telling us a bit about where you’re originally from, where around the world, you’ve lived so far and where you’re living right now, that’d be great.

Louise Wiles: Okay. Well, I’m British, sorry I’m from the UK and as a child, I lived in America and then didn’t move again, came back to the UK when I was 5 and didn’t move again, but actually did spend quite a lot of my summers abroad. My dad is a scientist and we would get to go and spend the whole summer in France and Denmark for one year. So yeah, I did spend time abroad, but not living full time. Then as an adult, I think probably 30 my husband’s job took us to Spain. And so that’s when it all started and we moved to Madrid and lived there for a couple of years. Then we moved to Lisbon and that’s where my experience with Portugal began and we lived in Portugal for 3 years. Then moved back to the UK for 3 years, then moved to Madera for 5 years and then back to Lisbon for 4 and then we’ve moved back to the UK about 5 years ago. So yeah, Portugal featured highly in our relocation experience and a great affinity and love for Portugal.

David McNeill: Yeah, that’s fantastic. And definitely want to dive into that and compare our experiences and share what we’ve seen and heard and loved and maybe loved less about life in Portugal, so that’ll be great. I’m curious though, how you had that opportunity when you were young to spend some time in the United States?

Louise Wiles: Well, my dad’s a scientist, so he took a job in; I don’t remember, we lived in Long Island, so somewhere near Long Island. It was one of the famous labs there and yeah, the intention was to stay there forever, and I think it was really a life move. But then the funding got removed from the research project and they decided, I think there were opportunities in the States, but they decided to in balance that they wanted to move back to the UK. So we moved back to the UK, but yeah, it was my dad’s job that took us there.

David McNeill: Do you think that those early experiences in your childhood were instrumental in sort of thinking as you were also, you know, getting older and getting more professional experience and, and building, growing your family, that that would be something that you’d want to do? Was it always in the back of your mind or it just kind of come together and sort of by chance?

Louise Wiles: Yeah; no, I don’t think it was in the back of my mind at all, which was really, yeah. I was just thinking about that as I was preparing for this conversation, just thinking about my attitude to living abroad. And my husband lived abroad as a child until the age of 11, his dad worked for ICI and he was born in Kenya, then they lived in Australia and then Brazil. So he lived on until 11 came back to the UK, he was definitely the one of us that was most interested in living and working abroad. I remember a number of conversations about various jobs with him about taking jobs, I think there was one in Hong Kong and I think I probably talked him out of it, which now I feel very guilty about. I’m quite sad about that, but I think that was quite a good one, but yeah, there was always this ongoing conversation between us. But the point we moved to Madrid though, he was working for what was Allied Lions, then it was a drinks company, and they bought Domecq in Spain. So he was offered a job, working with the consolidation team in Madrid, so that’s how he ended up. And then I was working in the UK, working for AXA insurance and doing quite a lot of work for them in France, but just not living in France and was just commuting backwards and forth. I remember I was pretty loathed to move to Madrid initially, but that was around giving up my career and my job. So it took me a while to make that decision to move too, so we did kind of have this distance relationship for a while. And I would travel to Madrid when we can then he’d come back to the UK and it was quite exhausting, quite exciting actually.

David McNeill: Yeah, I can imagine.

Louise Wiles: I remember arriving in Madrid at 11, 10 o’clock at night, having left London on a Friday night after work, and then going straight out for dinner. Because you know what Madrid’s like nightlife and everything, it was very exciting. But then you can’t continue a relationship though, well we were married at that point, yeah, that is not good for anyone. Though in the end I did move to Madrid and it all started from there really. And then probably I caught the bug and it’s quite interesting because we’re now back in the UK and I think I’m the one that’s kind of, oh, where can we go next? And he’s much more oh, do we need to, so I don’t know where to turn.

David McNeill: Absolutely. As you were talking about, it was difficult for you to decide, to make the move, to go to Madrid, to leave your job that you enjoyed in the UK. So how did you kind of deal with that or come to terms with that? Or how did you think about continuing your career may be in a different way, but after you moved? Or was that something that you only figured out a little bit further down the path?

Louise Wiles: Yeah, I probably now I look back on it I didn’t give it the consideration I probably should have done. Working for AXA was an opportunity for me to do something in Madrid for them, but I kind of chose not to, really. It’s funny, isn’t it, I kind of had a mixed relationship with my job, I loved what I was doing in learning and development, but I didn’t love one of the people I was working for. And so I was quite happy to leave that and that kind of relationship and moved to Madrid. Once I had got my head around, yeah okay I’m going to do this, I left quite easily, I think and so it’s an opportunity to think differently. I remember being in Madrid for the first 3 or 4 months and just thinking, well, this is fantastic. Now I was doing Spanish lessons, I didn’t have to get up early in the morning, I was enjoying the city. And I joined the gym and I could go to the gym whenever I liked and I really enjoyed those first 3 or 4 months.

But actually, it was interesting it was about 6 or 7 months in and I really hit a spot where it’s like, well, that was nice, but I can’t do that for the rest of my life. I’ve got to do something, fill my time more productively and so then I did start thinking about what. And because I’d always been interested in learning and development, it seemed quite a natural thing to do an English school. So I did teaching English as a foreign language course at the international house in Madrid and learned to be a teacher and got a job teaching English and also had my own business as well. So for those 18 months to 2 years, I kept myself really busy teaching business English all over the city, which I loved because I had some amazing clients. Now it’s the palace and taught there, the furniture restorers and the restoration team, which was just fascinating. And I remember architects and I used to meet another kind of ATM for sheroes and coffee and there was a café near. Yeah, it was just; it was actually really enjoyable.

David McNeill: It sounds amazing.

Louise Wiles: Yeah, and so that’s what I did for 18 months, but that really wasn’t what I wanted to do. So at the same time, I started thinking, you know, what direction I would have wanted to go in had I been continuing my career? And one thing I always regretted was not having studied psychology as my University degree, I kind of thought about it and then veered in another direction. So I then decided to do a graduate conversion course in psychology with the Open University, from the UK. Which was all distance learning by post because we weren’t particularly online at the time? Packages to arrive in the post and I’d come back for week-long courses here in the UK, did that, and then signed up for a master’s in occupational psychology with Lester university. And that was all by post too and did that from a distance. So yeah, it gave me the opportunity to redirect my career slightly, although I still work in the L and D training coaching field. So that’s kind of my passion, but yeah, yeah, in a way it became the opportunity, a great opportunity for me in that sense.

David McNeill: Yeah, so it gave you that chance to indeed take a step back. Figure out what was next for you and how to attack that from a different angle and of course, going back for your graduate degree is an amazing opportunity. And as you were coming out of that, what you thought about in terms of then turning that new education, well, I guess into your business, ultimately.

Louise Wiles: Yeah, I mean that all came from doing the masters because I had to do a dissertation and you have to do a bit of the regional research and I decided to do it on international relocation. I hadn’t realized that there was this wealth of research into the adjustments and, you know, moving around the world and how people adjust and the processes they go through in adjusting. And so I decided to focus on that and that’s what I did my dissertation on by then we’d moved to Portugal. So yeah, I think I interviewed about 50 expats in and around Lisbon and that became my search project. And from that then came this interest in relocation and how people choose to move and what makes it successful, what doesn’t. And then ultimately from that, I developed my coaching business from there.

David McNeill: That’s great, and of course you’re coming at it from someone who has relocated multiple times. So as you were going through the process of interviewing other expats and doing your research, building your business, how did you kind of think through your own experience and how you could apply that to other people’s situation? Because now you’re able to take a bit more of a maybe objective view of it and you can understand some of maybe the psychological factors that were involved in the adjustments that you had to make as well. So did you have any kind of thoughts or breakthroughs and you know, development in your own process as you went through that as well?

Louise Wiles: Yeah, I think it was interesting too because my dissertation focused on because you always have to have a theory that you’re; or some kind of concept. So it was all around expectations and setting expectations. And so I was interviewing people and asking them about sort of how their expectations impacted their ability to adjust. And particularly around the expectations, they had for company support, because I was relating it to the corporate sector. And yeah from that I learned, you know, some people were supported really well, others, not at all. Yeah, that did have an impact on the way they adjusted initially, but not long term if people found ways through it, whether they were supported well or not. Which was interesting; not to say that they shouldn’t be any support because I honestly believe that companies can do and it does make a difference if they support well and there’s a whole load of thoughts and ideas around that. But I kind of related it to my experience where we didn’t really ever have much support from companies. You know, they would provide accommodation costs and moving costs, but in terms of finding accommodation, in terms of sorting out documentation and utilities and all of that, we always did that ourselves. So I think it’s really helpful if you can have that support.

And I would always recommend to people if you have the budget that you do look for that support because it can save you so much time. And it was only in our very last move, last house move, it wasn’t even a location move. We just moved one location from one house to another in Cascais. And the agent offered to do a lot of the admin for us and I was like oh wow, so we didn’t have to get in, stand in these queues for these utilities and things, and then I realized what a time-saver that is and how actually lovely it was to have that support. So I’d always recommend people to have a budget for that and get support for that. But yeah, so how did it influence me; the whole thing has fed into what I do. So I went to look 3 ago and a lot of the ideas that I developed from that first piece of research have been fed into that. And I subsequently did some other research in 2012 and my former business partner looking at career choices of expat partners. And so it’s all kind of been a journey and it’s all come together in the book and the way that I work with clients. But if there was one message I would take from it all, it would be around decision-making. And of course, it depends on the type of person you are and you know whether you’re a single person relocating for adventure.

And, you know, staying in countries for fairly short periods of time versus people who are making life-changing longer-term decisions perhaps for retirement or to stay in the country for 3 or 4 years. I think if you feel that as a person, then really taking time to understand the challenges and the opportunities. Because I think you want to put yourself off, but just because I think you want to make an informed decision. I think from my research, what I realized was it wasn’t so much the support, it was the expectations of support that have an impact on people’s ability to just adjust. So having expectations, setting realistic expectations about what it means to me, from what impact that will have on your life, and making sure that, you know what you want from it. I think often people think about moving, I’m going to move from the UK to Portugal and it’s all about that move, that physical move, and then they get to Portugal. And then, and I suppose this is what happened to me and Madrid, oh, I go to Madrid and then it was okay, so now what do I do with my life?And what I’m saying is that that point of decision really thinks about why you’re making this move professionally and personally and from a family perspective and what you want it to; or you hope for it to create for you.

David McNeill: Sure, and to that end, I guess, taking that thread you went from then Madrid to Portugal, and what was your expectation as you made that move? And of course, what caused it and how did you think that that might change your life and life for the rest of your family as well?

Louise Wiles: Yeah, well, at that time it was just my husband and me and the reason for the move was that his boss was asked to go and run the business in Portugal. And so he asked us to go as FD, so that was why we ended up in Lisbon. Yeah, what have been my expectations for it, I knew that I didn’t want to continue teaching English professionally. So I was in the process of doing my master’s; so I guess I spent the time wondering how I was going to create a business or career for myself in Lisbon. If I had my time again, I would just get stuck looking for some consultancy work. I didn’t; that was probably if there was a mistake I made, it was, I kind of hung back a bit there and I wish I had been more proactive. I actually got very involved in them, there’s an organization that supports expat school international women in Portugal, which runs out of well in the Cascais area, Lisbon area. Well very involved in that and volunteered for that and did quite a lot of English teaching; did go back to English teaching for them, but voluntarily.

Yeah, I think probably yes, mate, I didn’t proactively think about my career enough. And if I think about any time in my life, when I really could have done with some professional support, that that was probably, I was a bit lost I’ll be honest. I enjoyed my time there, I really loved living there. But then that came to an end and my husband got another job actually working for an American company. And he could choose he was European finance director for them and that meant he was going to travel, hugely travel the States or right across Europe, Russia, Kazakhstan, so we needed it to be near an airport hub. We could have stayed in Lisbon, but you know, it was always going to be an extra flight to a hub to then often move on to the next. So we moved that to the UK and yeah, so that kind of brought that to a close, and at that point, I was pregnant with our first daughter. So then that changed everything.

David McNeill: Yeah, suddenly there’s a lot more to plan for if you were to, well, as you did eventually make another move or two. So how did it feel to get back into the UK after, I guess by that point about maybe 5 or so years being abroad across two countries? It must’ve been kind of interesting to reintegrate, did you move back into the same city that you were in before, or was it a new city as well?

Louise Wiles: No, we moved to a different area, but not too from my husband’s parents, we’re about half from them and his sister was quite nearby, so yeah. Yeah, we knew the area, so in that sense, it was quite comfortable and comforting in a way, because then I had my first daughter. So it was lovely to be back and have family around to support that, I would say that was a big class. Yeah, it took me a while; I think probably we arrived 2 or 3 months before I had my daughter. So I was adjusting to moving back to the UK, but also to motherhood. So the 2 were combined together and my husband was traveling huge amounts, he was often not around. So also adjusting to being a mum on my own, I would say it was a particularly challenging time. But not just because it’s repatriation you’re coming back, although that added the dimension. Although I suppose having a child that really helped as well; because in the UK that you do have amazing sort of postnatal support groups, you know, the National Health Service puts you together with mothers. And so I made friends through that who perhaps I wouldn’t have made otherwise. And I really did enjoy being a mom and so I did actually make the decision when my daughter was about 6 months old, that I would just focus on being a mom for a while. I remember having the conversation with my husband and he said you didn’t have to get back to it, but I’d always said I wanted to. And at that point I decided I didn’t want to for about; it didn’t last very long, but I did have about a year and a half. Just enjoying being a mom and yeah, I think I kind of settled in quite well at that point. I had quite a lot of friends; we bought a house and really kind of settled into life here, yeah.

David McNeill: And then uprooted again, as we often do.

Louise Wiles: Oh quite very bizarrely, that was a really strange story because my husband was working for this American company, had offices in Dallas. And really though for him to move up the ranks and out to the next positions, we would have had to go to Dallas and I wasn’t that keen. Sometimes I want to do it, which was the wrong decision. But he then just out of the blue, got a contact from a headhunter that he’d been in touch with a few years earlier about a job in Madeira. And he hadn’t looked at this email, it was an email that he’d had for Portugal and hadn’t looked at it for months. And for some reason, this particular week he looked and there was this email from this headhunter. And then he then decided; you know, we were talking, I think having children, you then start thinking about grandparents and proximity to grandparents and how do we move to Dallas? We just wouldn’t have had the connection and the contact that we have been able to have by being in Europe. So for me, that was a very big factor in our decision to be closer so that your grandparents could come and stay and we would come back to the UK more often. If you’re in Dallas, it’s an 11-hour flight, I know my parents would not have done it as frequently, you know, and probably put in place that they really would choose to go and spend time, whereas they loved coming to Madeira.

David McNeill: Yeah, I’m sure they’d love to have any opportunity they could to a more Island, I guess they were on an Island, but you know, a different type of Island destination, let’s say.

Louise Wiles: Yes, oh yes very different type, and yeah, they were very happy to do that. So that’s; the family was a big factor in the decision there. Yeah, so we ended up then moving to Madeira and we were there for 5 years. And at the time, the point we were and family life with 2 young kids, it was a really good place to be. Because the Portuguese love kids, they are great with kids and it was such a nice climate as well, so a lot of outdoor living incredibly safe. So yeah, we really enjoyed those 5 years.

David McNeill: So Madeira is a territory, a Portuguese Island territory, let’s say. And I would imagine it’s quite different from living in the Lisbon area or Cascais, as you mentioned before. So I’d love just to hear a little bit about how that was for you in terms of adjusting to being back in a Portuguese-speaking place, but yet at the same time, not on the mainland not in continental Europe and just maybe comparing a bit for our listeners.

Louise Wiles: I think probably the one thing that sort of drew us quite initially and perhaps is fortunate for the company my husband works for because it made us say yes, was the familiarity actually. So, you know, arriving on this Island, I could see there is Portuguese and it has that feel, for sure. It was familiar, it felt a bit like coming home in some ways, but then also with quite a strong, British influence. Because there are lots of, you know, the history going back and a lot of English families on the Island. So a lot of English is spoken, I mean, I hardly ever had to speak Portuguese when I was out because people just so happily speak to you in English, you don’t even start a conversation in Portuguese I found so to push that. So yeah a sense of comfort and familiarity for both those reasons really. How does it differ from Lisbon, well, it’s an Island quite small, really? I mean, at least it has what it has going for it is a lot of altitudes, so it doesn’t feel as small as it actually is really now when you think about the actual size and dimensions. So beautiful, it’s lovely to go out and drive around the Island and I love; I’m a very much a country walking type person versus a city person. So for me, yeah, lovely in that sense loved being near the sea and yeah, easy living in the sense that people are friendly, helpful I found. And the medicals, I mean, I had my second daughter when we moved, I was forgetting this, but when we moved, I was 3 months pregnant with my second daughter. So once again, moving and settling in as well as being pregnant and having the changes that come with that. So I had my daughter there, really good medical care. You know, I never felt worried about my children in the house at all, I could always find really good medical support.

David McNeill: So was the timing consideration in relation to already being pregnant with your second daughter or did you just not have any concern? Just think, okay, let’s just go now and then, you know, we’ll figure out the rest of it once we get there.

Louise Wiles: Yeah, absolutely. No, I think I gave it any thought whatsoever really in that respect, quite bizarre now when I look back on it, I’d say. I had an amazing doctor consultant yeah, was fine actually and I didn’t really worry about it at all, which I’m not a great worrier. And I often think when things go right, you know, go with the flow and it felt like the right thing for us to be doing, so I went with the flow. Well, having said that from a medical side of it, we’ll find lovely care and everything, but I did find that first year on the Island was incredibly tough. One way in which it differs from as a foreigner, from living in Lisbon or Cascais areas, there are not that many expats as tourists. There were retirees, I don’t think they were expats, but there weren’t a huge number of younger people our age. There were some, but not you know; don’t have lots and lots of them there; there weren’t a lot of expat groups. I think things might have moved on and I think they might exist now, but at that point, there weren’t. And so making friends, I remember was tougher, but then I was at home a lot with a baby so that was also difficult. So I just find that bit of it challenging but you know in time, I’ve time I met people, made friends and then it was lovely. And the kids went to schools; and nurseries and schools and met parents through that and yeah, we had a very nice life.

David McNeill: Do you think that that would have been something that given the right opportunity that you would still have been living there today? Or did it ultimately kind of feel like it have its chapter, it had its time, but you were ready to move on.

Louise Wiles: We proactively made the deficient not to stay after 5 years. We always said to ourselves we’d go for 5 years and then see. So then we decided to; yeah, I think, you know, Island living, it was comfortable living, it was very nice. But to substrate into and be a real part of it, I don’t know that we would ever have achieved that because you’ve got families there who’ve been there for generations, you know. It’s quite an interesting sub-community and whilst people are welcoming, I don’t think I ever really felt that I was a part of it, you know. And I don’t know whether I ever would have done that might be my character I don’t know. But we just got to the point where we thought we stay, we’ll end up staying forever, and if this, where we want to be forever and decided it probably wasn’t. So we moved to Lisbon as much as part of a lot of work my husband was doing with Lisbon Bay, so it kind of made sense at that point. Yeah, move to Lisbon, a better range of schools and so just more opportunities generally for living. And we knew it, we knew Lisbon, we knew what we were moving to, so it was a proactive choice. There was no other reason to move other than us choosing that actually, we’d rather be in Lisbon than in Punchaw.

David McNeill: Did it feel like a bit of a quote-unquote homecoming too, when you were there before? Or did you feel you had a distance or, you know, maybe you lived in a different part of town or the friends that you knew that you’d made before had moved on? How much did it feel like going back to Cascais that you had remembered?

Louise Wiles: Yeah, because a few of my friends were still there, 8 years later, we kind of reunited. But different circumstances, you know, I’d known them before, we’d all had kids and then went back and their kids are at school and so were mine, so that was lovely. And then, yeah, just got settled into school life, it was a completely different stage of life. So now I was there before kids the first time and second time with kids, so different way. So I’ve got involved with the school and met many people through school and through the children really. So yeah, it was very different from than the second time not better, just different.

David McNeill: Sure and again, so I guess after a couple of years there, then was it for your husband’s job that you moved again? Or was it just a desire to get back to the UK or what was kind of your thought process?

Louise Wiles: Yeah, no, it was totally a choice again, for all this time, my husband continued to do the same job. No, it was just actually 6 years ago, so it was just as the Portuguese economy was really nose-diving. And, you know, we just felt, we need to make a decision, either work in and stay in Portugal and really settle. So we were renting houses at the point we left, we moved back to Portugal and we moved 4 times in 4 years just because we had so many issues with houses and stories. Lessons learned, but we just thought from an education perspective, are we going to stay here? I mean, there would be nothing wrong with staying from an education perspective there and probably some pluses as well. Because the kids would have grown up part Portuguese and, well, my youngest daughter is Portuguese and that she was born in Portugal and has Portuguese nationality. But yes, I think it was probably more of the economic situation and thinking if things really are going to nose dive, perhaps we should go back to the UK. And then the age of my children as well, my eldest was just about to move from primary to secondary, so it seemed like a natural time to move her. And then also the other consideration, you know, parents getting older, being back so that the children could spend time with, you know, cousins and parents; grandparents, sorry, that was a big factor as well.

David McNeill: Yeah, that all makes sense. Were your children already fluently speaking Portuguese?

Louise Wiles: Elgis was my youngest wasn’t; my youngest will never forgive me because when we lived in Madeira; my eldest, yeah, so she was 3 or 4 when she joined the school, they went to. And in their primary years at that school, they taught half a day in Portuguese, half a day in English. Because most of their students were actually Portuguese and they were put in the school to learn English before they then got put back into the Portuguese system at age 9. And you would do the Portuguese curriculum in the morning, English in the afternoon. So she was bilingual, my youngest, I put into the nursery where they were trying to create a foundation of English on which to build in the primary. So all the tuition was done in English and so she didn’t learn very much Portuguese. And she was saying to me the other day, why did you just not put in too? The school you know which is up the road, just down the road from us where she would have been doing everything in Portuguese and she would have just been fluent. So yeah, one big mistake for me there, I think, and actually, if your parents are listening.

When you have young children, very young children, you worry about putting them into an environment where perhaps the language is not their native one. I actually don’t think it would have been an issue at all now when I think back on it, you know. I know the care would have been there and she does learn incredibly quickly. I mean, she was surrounded by Portuguese anyway, at home she would hear it from friends and when you’re in shops. And we had an empolgada, Paula she used to speak Portuguese all the time to us, so, you know, it wouldn’t have been unusual for her to find herself in that situation. So I do feel perhaps we slightly failed her in that respect. Having said that they both excel at languages here, so obviously something stuck, and they both seem to pick up Spanish. My youngest daughter does French as well, and they both seem to find it quite easy, so something stuck.

David McNeill: And not to maybe dig too much into a sore spot, but you were talking about some of the housing issues. So if you just have any takeaways or lessons for our listeners that you could share, that would be great.

Louise Wiles: So at a practical level, when you’re looking for a property, just make sure you think very carefully about the kind of day you go and look at one. And the first property we rented when we went back to Cascais the second time. Well, we went to see on a beautiful September day, I remember it was a really warm, beautiful day and they had all the windows open. There was a lovely pool in the back garden and we just went, oh yes, fantastic and this is the wall and then it wasn’t ridiculously expensive. You know a lot of the houses that we’ve been looking at like that with pools just way out of our budget. This one was not, we should have asked the question around, obviously, we didn’t and we rented it. And then I remember we then moved in I think probably 2 or 3 months later actually. And it was a really cold December day and I remember my husband walking into the kitchen with some boxes and he just went, oh, we have made the biggest mistake here. Because we were all freezing, what we had there were storage heaters around the house, but they were useless. And they just heated up the piece of a wall they were against and you haven’t got any heat. And a very shivery winter in the house, I would have endless problems with it, including bailiff’s turning up, ready to take all our possessions because of a bill that the owner hadn’t paid. I mean it was not the best at all.

Louise Wiles: So what I would say, my advice is this go and look at the property and imagine living there on the worst day of the year, when it’s so dark, ask yourself serious questions about whether you’ll be warm enough? Yeah and just really look at all of the bathrooms and kitchens and just ask yourself, does this look as though it’s been well maintained, is it all going to function? And if it’s below the market rate for that kind of property, ask yourself why. Yeah, I mean there is not much we could have done about the bailiffs because you didn’t know what’s going on in your landlord’s private life. But that was a really traumatic experience for us because they will literally about take everything from the house and apparently they can, even though it was our possessions. They actually have the legal rights to take everything and they could literally clear the house out and then you have to prove, you know, what was yours? So we ended up moving out over a weekend.

David McNeill: Yeah, am not surprised.

Louise Wiles: We had to tell them to go away and show them our contracts, and they said, right, we’re going away, next time we come back, we will be taking everything. So eventually, spoke to the lawyers literally said, get out and so we phoned a removal company, which was getting to know us quite well by then. Because they had moved us twice and they came on a Sunday and moved us out within 24 hours into storage. Oh anyway, it was a bit of an experience, but yeah, just ask yourself some questions and if you meet the landlords, you know, ask some questions and just think, do I trust this person?

David McNeill: Yeah, these are good. Yeah, definitely, good pieces of advice. Did you have similar types of just, I guess housing issues in all the places that you’ve moved to, or maybe you’ve heard, I guess the horror stories. I mean, I feel like from my experience, I’ve had difficulties with landlords no matter where I’ve lived or moved or what part of the city I was in.

Louise Wiles: Yeah.

David McNeill: It’s hard to give advice sometimes just because if it’s a high demand place, sometimes you don’t have so many options. Or, I mean, I think a good one is, of course, if it seems too good to be true, then it probably is, so, you know, keep a watch out for that. But it can be hard to give advice when yeah, in these difficult situations, you’re in a foreign country, different language, the contracts in a different language. You’re kind of just trying to figure everything out, you have all your stuff in storage, and you’re staying in hotels. So yeah, I’m just curious if you, if had any success?

Louise Wiles: Yeah, I mean needing to find a company; all of those reasons mean that you just want to find something don’t you? And certainly, you know, Cascais area and I don’t think it’s any different now, you know; demand for property is quite high. So finding something nice was always a challenge. And we moved out to this house into a new one and this was a brand new property. And perhaps we should have also questions about that as well. And we ended up having a lot of problems with that property too, and ended up moving out of that one and finally moved into an apartment which was absolutely lovely. And this is where we lucked out because this was just before; the year before we decided to, well, we were beginning to think we would probably come back to the UK.

But the market had nosedived and we used to drive past this apartment block and think, oh, it would be fantastic to live there. But the apartments, which is far too expensive, and we managed to get one of the penthouses at the top for a lot less than it had been 2 years prior and a lot less than it will ever be now as well. And so we had this lovely apartment for one year and nothing went wrong in it. And it was as lovely as it looked when we moved in and the facilities will work. So sometimes it’s down to luck as well, unfortunately. I would just have to take in Portugal, knowing properties in Portugal, you take a walk around and, and just think about the materials that have been used in construction. They’re not hugely good at installation, so because in a couple of months you don’t really need it, but in the winter months you do around Lisbon it can get quite cold. So just check, you’ve got good heating and I’ve heard so many stories of damp you know pouring down walls and things, same in Madeira as well. So, you know, just think about things like that and check that out. You can tell from the smell as soon as you walk in, if you can smell damp move house again is my advice. But yeah, you make a judgment around hopefully; and we rented all our properties through agents. They should have been great and good so that’s another thing.

David McNeill: When you worked with the agents, you didn’t have to pay for their services, did you or how did that work?

Louise Wiles: No, they do get a cut from the landlord, yeah.

David McNeill: So I guess just to take us back down that you’re back in the UK and take us actually, maybe to the beginning of our discussion. But you’d mentioned maybe that you’re now having more of the living abroad or the travel bug and you’ve thought about, you know, what other possibilities might be out there for you. So just love to hear about how the last years have been for you back in the UK. And what’s maybe surprised you if anything, and how you’re kind of thinking about your next years and what might be down the road for you.

Louise Wiles: Yeah oh, how’s it been back in the UK? Well, we had Brexit. I don’t know whether you’ve heard about Brexit?

David McNeill: I think I’ve heard about it, but obviously that was at least some time after you first got back. So maybe, hopefully, you had at least a little bit of positive, good experience when you had first made the adjustments.

Louise Wiles: Yeah, no, I mean, the move back, it was mixed, to be honest, I think. My kids went to a new school and they both struggled definitely the first 3 or 4 months. It took quite a while for my youngest one to settle more than my oldest, but they both know when they look back on it and they’ll tell me it was a tough old start making friends. Yeah, they went to a school; I hope they’re very lucky because they go to a private school in Portsmouth, but it’s a school where a lot of the kids have been there since nursery and primary. So it was quite difficult to make friends and break into friendship groups and I think they probably did feel quite different from my two. And just different perspectives, I mean, my youngest had never lived in the UK, so for her, I don’t think I realized that; we realized what a culture shock it was for her.

And it did take her a long time to settle, I think schools don’t get that, you know, I do quite a lot of work and speak a lot to people. So I’d help people who talked about that culture kids; so people who have kids, who’ve grown up outside of that of parents’ cultures. And lived around the world, you know, moving from international school to international school and international schools are quite good and getting better at recognizing that it takes time for kids to settle. You know, it’s not something that happens in the first week. And I would say that for anyone moving around the country, even moving from one location to another. You know schools have this expectation that we’ll buddy you up and you’ll be settled within 2 weeks and that wasn’t our experience at all. You know, they were quite settled, you know, they’re in the honeymoon phase, the usual sort of cultural adjustment experience, you know, for the first 3 or 4 weeks, and then it all goes wrong and that made it for both of us in different ways. And so that was a challenge for sure and I was very much focused on that. My husband, because he still works in Portugal, was in Portugal a lot of the time so I was at home with the kids.

And then I reacted to it and I was really missing Portugal I just remember that first November thinking I can’t focus on anything. I was trying to focus on my business, I had a business partner who actually had also, ironically, we’ve both been living abroad and she’d moved home. Home for her, she’d not been home for 25 years, but Scotland, so we’d both been going through this experience. And I just remember really being quite well to start very, very sad missing friends and, you know, November here in the UK is like missing the sun. I mean the sun is amazing that these guys, missing all of that and wondering what on earth we had done. It, take me a good 6 months, I think, to get over that and start to settle, yeah. I mean, it wasn’t; you know we made a choice because he wanted to come back for family and education. For whatever reason we decided that possibly education would be better here, I don’t know whether that’s true or not. But that was the choice we made, but we didn’t leave because we hated our life in Portugal in any way. You know, we really liked it, so there was a lot of loss I suppose, associates, I don’t want to overemphasize that, but yeah, I was really sad. I was really sad and I think the kids probably were but they didn’t know how to articulate that, so it made a tough first year.

David McNeill: Any thoughts about, oh, maybe we could swing it to go back, or did you have any of those days or weeks?

Louise Wiles: I think I’ve always even now. Yeah, not really now, because having watched the kids settle, once they did start to settle and have built their friendship groups, then you know, it kind of seemed to make sense that we stayed. And the school they are at is lovely, you know, they’re really happy now. And here we are in week 2 of lockdown again in the UK and they’re online schooling now, they’re both upstairs in their rooms. They have online schooling with their teachers; the care is just amazing, so yeah, from an educational perspective, it’s been good. And my youngest daughter is really into sports and there are loads of sporting opportunities here, so that’s all very positive. So no, I wouldn’t go back now, not whilst they’re at the stage they’re at, but yeah, I think in the back of my mind, I have this desire to move on one day, whether it’s splitting our time between the two, I don’t know.

But I think the really unsettling thing for me about coming back has been Brexit to be truthful. I mean, I really struggled at the time of the referendum and the outcome of that. And I never said this really, and, you know, with Brexit coming to the conclusion it did at the end of this year, and now people are beginning to realize what the restrictions mean. It just makes me so angry that it wasn’t properly articulated; people didn’t fully understand; maybe perceive markets near running out of fruit and vegetable. Because things aren’t getting through the border because of all the new bureaucracy that we were supposed to be, not having to the new one being put in there too but that’s not the point for me. The point for me is that I’ve always seen myself as British, but part of Europe as well. And I find it horrible that that identity is kind of being; I still see myself like that, but obviously my children, my youngest has Portuguese nationality and so does my husband. So in that sense, you know, at least we have that option

David McNeill: Exactly, that is a fortunate position to be in obviously not ideal may be in the way that you’d hoped. But I’ve just was reading about it, I think there was something like 18,000 new applications from British citizens here in Portugal to get resident’s permits. And it just opens that huge task of; I mean, as I know, as an American citizen, trying to live anywhere, pretty much just dealing with visas and residents and citizenship and all of that stuff, that’s just a real pain. So I definitely feel for you and the rest of my British friends out there.

Louise Wiles: Yeah, I just feel that the younger generation won’t have the freedom that we had as; you know when we were 30. We had that freedom to go to Europe, to work in France, Spain, and Portugal really easily. And I just find it really sad that that won’t be the case. I think we were very shortsighted, but anyway, that lessens the whole argument around it which we won’t go into; I see that come in there as the cultural challenge. Because I’m still living in a country that has the power of Brexit and yeah, it’s kind of; it’s a bit like Trump or not Trump, you know, it’s the conversation you tend not to have actually, but you know, it’s there.

David McNeill: How has this, maybe over the last years and especially the last 10 full with dealing with the fallout of Brexit also affected your business and maybe provide some opportunities or some difficulties in that as well. We’d love to just to hear about how you’ve developed your business and how you can help people to overcome some of these difficulties when they think about moving abroad.

Louise Wiles: Yeah, and I think, you know, the whole sort of experience and Brexit’s part of it. But just, you know, from first leaving when I was 30, it just means that I’ve experienced moving as just newly married, but then also as a mom and now with kids at different stages. So I totally understand the challenges that people face in terms of you’re seeing it as an opportunity, but then facing some of what I call the hot spots. You know, the challenges that yeah, most people can overcome, but you have to work your way through. So it means that I work with people understanding the reality of the situations and the challenges. And therefore I can offer advice and I tend to offer advice around how people think about things. Because of course you can’t make decisions for them, but I can point them in the right direction, you know, and assist them as they make those decisions and start their plans, so that’s how this is also helped me. And I suppose I’ve linked it to the work, you know, the work that I did with my masters, with all about corporate relocation and so I’ve linked it to that. And that’s what my book is all about me moving as an international assignee and making it work for you and your family.

Not just for you, the assignee, because that’s the other side of it I’ve seen, you know, the number; the partners who go too and the challenges they face in creating meaningful, lives for themselves. You know, they leave careers behind often new professional identities that have to be re-established in a new location. So that’s part of the work I do as well, working with partners to work out how they make it all work positively for them too. And yeah, you know, I suppose this year global mobility has been really challenged, hasn’t it and people are either stuck in place or rethinking? I think what it does is highlight the importance of making informed decisions and deciding whether it’s really, you know, when I say risk, I don’t mean high, high, high risk. But you know, recognizing that moving does have an element of risk, so you need to be open to that and to think through it carefully. I don’t mean to say no, but I think an informed decision where you understand what the potential challenges could be is really important because it helps you plan it and it helps you set realistic expectations. I think a lot of people fall down when their expectations are way in excess of the reality of the experience and that’s when challenges arise. So setting realistic expectations is really important.

David McNeill: I completely agree, I think that’s one of the first things I would tell people as well as just; you may think that being in the middle of Paris is going to be just amazing. You’re having your coffees, you’re I guess you’re doing your whole French thing. But when you actually have to deal with bureaucracy with finding the apartment, with your job, with the French culture, with the language, you know, that’s just one example. But you could pick a million different examples out there; it’s going to be more difficult than it might be as someone’s just thinking about it from the outset. And as you said, even earlier in your experience, okay, you had those great first months in Madrid, for example, so what’s next. So I think just thinking through all that from the get-go is going to set people up better for success, then just kind of going and crossing their fingers, hoping for the best.

Louise Wiles: Yeah, and I think it’s difficult to know what your reality or what the experience is really going to be like until you’re living there because you need to get there first. I think to have some idea about how you want it to play out, you know, some vision of what you’re wanting to create is important. And it doesn’t have to be specifics or specific goals, but just some idea that you then check against, you know, research. And, you know, say, for example, I’m going to use the example of Paris and I suppose people, I think often people associate Paris with holidays and the feel of a holiday. Well, yes, of course, there’s going to be elements of that when you move there. Of course, you can take that to the fullest advantage and enjoy it in that way, but you’re also going to live your life there. And life comes with all the usual challenges that come with that tone; you’re not going to leave though. In fact, as you’ve just said, those challenges are enhanced because you’ve got to get used to working in a different country culture with different processes, work ways of being and working. So you need to be prepared for that and have that kind of adventurous spirit as well. And then a little mindset, flexibility, all of those things is really important.

David McNeill: Yeah, a hundred percent. That’s great, thanks for all of those insights. And I’d love just to hear about where our listeners can find out more about you and what you’re up to.

Louise Wiles: Okay. Yes, so I have a podcast called Thriving Abroad, and David, you are going to appear on it in the next few weeks. So I’m going to have a take a look at that. And I suppose, thriving abroad is all about understanding what it takes and what helps people to thrive internationally. So a lot of podcasts around the challenge of relocation transition and I’ve got a new series coming up called thriving through transitions. Because although we may not all be moving as much as we had been pre-pandemic we’re all coping with a whole new set of transitions, but an adjustment to the pandemic in situations. So well some great interviews and conversations coming up on that subject and also a book by the same name, Thriving Abroad to the definitive guide to professional and personal relocation success. So if you’re looking for some tips and yeah, just some insights into the things to think about before making relocation. It is set into 3 sections, the first is pre-decision, the second is planning and moving and the third is settling in. So if you’re looking for some tips there that might be helpful for you. But yeah, just go to thrivingabroad.com and you’ll find out, you’ll see access to the podcast and the book there.

David McNeill: Perfect, we’ll definitely include all of those links in the show notes. Thank you so much for joining us today; I really appreciated the conversation, hearing all of your experiences over the last 20 years. I think being in all different countries, and so thank you for joining and looking forward to keeping in touch and seeing where our international lives lead us.

Louise Wiles: Thank you, David, thanks for the opportunity, and lovely to talk to you today. Thank you, bye-bye.

David McNeill: Bye-Bye.

Outro

Thanks to Louise for sharing her story with us. You can find the full transcript for this episode at expatempire.com.

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Originally published at https://expatempire.com on February 11, 2021.