Moving, or not?

[Herr-Berbunch]

For those that don't know my home situation, I'm married with one little girl and two step kids (11 and nearly 16). They spend precisely half the week with us and half with their dad and his wife (and her two kids, and intermittently his little girl from another relationship), it's been this way for about 8 years now and all parties are used to it and quite like it.

So it was a shock yesterday to get a call from the missus to say that the kids' dad and wife was moving, and the kids want to go with them!

Where to?

Devon.

That's over 300 miles away.

So we invited all involved around for a cuppa and a chat. The wife doesn't want to have a fight over this, she's always maintained the moral high ground since her divorce, and she doesn't want to force the kids to stay here if they don't want to, as they'd just end up resenting us. In the little gathering we agreed that we'd let them go as long as they spent every day of every school holiday with us.

About six months or so ago the wife and I vaguely contemplated moving somewhere else, but the reasonableness inside my wife (that can be really annoying sometimes) said that we couldn't move the kids away from their dad. Oh the irony.

Today, in work, I got an email from the wife with a link to a job for her, quite well paid, near where the kids will be moving to. So I've spent all afternoon looking at jobs and houses in that area. We wouldn't be moving until maybe August but it can't hurt to look now.

Flippin' Devon. Hope the broadband's good down there!