It happened at my first ever expat coffee morning. You know the one where you arrive flustered because you haven’t quite figured out where anything is in your new town, you don’t speak the language and you don’t know another living soul apart from our significant other.
I’m much better at these things now but back then I was utterly out of my depth. A fairly sudden decision to accept an offer from my husband’s employer had thrown us into a whole new life with little to no preparation. I hardly knew what an expat was and I had absolutely no plan for how I would cope with the complete change in lifestyle. To say we were winging it would be generous.