An in-depth guide (including the stuff nobody tells you) to moving your family 300 miles

In the summer of 2021 the opportunity presented itself for us to up-sticks and relocate from our (very) comfortable and established family life in Suffolk, and relocate nearly 300 miles north, to Cumbria. My husband's job as senior software architect and global head of development for a London based firm, was no longer London based thanks to Covid, but officially remote, with a greater international and national focus and disparate presence. So, the stars aligned and the Cumbrian mountains beckoned. We sold our Suffolk house after a few days on the market and had our offer accepted on a stunning Grand Designs style barn conversion, opposite a working dairy farm in the Eden Valley. I handed in my notice for my full time teaching job and we advised school that our daughter would not be starting with them in September, the most problematic aspect of this being the contract we had signed and fees we were liable for. Oh, and my contract at work which dictated that I work until October half term, with what looked like my husband and children moving up to our new home and life at the end of September. We had to make these massive life commitments without a single piece of paper having been signed or a single pound having left anyone's hand, such is the house moving system in this country. However, I had to start the search for a new job in Cumbria, and to find a new school for Daughter. To commit to new horizons, we had to affirmatively turn our backs on the shore.

But with six in the chain, a 300 mile move at stake and a band of motley estate agents standing between us and success, only in the most warped recesses of our humour could we have written the narrative for this journey. Through this tell-all guide and warts-and-all expose I invite you to join me.