Early January, just around the time we talked last, I was off to Denmark again. This time to the northern part of the country, and the business trip was pretty much exactly the same as the first. I stood around the gas station all day, in sub-zero temperatures doing my absolute best keep the blood circulating through my body so as not to lose an appendage to frostbite. It was bitterly cold, and the only improvement from the last day of work in Denmark was that this facility had a small shed to hold its computers, so that afforded us a place of refuge from the wind and cold. Everyone supporting the work took turns inside, and it wasn't long before an official "rotation" was devised that allowed you to partially thaw out every 45 minutes. Aalborg certainly did not have the same culture and urban amenities that Copenhagen afforded, so I was on the first flight out of there the morning after, and then home to London.
Since then, most of our attention and time has been focused on finding a new place to live! We gave our notice to the landlord in early January and our intention was to move to the (soon-to-be Royal) Borough of Greenwich. We started looking in earnest and soon found that the London property market really is a tough nut to crack. Properties move faster than hotcakes - often in only a matter of hours from listing to let - and it's extremely fragmented. Flats are listed by a small army of Estate Agencies, and there's very few (if any!) that operate across the whole of the city. So if you register your interest with an agency that operates in the Blackheath area, you might not know about any flats that come up for let in the Lewisham area. That's akin to looking for a flat in Yaletown and not hearing about something coming onto the market in the West End.
Our search was intense, and we made a number of trips out to Greenwich to look at places, but with little success. So we expanded to include some areas around Greenwich, and then even started looking around our current area, but were still having very little luck. It came down to the point where we nearly gave up, and we asked our landlord if she would be happy to take a retraction of our notice and keep us on!
But perseverance is a virtue, and while I was away last Wednesday in Birmingham for work (it's quickly becoming my second home city), Sarah found a great place and put in an offer that was accepted. How the tables turned from our first place, where I made the choice to take this flat without Sarah, and then she made the choice on this flat without me! We had to, fairly quickly, go back over the fence with our current landlord and tell her that we wanted to continue with our notice & that we were going to move house, but we got that sorted out and are now eagerly looking forward to moving into our new place - this weekend!
So now we've started doing all the things that come with moving. We've told our utilities provider that we're moving, booked a van to drive our things over there, and found an internet supplier (we're giving up free internet service at this place!), and so on. This new place is really great though - we'll post pictures after moving in. The master bedroom is quite a bit larger than what we currently have and the second is very spacious (so you can think about visiting us!). The garden is larger, and because we'll be on the ground floor, will get much more light than our current place. We're very excited!
Chris had his six-month "birthday" in January, and we've now posted some pictures online, so head over to the other website and check them out! He's getting so big! We have also been very busy with plans for our visit in February. Most of you will know that we're heading back to Vancouver for a few weeks in Feb; Sarah will be there for a bit longer than I will, but we're both very excited to see as many of you all as we can. We've been trying to plan our time to maximize the amount of events we can get to and places we can meet up, so hopefully all goes well and we're going to really enjoy our visit. Sarah and I can't wait to have real sushi, and to see mountains again!
Well, that about sums up where we're at for now. January is gone and February will be mostly us moving, and then back to Vancouver! We'll update some more, probably from Vancouver, and then really pick it up again in March. We have a lot to take in in England this year: the Queen's diamond jubilee, Wimbledon, the Henley Regatta, and more! Not to mention the Olympics! It should be a really good year!
~Bryan