Steve n Jen's UK adventures: Mar 2013 a

Fri 15 Feb 2013

Knowing that the sale of our London house was imminent, Jen handed in two weeks notice at work.

Thu 28 Feb 2013

Hurrah! Exchange of contracts for the house sale… all systems are a-go!

Fri 01 Mar 2013

Jen's last day at work. Now is the time to arrange for all our furniture etc to be shipped to Australia.

Sat 02 Mar 2013

And so as luck would have it Mary and Finn as well as John and Jenny Sawyer are available today for a final farewell and share our visit to Avebury. We wandered through Avebury Manor while the weather was extra cooooold.

Above: Mary embroidering in the Manor's Cafe.

In the evening John and Jenny put us up and fed us all a lovely roast dinner.

Sun 03 Mar 2013

Received the news that Finn and Mary are no longer an item. A very sad day for them both, but hopefully each of them will find a positive new direction once some healing time has passed.

In the evening Deb, Clancy Snr and Jnr dropped by, and as arranged we will put up Jnr for a couple of days so he can get out and see some London sights. (He is 20 yrs old)

Mon 04 Mar 2013

So given some options of what to see in London, Clancy Jnr has chosen the world-famous Wallace Collection. So Jen took him under her wing and helped him navigate the Tube and London streets.

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Above: French gothic dresser, very impressively carved

Oh and we did pop into St Paul's Cathedral in the afternoon on the way home. As you do.

Above: Clancy Jnr outside St Paul's Cathedral

Once Steve was home from work, he and Clancy Jnr went to the local park for a 1-to-1 fighter practice.

Tues 05 Mar 2013

More sight-seeing while Steve's hard at work.

This time Jen and Jnr saw the Japanese exhibits at both the British Museum and the V&A.

Just as we were leaving the V&A Jen led Jnr past the ironwork displays, and almost couldn't drag Jnr away! Once home, another fighter practice and after dinner Clancy Snr dropped by to collect Jnr.

Thu 07 Mar 2013

It's cold! The snowdrops in the backyard are flowering prettily.

Fri 08 Mar 2013

Jen made her way up to Newport Pagnall to meet with Richard and Lena and go a bit crazy buying up vellum at William Cowley, suppliers of vellum to the British Royal Family. Jen bought 6 hides, and spend the next morning cutting them down to reasonably sized pieces.

Sat 09 Mar 2013

Today we had Finn, Elffin and Kev come say their farewells to us.

Sun 10 Mar 2013

Some serious packing today.

Tue 12 Mar 2013

This big day has arrived. Jen meets the shipping/removalist guys at our storage lock-up first, then the emptied the house of most of the furniture as well - all before 11.30am. Steve came home after work to find the place cleared out, and now it really suddenly feels all too real!

Wed 13 Mar 2013

Alex came and stayed with us… loads of squire / knight talk ensued. Jen also chatted with Alex on what she's found out about property investing - which he's about to dive into.

Fri 15 Mar 2013

Today is Steve's last day at work, and he's very lucky his workplace allowed him to take the next 2 weeks' holiday off in lieu of notice. This means we'll actually be able to go to Rowany Festival over Easter, hurrah!

Steve rushed off to work in the morning just like any other workday. He realised later he didn't get a chance to do his usual sentimental bye-bye to each room in the house, oh well.

Alex and his girlfriend Sy were tremendously helpful with the final clear out of our house and with getting our remaining luggage over to nearby Dan and Elizabeth's place where we'll be staying tonight. Thank you so much guys!

The house is now emptied and ready for the new owners to move in. Jen handed over the keys (once confirmation the money's come through) at about 2pm. Bye bye 55 Falcon Street Plaistow London.

A tremendous thank you also to Dan and Elizabeth for putting up with our enormous pile of luggage and hosting us while we're jobless + homeless bums! OK, actually Steve is on holiday, and technically jobless after Easter.

Sat 16 Mar 2013

Poor Steve's not had a real holiday in more than half a year. To begin, we visited the British Museum.

This evening we hopped on a plane and found ourselves staying in Cork Ireland with Gavin, Angela, and their 2 yr old son Cian.

Sun 17 Mar 3013

Today is St Patrick's Day and we're in Cork to enjoy the parade. With the wind chill is feels about 2 degree C today. Angela lent Jen a green scarf and gave Steve a sprig of real Shamrock (not clover), very excellent!

The St Patrick's Day Parade seems to be all about community, celebrating life and embracing Irishness, for example various foreign communities who call Ireland their home now, marched proudly together and excitedly waved their Irish flags all over the place. There were loads of kids' clubs marching in the parade with proud mums & dads cheering them on too.