What time is it where you live?

Greetings from jolly old England! We've been here nearly five days. So far our tasks have included sleep, trying to sleep, trying to sleep at the correct time and (finally coming to our senses) trying to sleep whenever we get the chance. Fatigue rules, but despite the massive task of adjusting a family of five to an eight-hour time change, we have turned our efforts towards the even more massive task of getting our lives settled here. We've spent the better part of our non-sleeping hours (not necessarily considered waking hours, since our wakefulness could truly be debated) on the dwelling hunt (aka your guest quarters when you visit London). Until we secure our permanent digs we're living in limbo in one of the most hectic (aka non family oriented) parts of the city. Here's a peek at our cute, albeit tiny, noisy flat . . .

The narrow entrance hall leading to two tiny bedrooms


The reception (aka living room in the US)


The kitchen


My kitchen window view into the echoey inner open space in this odd converted building


Flying rats rule the skies (the clouds might disagree)


Flat views

Farewell

Right now our house is full of sights like this


And this


And this


And well, a lot of other far less photogenic things (actually downright disgusting) that I do not have the time to document (I know you're bummed :).

This is officially the last post from the US! The last few weeks have been a dizzying time full of move prep, farewells and travel (photos from trips to Tennessee and Alaska will hopefully at some point make the blog, albeit a little late and a little out of order). We officially bid farewell to these United States on Friday. This is all very surreal. I clearly remember the last time this house was filled with nothing but wall-to-wall boxes upon our arrival three years ago. Could it really be time to say goodbye? We are filled with mixed emotions, some of great sadness and some of great anticipation. At unexpected moments these emotions surface and take us by surprise. Onward we go. Back to spackling I go. Until London, we bid farewell!

Tennessee in June

Okay, so this is a bit late and a bit out of order, but when you fry your desktop which contains all your photo files this is what happens! Alas, after much blood, sweat and tears with the incredibly useless folks at Dell (okay the guy who finally came to replace the power supply, you were pretty useful) the desktop is back in action! Now I am onto the task of managing a pretty massive backlog of pre-move photos taken during our farewell USA tour.

In late June we met up with Shannon's one and only brother and his family for one last cousin love-fest before the big move. We rented a cabin near Gatlinburg, Tennessee, which provided a great base to explore our nation's (yes we still belong to the USA!) Great Smoky Mountain National Park. We had a lot of fun hiking, reading, playing in the river, talking, splashing in the hot tub, shopping for sweets on the strip, eating, bear watching, counting live scorpians in the cabin, watching movies and just being together. I am not a fan of goodbyes and typically do my best to minimize adieus, but I have to admit that when it was finally time to say goodbye this one was a little hard.