On the move

On Friday, Tom received notice of approval for his visa application.

So that's it. We're heading west. A lot further west to San Francisco, somewhere I have never been in my life. In fact I worked out recently (probably while twiddling my thumbs and waiting for the visa approval to arrive) that I have spent less than 3 weeks of my life in the United States, and most of those weeks were spent in rather dull offices or conference centres or in New York and on one occasion a dull office in New York which was saved by being on the 44th floor - leading me to spend all day looking out of the window with my mouth open. I do love New York.

And I have heard very good things about San Francisco and California. This will be an adventure for all of us, with hopefully less culture shock than if we'd chosen other destinations. As Emilia very sensibly put it, "I'm glad we're not moving to China because I don't speak Chinese". We have determined to grab the opportunity with both hands and to that end wrote a very long wish list of things to do in the United States. In fact it's so long, we're not sure Tom will have time to go to the office.

And I know we'll be coming back to Wales, indeed to Crickhowell or thereabouts which has been home for the last two years. Leaving is not without its sadnesses and will involve giving up (for a period) some of the dreams we made in London which led us to make the move to a country life. I am assuming that chickens will not feature greatly in my life or the blog from October (don't worry, they will be here safe and sound with our neighbours). Also I suspect that parsnips, thermal underwear, sheepskin slippers and wearing a woolly hat in the house will also stop being subjects of note.

For the next two months, expect either no blogs at all or hysterical (in a tearing-hair-out rather than ha ha manner) blogs about furniture, paperwork and visits to the US Embassy in London.