My name's Eve and I'm an expat wife

OK - well I've been a fully fledged expat wife for a whole week now. I've found it to be a mixture of lie ins, guilt, low level productivity and drudgery - so far.

The hardest adjustment so far has been the lack of structure - it makes me feel like I'm floating about with no focus to my days. You don't last 15 years
in the civil service without liking routine. To make things easier for me, I have made the setting of a number of fundamental ground rules my number one priority.

My ground rules:

• No daytime TV
• No washing my hair without first doing a dozen laps in the pool (I should point out I only wash my hair every three to four days since I introduced this rule)
• Some sort of physical activity everyday (seeing as I can't walk more than 1.5km without my back giving in, this is limited. For context, 1.5km seems to be the equivalent of one lap of Ikea)
• Get washed and dressed before N gets home from work (it's important to keep up appearances)
• Take one step every day (however small) towards achieving one of the four main admin tasks (getting visa, registering with a hospital, finding a flat, hiring a car)
• Leave hotel complex at least every other day
• Make some friends/join some clubs/do some stuff
• WRITE BLOG