Catching up

I had no idea it had been so long since my last entry.

I won't go into the details of the move. It went pretty smoothly, aside from the fact that our last week in Baltimore was absolutely insane with all the things we were trying to get done at the last minute. At one point I started crying at the post office (they said our bikes were oversized and they could not send them). But we managed to pull it off, sell/donate/ship all of our stuff, take care of all of the PETS steps, and get on our plane!

For the first month we lived in a tiny holiday flat in Belsize Park. It was very tight, with all of our boxes and stuff, but it was also rather cozy and not at all unbearable. In April we moved into our current place in Hampstead Garden Suburb. It, too, is small--it is a studio--but it's relatively nice and we really like the area. It is very quiet, with lots of hedges, nice gardens, and parks. The downside is that the shops close by 7:00, so if we want to buy anything after that point we have to travel or do without.

I work at the Institute of Education as a Research Officer, which is a job I really wanted. I enjoy it a lot, and don't mind going to work each day (other than the whole getting up earlier than I would otherwise like to). My office is in Bloomsbury, which is a very nice area and is near Soho. The Bloomsbury/Soho areas are very busy, and I rather like being in that atmosphere during the day then retiring to our quiet home neighborhood at the end of the day.

Aside from work, the other big thing in my life is roller derby with the London Rollergirls. K and I both skate with them. We have two practices a week. A couple of months ago I took over the finances for the league and last month I was elected to the board of directors. There are 3 directors. I now spend a lot of time on derby, probably more on the organizational side now than on the skating! We had our first bout on 8 Sept. It went amazingly well.

We are spending a long weekend in Belgium and the Netherlands in October with my brothers. I am looking forward to that; this will be my first time in either country and our first trip out of England since we moved over here. Now we just need to find someone to watch Cricket and Beemish...