Exchange and Mart

Update:

• The house is finally sold - contacts were exchanged this afternoon; there's no going back. The funds will be available on the 7th, just one week before we need them to buy the new place, but it'll do.


• We've pretty much packed, and I think we'll be able to carry everything. The majority of our belongings went Canada-ward on Tuesday, and all that's left is what we can carry (which seems to be more than we thought we could carry, so I'm quietly confident on that front).


• We've sold or given away large amounts of things which we either don't need, don't want, or won't work in Canada. Tomorrow is the final giveaway; everything must go, including the 20 year old microwave. I'll probably shed a tear giving that away, and then everything else goes to the tip.


• The cats are on their way. Tonight, they're at Heathrow; tomorrow they'll be in Vancouver. We'll see them on Monday, with any luck


• I'm going to bed now. I'm exhausted. But I'm published!

Stop Press

I'm in print! I have a note here from the editor of the Citizen which says I'm on Page 1, continuing on Page 5, and "Readers are already looking forward to the next instalment".

If I had time, I'd be speechless. More as soon as possible...

Chain Gang

Last night, I had my farewell meal, and tomorrow I have my faarewell presentation. After more than 16 years, it's fair to say that my colleagues are doing me proud.

But I struggled to concentrate on things last night because of the dreaded chain. 8 days before we move out, we are still far from certain of selling our house. If you don't live in England, this may puzzle you. If you do, this will be all too familiar to you. What we seem to have pieced together in the last few days is that somewhere down at the bottom of our chain, there is a problem. The kind of problem which is avoidable, manageable and resolveable, but which has been neither avoided, managed or resolved. The result is that we wait, our buyers wait, their buyers wait, and we all get little or no sleep, which in the case of the person in the chain who is heavily pregnant must be particularly galling.

At the moment, my rational head say that everything will be OK; it's just a hitch (or a ruse by someone to pay less for something which has already been agreed), but the majority of me, which is far from rational at this stressful time, is actively investigating bridging finance - we are committed to our Canadian house, and if we don't get the funds through from this one, we're scuppered.

This English system is truly awful for everyone involved, and the amount of yelling one has to do at solicitors and estate agents indicates why they are two of the most loathed professions in the country. Please take me away from all this.

Disconnected

Tiscali. Remember the name, people. By and large, I've had no real problems with them over the years, but it seems the trick is never to tell them you're moving away. I had a long conversation with them a week or so ago, and explained that I needed the broadband connection discontinued on the 31st, giving them less than the stipulated one month's notice. The lack of notice is not a problem, because we are going somewhere where Tiscali do not operate, so there is no notice period. Everything was arranged, and they declined my offer of notice in writing, noting that the file would say that we wanted to be closed down at midnight on March 31st.

On Saturday morning, the connection stopped working. Sever increasingly irate phone conversations later, two things became clear:

1) We had been disconnected 2 weeks early ("Yes, it says here to disconnect you on the 31st." "But it's the 18th." "Oh. Yes. Um. That happens sometimes".)

2) There was nothing I could do about it until today, because the cancellations team only works Monday to Friday.

Today, I was cheerfully told that I could reconnect if I liked, but it would take 15 days to process.

I hung up.

If updates become sporadic now, you know who to blame...

More excitement!

I have a new job!

OK, maybe I don't actually have a new job, but from now on, if anyone asks what I do, I'm going to say that I'm a newspaper columnist. My pestering of the Citizen (q.v.) seems to have paid off. I have had an email converstaion with the Managing Editor, and he would like to publish my observations 'periodically'.

Don't believe what they tell you - getting into this writing lark is easy...

All I have to do now is write the damn things.

Best get on with it, then.

Asbestos

There is no asbestos in our current house. We know this because we have, at great expense, employed a contractor to come and test it for us. We also know this because the house is less than 20 years old, and whatever you may think about the 1980s, no one was using asbestos as a building material then. The fact that we have had to go through this expensive rigmarole is, of course, indicative of the housebuying process in England which is one of many things we will not be sorry to leave behind us.

By contrast, we have in the last week, tied up the deal to buy our house in Canada with hardly a problem - the house inspection took a couple of days to reach us for various reasons, and thanks to having to read it in an airport lounge, I can't guarantee that I gave it quite as much attention as I ought to have, but fortunately there are two of us paying attention to it, and everything has been resolved to the satisfaction of all parties. We have also, during the process, become friends with the people selling us the house - at least, that's how it feels - and I can't help thinking that this is a much better way of doing business.

Although the strange custom of not ncluding tax in things is beginning to grate - we still don't know exactly how much we are paying for this house because it is not at all clear whether we have to pay tax on top of the agreed price, and if so, how much.

All will become clear.

The cats are also sorted out, although I can't make the name of the company transporting them stick in my head, with the unfortunate side effect that I am convinced they are flying with 80s poodle-rock band Air Supply.

And I cracked, and booked us into the Fairmont hotel at Vancouver Airport for our first night in Canada, because I think we'll probably need a little pampering by then.

More, sporadically, as I get it

Maybe the last time...

There's not really a lot to report, to be honest. We're very busy, as you might expect, the house moving things are progressing, I'm still spending lots of time closing down direct debits and sorting out medical insurance, and almost unnoticed, I'm doing some things for the last time.

Last week, I was in Luxembourg for the day, and it was certainly the last time I'll be there, given that my visits to Lux have been pretty sporadic over the years - indeed, since I was last there, they have started to build a new airport terminal, so that the walk to the office is no longer possible, crossing as it does a large hole in the ground.

We transacted our business very satisfactorily, and headed back to London City airport on a nifty little VLM Fokker 50, and it wasn't until I was home again that it occurred to me that it was the last time I'd fly out there. And then I've been to Italy this week, and I'm back out there again next week, and this time I will notice it. The office at the factory in Alba has been my second home this past year, and I'm going to miss it, and the friends I've made there. I'm taking a colleague with me, and in a way I'm handing the baton over to him, so it will feel odd, and a little sad, to be thrashing my hire car back up the autostrada for the last time. It's a place I will want to go back to in a few years, I'm sure, but for now, it will be the last time.

As the song says, I'm not looking back, but I'm trying to look around me now...