Christmas in the city that never sleeps, New Years on the Emerald Isle

Well in addition to the two new blogs from Jane on Frankfurt and Budapest, I thought you may be interested to know how things generally in London are going. For all you naysayers who don't like London weather or light, the weather is cold but has been generally fine. However, you hit the light-thing on the head: sunset is at 3.52pm today. What's the point of it even coming up really?

The big news is that Jane has only a week left of teaching in the UK. This is great news as most of you would know she has not enjoyed the experience much at all. She will be changing tack somewhat and taking up a job with an organisation called Oasis (www.oasistrust.org), in a house they run called Foyer (pronounced Foy-ay…they're not posh, it started in France unfortunately). The house has about 20 or 25 girls who are staying there as temporary accommodation, waiting for permanent government housing. Jane's role will be as a key worker with 3-4 girls which entails building relationships with them and helping them in getting their housing, general affairs, employment and just life stuff in order. So basically skilling and helping the girls get up and running. It will also involve a couple of nights a week away from home.

The downside is that it is located on the dark side. That's right, the house is SOUTH OF THE RIVER (cue Star Wars dark side music)! This will mean that it no longer makes sense for us to live with Kate Moss, Hugh Grant and the entire cast of The Bill in North Central London and we are planning to move when our lease is up in January. This is also when Tim and Charis will head home so it makes a lot of sense. It would need to.
My work is extremely busy with a huge workload and a lot of deals to finish before Christmas. The property industry in London is booming at the moment particularly on the new development side and that is keeping me in a job, though also keeping me in the office for longish hours. But I'm loving it and getting great experience too.

With Tim and Charis going home in Jan, almost every Aussie we knew when we came over will have left including Mark (Jane's bro) and Steve (Tim and Charis' cousin). So could be an interesting time. We're hoping to have a few visitors towards mid-next year in Erin, Brett, Andrew and Jenni and possibly Dave and Carly. If you're thinking of coming over, anytime between Jan and June will mean you will be pampered and have our undivided attention. I did get to catch up with Hany (my good mate from church and NAB) at Heathrow for a few hours when he was in the middle of a kamikaze series of flights around the world for the bank and that was great.

So looking ahead, we leave for New York Sunday week and will be joined by Tim and Charis a day or two later. We will have a week there, then following our last mouthful of Christmas turkey on Christmas Day will board the plane for Ireland, where we will then spend a week, including New Years in Limerick. We then have no trips planned until we leave here sometime around mid-year before travelling for 4-5 months before landing in Melbourne. Somewhere in there I hope to watch the Aussie football team at the World Cup too (go you good things!). We have also been invited to a wedding in January south of London. Maddie and John who I worked with at Churchill Insurance are getting married and we feel very privileged to have got an invite to their small wedding.

So that is pretty much the wrap-up. There's other stuff obviously too, but I thought I'd give the notable news before Christmas. If we don't speak to you in some way, shape or form before Christmas, have a great one and make the most of having your family and friends around.

Merry Christmas and we will see you in 2006.

Chris and Jane