Time to go Twittering and Tumbling

Yeah, I've finally admitted that I never get round to updating this blog. Sad but true.

These days you'll find my daily happenings on my Twitter feed. This feed, along with other collected posts, videos, pictures etc are now collated into my Tumblr blog.

If you want to keep up with my latest news, head over to one of these places. I'll be winding this blog up and archiving it soon.

Thanks for reading

Richard

Monty Python and the Dalek

Saw this on YouTube...a really funny combination of the French Taunter from MOnty Pyhton and the Holy Grail and the "Dalek" episode from Dr Who series 1.

Made me laugh out loud..

OK so I'm a geek...

...but I just had to visit the Wales Millennium Centre, home of Torchwood.




More pics here

Into the rft...

Made it back from my German excursion ok on Friday. It was great to be back - I was so pleased to see everyone. This traveling lark certainly doesn't get any easier.

Saturday we went down to see my sister to have a party for my nephew Daniel. He's 2 today and is really growing up. He's into cars and trains - just like Joe at his age. I managed to get a rare few minutes with him on my own this time, which was lovely. Normally I take a back seat and let the kids all play, but I spent a few moments making up a Thomas the Tank Engine story for him all about his birthday. It was a nice time to connect with him - he's such a sweet boy. And Christopher, his brother, just never stops smiling - such a happy boy.

Sunday it was down to Lincoln for the christening of Lisa's nephew's little girl. The service was at 1pm and, oddly enough, there was a disco afterwards. It felt a bit strange having a disco so early in the afternoon, but generally good fun was had by all. The kids all loved it - especially Joe, who showed just how confident he is in himself by being up and dancing pretty much all night. Molly had great fun throwing herself about as usual (why do dancefloors seem to ignite everyone's desire to slide on their knees?). And Rosie managed to relax from her teenager posing to eventually join in the fun.

And now I'm heading over to Wales - Caerphilly to be precise. For the week. Bugger.

I'm sure I'll get used to being away again, but I really hate leaving everyone behind.

But at least there's one thing -I'm staying in a hotel in Cardiff so I may spot some aliens falling from the rift :o) Maybe I'll stalk the streets at night seeing if I bump into the filming of Torchwood series 2...

I'll be contacting the paper today to get our house in the classifieds. We're going to put it in privately for a couple of weeks to see how we get on - Healing is a really popular place to live so we might just be able to save ourselves up to £5000 in estate agents fees, which would be very useful. At the christening party several people were telling us of a poll they had seen in the paper - apparently the UK came out at number 36 in the list of "Best places to live". Which country came in at number 1?......yup, it was France! More proof, if any was needed, that what we are doing is a good idea.

Deutche Dumplings

Oh it's okay, calm down...I made it to Munich in the end. I arrived in the hotel about midnight on Tuesday/Wednesday. That was quite a journey...

The hotel is nice enough - a good sized room, although the pillows on the bed are a strange square style, and are not the comfiest ones I've ever had. I wake up each morning with one wrapped round my face - most disconcerting.

Had a lovely meal out courtesy of our new General Manager. He was over with some of the other management team to meet the folks from the German office and so extended the invitation to Stuart and I as well. We ended up at a very nice restaurant opposite the opera house in Munich. Menus available in English, thank goodness, as there was a lot of Game and other dodgy stuff on there that I may have stumbled upon. Ended up having some kind of pork, which was really lovely and dumplings - they really like their dumplings here!

Work has gone well and we got finished earlier than expected, so today we're visiting the German office. I'll be heading back to the airport at lunchtime - I'm so looking forward to getting home.

Here I am , LIVE from Munich Vienna

Ah, yeah...slight hiccup in the travel plans. My flight to Munich was cancelled, so I managed to sneak on a connection via Vienna. Never thought I'd make it to the home of the Viennese Waltz, Viennese Whirls and Viennettas (um...possibly). But here I am. Sounds very nice, but, as usual, all I get to see is the inside of a departure lounge, so I might as well be in Doncaster as Vienna :o(

At least the enlightened Austrian folks have provided FREE wi-fi in the departure lounge, so that's making the time go a bit quicker...oh, did I mention that my flight from Vienna to Munich has been delayed? Grrrr.... it's going to be so late when I get in. I was hoping to get there in plenty of time to meet up with Stuart (PM also on this gig) for a chat about tomorrow, b ut it's not to be. Ah well, at least I can add another European city to the list of places-I-have-visited-but-not-really.

Apparently it's snowing in Munich and very cold, so it should look nice in the morning.

Right, well my battery is nearly shot, so best go. Fingers crossed I reach the hotel before tomorrow!

Valuations...how confusing

Well, we've now had 3 valuations of our house by local estate agents. And it's so confusing, as the 3 valuations differ by about £70,000!

I do wonder how 3 estate agents, all supposedly experts in the property market, can be so wildly different in their views. It's not like the difference between £1 million and £1.07 million. Then I could understand it. £70,000 is a large proportion of the asking price for us and now we're really confused how much the house is really worth. Looking at the market, I think we probably fall somewhere between the middle and the top of the range we have got, but it's so hard to be sure.

So, just for good measure, we're getting a fourth valuation done to see if we can settle on a good average. We need to get selling and quick!

A house in Healing and Bellac is best

...the house-selling process has begun! This week we are getting valuations from the local estate agents - we've had 2 round so far, one was excellent, one was quite the opposite. We've got another coming round later in the week and then we'll be going for it.

I figured out today that we actually have a lot more floor space than most of the other properties on the market in Healing for under £250,000, which is a real selling point for us. I really hope we get people in the door, as I think the house will sell itself from the inside. We have a great big kitchen - the heart of our home, and 4 double bedrooms - this is quite rare. There are lots of 4-bed places around, but most of them have at least one bedroom that is very small. All our bedrooms can take a double bed comfortably. We are in such a great area too...our road is nice and quiet, the back garden is very private and secluded, and it's south-facing. I'm not exaggerating when I say that it has been known to be 10 degreed hotter in our back garden than in the front. It's such a sun trap. I just hope we can find something in France that compares.

Bellac certainly seems to be the place to be. Several websites have picked it out as the up-and-coming place to live. Prices are still low and it remains fairly undiscovered. We have found several places with 4 bedrooms, an attic to convert and lots of land, for around 180,000 euros - about £120,000. Lets hope there's still the same choice when we are in a position to buy. There certainly seems to be plenty going on in the area - tennis clubs, lakeside beaches, watersports, theatre, shopping... it's quite hard to not get excited about it, though I know it's way too early...there's so much still to do and so much that could go wrong.

Work-wise it looks like I'm going to be travelling about a bit for the next few weeks. The project that I have been on for the last 4 months or so has paused for a few weeks, so I'm now going to do other stuff for a while. As of now, I'm going to Munich for 3 days, London for a day and Caerphilly (wales) for a week! It will come as quite a shock to us all I think, although it's probably a good thing, as I'll no doubt be away a lot when we finally get to France. Getting used to me being away more will be part of the process of accepting the change for all of us.

Those Ewoks could write a great tune

It's not all France on here you know...

For instance, check this out:



Possibly the greatest movie song of all time...?

I'm back - and boy, have I got news...?!

Yeah, it's been ages, but it's worth the wait.

At the end of 2006 I got the go-ahead from work that we can move to France! Yes, at last, finally, after almost 2 years of waiting, its finally going to happen. We still can't quite believe it's true, but it is. Like most people, we had pretty much given up hope of it ever coming off...but my new boss has been amazing and really pushed this through the company. Basically, the company are not relocating me (never expected they would), but they will allow me to remain in my current role, provided that I can maintain my present level of commitment to customers. So, I need to ensure I am near enough to an airport to get back to the UK as and when required. This is fine by me - it makes it easier for us all to get home, and, probably more importantly, for people to come out and visit us!

Me and Lisa are just ecstatic and it...we've dreamt about this for so long and finally it's within our grasp. We're not going into this blind however. We have spent the last 2 years thinking things through, planning in our mind how we're going to go about it, where to go, what to do there, how things are going to work. There's going to be so much to figure out still, but we're well on the way.

And the kids are all really positive too. We felt they might be a bit reluctant, and I think Rosie was especially, at first. But since we've been discussing it more and pointing out all the good stuff we get out of it, not just the bad, I think she's joined the other two in being really excited about it.

Reaction from our friends and family has been mixed - from great excitement to stony silence - but again, we expected that to some extent. Hopefully it will just take a little time for people to get used to the idea, and then they will all start to be very positive and supportive - I think we'll really need that, especially for the children's sake.

So.....what do we need to organise? Well

Selling the house

We are putting the house on the market, so if you want to buy a lovely 4-bedroom detached house in a quiet part of Healing, then let me know. We're hoping that the extra work we have had done in the last few years will make a big difference and we'll get lots of interest. I think it's a good time to advertise as anyone buying now would be in in time for the new school year in September. Healing Comp have done really well in the exam league tables again - the highest state school in the area behind Toll bar - so hopefully that will get people wanting to move into the area. Seriously, if you know anyone who wants to move into Healing, leave a comment and I'll get in touch.

Find a house in France

Of course, we will need somewhere to live! We were originally looking in the Charente-Maritime region, as we have spent many lovely holidays there and love the area. But, although there are 2 airports in the region, neither one fly to East Midlands, which would be the most convenient airport for folks back home to fly from. So we looked further afield, and back to an area that we looked at some time ago - the Limousin. This area remains pretty undiscovered, with prices still the lowest in France. This is ideal for us. Specifically there is a town called Bellac that seems to have the right combination of factors for us:

• Close to Limoges airport (about 40 mins away)
• Small enough for us to feel part of a community, but large enough to have all the amenities - shops, doctors, banks, schools etc
• A small English contingent, allowing us the possibility of meeting some folks without the language barrier - we don't want to be surrounded by Brits, but its nice to know that there are some out there if we need help or just to socialise without having to struggle with small-talk in French
• A train station with links to the TGV at Poitiers (about an hour away)

We are scouring the web to find houses and joining all the discussion forums we can to get the low-down on the area. We're hoping to get out to France in half-term to have a scout round for places - should be exciting!

Learn the language

I really need to motivate myself to keep up my language studies. Although I will still be mainly working in the UK, or on English-speaking projects in the UK, life is going to be so much easier if I can improve my skills. So I am aiming to do a set amount each week from my Linguaphone course. Lisa is hoping to get on an Adult Education class this term, so she can get better too. After all, she'll be having to cope with life during the week while I'm working in the UK, so it's really important for her to be confident.

A million and one other things

There are really so many things to do I can't think...I should start a list I guess, make use of my project management skills :o). Like clearing out the loft, getting a french bank account, finding schools for the kids, getting a French car, organising Tax stuff, Insurances, removal agencies....so much to think of.

So there you go, that's the big news.

Other stuff going on -

Disneyland Paris

Our Christmas present to the kids (and my parents) this year was a trip to Disneyland Paris. We're going in the Easter Holidays, staying in a caravan park on the edge of Paris for 6 night and we'll be in Disney for 3 days. And Kathryn and Sam are coming with Daniel and Christopher for a few days as well, so it will be really good to get everyone together, especially there. I've been to Disneyland in Florida with Mum and Dad years ago, so I've got a good idea how great it will be, but I don't think the kids really appreciate what they're in for. It will be magic.

Healing Hotspurs

Molly kicks off 2007 with Healing Hotspurs tomorrow - she has proved herself to be the star defender, and even a bit of a star goalie as well when required. The team are doing really well and riding high in the league. Here's hoping the gale-force winds and torrential rain die down before Saturday, otherwise we're in for another good soaking on the touchline!

Music

In the music department, The Phil did their Christmas Concert back in December - sadly I had a chest infection for ages so I missed a lot of rehearsals and therefore couldn't take part in the concert. I was upset at not being able to do it, but glad that I got to be there, as it was fabulous - by far the best Christmas concert I have been to. Next up is the St Matthew's Passion, not one I've heard of but it's meant to be good. I'm hoping to take part in it again, but as usual it depends on the work situation. After all, it could be the last one we do.

Molly passed her grade 1 piano this month, which is great. We're very proud of her.

In the piano concert which Heather, out piano teacher, holds each year, all three kids played something and all did very well. Special mention goes to Joe for getting up and playing the theme from Star Wars, after only having had about 3 lessons - he was brilliant!

School

Rosie continues to blossom at Healing school - she's doing really well and had a great end-of-term report. It's amazing the difference in her over just one term compared to how she was at the Primary - she just has so much more confidence now, it's lovely to see.

Molly and Joe are also doing very well and just go from strength to strength.

Well, I think that's about enough news for now, I'm determined to keep up to date, now I have something to write about, so keep coming back for more, and please leave a comment.

A bientot!

Richard