Just a week to go...

Hello again. The last few days have been a bustle of activity, with packing, sorting, binning, recycling, and taking things off to be mailed home or given to thrift stores. As of now, I feel like I'm just about packed and ready to go, with the exception of those few items that have to be packed at the last minute...good since I leave on vacation with David down to Cornwall tomorrow morning.

Today I took my last batch of stuff to be mailed home--between my postal and DHL trips, I have spent somewhere in the neighbourhood of four hundred pounds sending stuff home now. I also stopped in at the bank and gave them instructions to close my account at the end of August, called my mobile provider and asked them to close that account, and booked my trip to the airport next Wednesday. Yesterday, I had a furniture and electrical charity store come to pick up our TV plus a few bookshelves. There is so much stuff to cart away and get rid of....it's times like these that one longs for a car of one's own, despite how happy I generally am to be living without one now.

My housemates are all in various stages of moving too, so our house is going through lots of chaos, as our main living area fills up with boxes and suitcases as people's rooms gradually empty out.

Off to Cornwall to see David's sister and family, then Friday we leave her place to do a bit of our own visiting around. Unfortunately, the forecast is predicting light rain Thursday and heavy rain Friday, and we're camping Friday night. Here's hoping we don't have to set up camp in pouring rain.

See you soon.

Julie

Engaged!

Hello! Well, it has been an eventful week. I celebrated my 32nd birthday last Wednesday by going out for dinner to a lovely Mediterranean place called Comptoir Libanais in Central London with David, after which we went back to his place for strawberry shortcake and he proposed to me.

On Thursday night, my housemates (Jen, Esther, and Anne) and Jess threw a surprise party for me, which was definitely a surprise. Jess lured me out of the house by promising dinner in Romford, and then when I called to find out where she was (some 25 minutes late), she told me her ride home had left without her and I should go home and she would bring fish and chips asap. I was about to go straight up to my room when suddenly everyone yelled surprise! and I realized the living room was festooned in balloons and banners announcing Happy Birthday and Happy Engagement. Jen had checked FB on her iPhone on the way home and discovered that I was engaged (I had just posted that) so she picked up a card and banner for that too.

Sunday we met my brother-in-law Ben for brunch. He had been attending conferences in Manchester/Leeds the week before and had just arrived in London for a few days of relaxing before going home. In the evening, there was a farewell party for me at Wood Green, and that's where the photos at the top are from. We had a good time at a very tasty and atmospheric Italian restaurant. The chef is responsible for the paintings of London on the walls, including the one David and I are standing in front of.

Monday, I met Ben and we visited the Victoria and Albert Museum, where we explored the special exhibit on the Aesthetics movement as well as other areas displaying a great variety of silver items (from crosses to crowns to weapons to cutlery). Then we took the ferry down the river to Tower Pier where we met David and then his sister Jo and her family for dinner.

My time here is winding down fast. I just finished my last day of tuition today, and I expect I'm either done or almost done supply teaching. It has been an exhilarating and exhausting week for both David and I, with work stresses and questions about the impending changes facing us compounding the emotional upheaval (both positively and negatively) of getting engaged. I am taking tomorrow off to participate in my choir's concert, and I haven't decided yet whether to be available for work on Friday or not. I am feeling pretty "stuffed," as the Brits would say, pretty good and tired and ready for a holiday. I intend to take next week off for sure, so I can get all my packing done before David and I go down to Cornwall and Devon--in part to see his sister, Christine, whom I haven't met yet.

Hope this finds you well. I look forward to seeing many of you soon.