The last week in London

I can't believe it's been two weeks since my last post. It seems like about five minutes. Five very packed minutes, but nonetheless it's gone by very quickly. It's been a fortnight of catching up with people, saying goodbyes, spending too much money, getting stupidly busy at work and generally not stopping once. Both of us are knackered.

So here we are at the start of our last week in London, for both of us our last week at work, and I can't speak for the Kiwi but I'm feeling a bit emotionally numb right now. There's been so much stuff twanging around my head for the last few months that it's almost like I'm becoming acclimatised to all this, or maybe I'm just coping with it all by studiously ignoring it.

Anyway, this week is about tying off loose ends at work, trying to close off my UK tax stuff, trying to remember if we've sorted all the last bills out, changing addresses, our last few drinks with various friends, and our last meal at the brilliant Turkish restaurant near our house. With our flat all empty and bare, and the weather doing that peculiarly British thing of just being... crap, I'm sort of keen to get moving, if I'm honest. With our worldly goods either on their way to New Zealand or in suitcases on our bedroom floor, it feels like we're properly IN the process now. There's quite a lot of it to go, though, and hopefully I'll be near enough wireless networks as we go to keep you updated.

Big Milestone: The Visa Has Landed

Very quickly, as this is the third post today and that's all just a bit extra: my passport came back from New Zealand Immigration today, complete with a two-year returning residence permit. That means that I can live in New Zealand, leaving and returning freely, for two years. After that, I go on to be assessed for a permanent one.

What a relief. I have to confess I got a bit emotional on leaving the embassy (not outwardly shown, of course), as the excitement of leaving began to feel really real, and some of that stress started to melt away. When I got down into Piccadilly tube station, a fairly good busker was knocking out a pretty good version of Here Comes The Sun, and I dug into my pocket and dropped all my change into his guitar case. Something I never do, but as I said I was feeling a bit emotional. Anyway, how very appropriate.

Also, the Kiwi's new snowboard arrived today, and all packed up, our snowboard case weighs in at around 0.25kg under our limit, AND I got an overdraft charge withdrawn from one of my banks, so all in all it's been a pretty productive day.

Shipping Vol.2

All of it. All 47 boxes, tea chests, packages and so on, packed up by our shippers in three hours 20 minutes, with the Kiwi cracking the whip throughout, no doubt. I have to say, I was nervous yesterday about how it'd feel once I got back from work and saw our empty flat, but to be honest it's brilliant.

Not only is the flat considerably more spacious and minimalist than it was - just like when we first moved in really, but it feels like the whole thing we've been planning for for the last year or so has finally started. And that feels pretty good.

Last night we semi-celebrated (there's a lot to do yet...) with a visit to Brixton Academy - more on that in the next post.

Shipping Vol.1

I wasn't going to blog about this until it'd happened - rather than leave you on tenterhooks - but I'm so nervous about the whole thing I can't help it. It's moving day today, and whilst I'm at work fretting, the Kiwi's in our flat, presumably trying to make sure all the right bits get shipped.

Fortunately, we've gone for a slightly more expensive but probably more professional bunch of movers, who're packing all our shipping stuff up for us, so all we really had to do over the weekend was separate out everything we're going to carry with us when we go, but even that was no small order. At the moment, our best guess for when we'll see our stuff again is about 10 weeks, and in that time we've got work in cold London, snowboarding in cold Canada, beach in hot Australia, beach in hot New Zealand, interviews in hot New Zealand and potentially even work too.

That's pretty much my whole wardrobe, and Sonya's too, so with baggage allowances, we've had to make some compromises (and you know how much I hate that). Here's hoping we can carry it all come December - we're literally right on our weight allowance, so we're not allowed to buy or otherwise acquire anything in the coming four weeks.

More on this once it's gone, and the empty flat's weirding me out. On a more optimistic note, we're going to see Goldfrapp tonight at Brixton, so hopefully that'll take our minds off it. Much like a pair of cats with buttered paws.

Last Supper (sort of)

I'm a simple chap at heart, and in general it doesn't take a lot to keep me happy. This sort of explains why, at 0630 on Saturday morning I was wide awake and heading for the kitchen, all wide-eyed and excited by the prospect of chopping, roasting, reducing and boiling stuff for the rest of the day. Which is exactly what I did.

The event was the last dinner party I'll cook in my own kitchen, and E&T, who I know from Oddbins days, were coming up all the way from darkest Surrey, so I thought I should do it properly: haricot bean and tiger prawn soup followed by venison with chocolate sauce, followed by the Kiwi's amazing lime mousse, and some carefully chosen cheeses from various Borough Market stalls.

Wines were Ruinart NV to start, then a superb new white Burgundy with the soup, and d'Arenberg's 'Dead Arm' Shiraz from 1998 and 2003 with the venison. We moved on to a tremendous Southern French beast with the cheese, and then, possibly ill-advisedly, continued on with Port Ellen and Ardbeg for a bit too long.

Sunday was a bit of a write-off. But it was SO worth it.

This weekend we'll be packing up all that kitchen stuff (and some other bits and pieces), because some men are coming round on Monday morning to take it all away. Ten weeks later, customs and quarantine and bureaucracy notwithstanding, it'll arrive on our (or to be more precise, some kind friends') doorstep. The interim weeks, involving London winter, Canadian snow, Australian summer, New Zealand summer, interviews and so on, we'll be living out of suitcases, which poses an interesting wardrobe conundrum.

It'll be fine. I'm sure it will.

Stress notches up, application submitted...

This morning I took a big file full of carefully collated stuff to the New Zealand embassy in London, and submitted my application for a permanent resident's visa, on the basis of my relationship with the Kiwi. £460 lighter, and the wheels are in motion.

The process is unfortunately extremely lengthy. It'll take them two to three weeks to get a case officer assigned to my application. They'll then look over all the documentation and assess whether I look healthy, intelligent, crime-free and sufficiently enamoured of my Kiwi to be allowed in. They'll get in touch with me, and will let me know how long and arduous the process is likely to be. Timescales from this point in are, at the moment, about three months, but it's fairly open-ended in reality.

Eagle-eyed readers will notice that that takes us beyond our departure date, but apparently that's ok. I can get into New Zealand on a tourist visa, as long as I have a valid ticket out of there, but I won't be able to start work until it's processed. Provided everything goes smoothly, this will be ok. If things don't go smoothly, this will most definitely not be ok.

So, not ideal, but ok. Worryingly, the lady who took my application mentioned that some of my blood results were marginally outside the normal range, and that they've been very strict on that lately. I may be asked to undergo (and pay for, presumably) another medical, but right now I'm focusing on that not being necessary. I am a big pile of stress and nerves and freak-out at the moment and I really just want this all to be over. More on this as I get it...

Two sorts of limbo, 80s soundtrack

So it's a Friday afternoon, about four pm, and I'm officially clockwatching. I've got myself into a bit of an odd situation at work where I'm sort of on standby for two reasonably big things, putting finishing touches to big-ish presentations for both but not... actually... presenting them. Once the clients are ready I'll spring into action, but until then I'm a bit devoid of busyness to be honest.

With this in mind, I'm here waiting for five pm and pub time, experimenting with iTunes 8's 'Genius' tool and actually finding it rather helpful. I'm normally a curmudgeonly old soul when it comes to software having the audacity to second-guess my musical taste. Although I'm always going on about Last FM, all I really use it for is for the glorious statistical wonder that is my listening habits - geeky I know but something I find genuinely fascinating.

In terms of Genius, I'm actually rather enjoying it. Whilst I don't actually take any of its' recommendations on what I should actually buy, I do make use of the playlist generator a fair bit. For example, being in a bit of an 80s mood this afternoon, I stuck on Scritti Politti's 'Word Girl', feeling the need for a bit of that sleepily precise bass and all. The playlist Genius made out of it looks pretty good so far, with a bit of Elvis Costello (I Can't Stand Up For Falling Down), The Specials (Do Nothing), Depeche Mode (See You), The Smiths (Girlfriend in a Coma) and plenty more besides. Weirdly including the Keane single 'Spiralling' which I actually rather like. Am I a Bad Person?

So ok, it's not technically recommending me anything, as everything that's in my iTunes library is there cos I put it there, but it's doing a good job of getting my mood I reckon.

This weekend will hopefully see the arrival of my completed visa medical, which will be dropped into the NZ embassy on Monday morning along with the numerous other bits of paper and things that they require. Apparently it can take about three to four months from now, so I'm rather hoping it'll be a bit quicker. The timescales don't bother me, as I don't see myself needing to start work til the beginning of Feb, but what is a bit of a concern is the lack of a postal address or regular email access between Dec 1 and Jan 5.

Hmmm. Let's focus on this working out ok, shall we? Fingers crossed, everyone...

First hurdle over

There are some things that invariably make me go a bit dizzy. One is bleeding, the other is spending lots of money; both of these things happened to me this afternoon. I had my visa medical.

It wasn't all that bad to be honest: the Polish receptionist directed me to a brusque but good-natured Australian doctor, who poked me and peered into bits of me and tickled me and hit me with a hammer and took plenty of blood and asked me very politely for a, erm, sample. He relieved me of £300, and sent me to the South African on reception at radiology. This person sent me in to the Kiwi radiologist for my chest x-ray.

Somewhere at the back of my mind I couldn't help think that this farrago of nationalities was there to rub it in that they'd been able to emigrate whilst I, thus far, have not. Smug just isn't the word. Still, they were all very helpful and pleasant, and the whole thing was over in ooh, about an hour. I'm dizzy now for two reasons.

The next steps seem simple enough. I have to collect my test results a week on Saturday. They will be in a sealed envelope. I must not open the envelope. I must enclose it with my other documents (application form, police certificate for me and the Kiwi, various bits of proof that we're an item etc) and get it to the New Zealand High Commission. It's the only copy, so if it gets lost we have to go through the whole thing again. It's not clear if I'll ever get to find out what my test results actually were, which if that's the case will be a bit of a swindle, if you ask me.

Apart from the slight dizziness, which is almost gone now, I feel quite unusual this afternoon. I'm really happy that one of the steps in the process has passed without incident, and as the excitement about leaving mounts, so does the pain of doing so. Friends and colleagues, as the date's getting closer, are reacting less with the excitement they initially showed, and more with sadness that I'm leaving. I almost want to say to people 'I know you're upset, but please try not to show it, at least not in front of me - it makes this all so much harder'.

Unreasonable I know, and I suppose it's selfish of me to say so, to an extent. Something I struggle with a bit sometimes is the desire to make everything ok for everyone else, before thinking about what's a priority for me personally. Seeing people upset because of something I'm doing pricks that emotion, unleashing waves of guilt. I don't have a solution though. I know what I want, and I know what I'm doing - the next few weeks though will be a case of putting my head down and getting on with it. It's going to be very hard indeed, but we knew that, didn't we?

Two months to go

A productive weekend, then. Faced with a couple of months of mental busyness, we'd decided not to go to Wales this weekend, tempted as I am to see the house I was born in one more time before we leave. Not only did another weekend away seem extravagant, but the opportunity to have a relaxed weekend together was too good to pass up.

Saturday I can barely remember, such was the level of inactivity. I know there was cheese involved at some point, a light, chalky chèvre, and some ridiculously creamy brie, and possibly a slightly disappointing St-Agur. I also know there was a brilliant hour or so spent on the phone to my sister (the younger of the two), talking about our week in Manchester in December and sharing plans for the future in general.

Sunday, bar a wander down the river for lunch in Putney, was mostly spent working out the insurance value of our shipping. Seemed like a fairly innocuous task to start with, but as it turned out, working out the detail of what we were shipping, leaving and packing, and the value of it all, was actually a bit of a mission, and at points pretty traumatic. The trade-off between 'what do we think it would cost to replace it' and 'how much will it cost to insure it' isn't a pleasant thing to do at all.

Still, we got through it, and the Kiwi even managed to chuck out a whole load of clothes she's not work in years.

Tomorrow is Medical Day, which I'm not looking forwards to at all. One more thing out of the way, I suppose. And yes, in 8 weeks' time, we'll be leaving London and starting our journey over to Auckland. Not all that long, really...

Visa worries, cathartic blog post

We're almost down to two months out before we leave - two months and one week, give or take a day. Still left on the to-do list (amongst things too numerous to mention) is the tricky issue of a New Zealand visa. Now, were we to start the application process now, we'd stand a bit of a chance of getting it sorted before we leave. As it is, I still need to get a medical in order to apply.

Not just any medical, you see. This is a full-on, total head to toe MOT given by one of only two clinics in London which are authorised to do it, costing £250, and involving laboratory work which can take weeks. That's assuming they don't need to have me back for more tests. So as you can imagine, I'm a bit stressed.

On the whole though, I'm reasonably calm about the whole thing. There are nerves, yes absolutely, and I'm about 85% terrified. The thought of leaving my friends and family is horrible, and things like seeing a friend's baby boy last weekend, and knowing that he's basically not going to know me when he's growing up, really set me off.

And yes, the opposite is also true. The thought of bringing up my own children without my family, and without friends I've known since school, is hard to deal with.

But the thing is, I've been through this all in my head over and over again for years now. For so many reasons (not least that I'm completely in love with the Kiwi) I know this is absolutely the right thing for me. Also, staying here in the UK, I couldn't see myself actually getting to the point of children at all. There are so many reasons why I'm looking forward to the move, and I'm never more excited than when things are going right. That said, I'm prone to being a bit doom-y about things sometimes, and when there's as much at stake as there is right now, it doesn't take a lot to go wrong for me to let all the scary thoughts get a bit overwhelming.

So this is what's left to do, the big bits, anyway, and in no particular order:

• Medical
• Visa
• Bank account (international & NZ)
• Job interviews for January
• Saving (more)
• Shipping
• Buying stuff (laptop, mainly)

Not all that bad, when you look at it in list form. I've got an appointment for my medical next week, which is a bit of a relief. The saving thing's a bit of a challenge too, given the amount of various things (the visa's £460 too) we need to pay for between now and then. I'm also counting on a fairly significant bonus payment before I leave, which in this economic climate isn't quite as sure a thing as it was.

Anyway, thought I'd document what's going on. This blog was always supposed to be about documenting transitional periods and so on, and there are few bigger changes one can make to ones life than this. Expect more, hopefully bearing mostly good news...

Toys, changes

Now I know I've said this before, but I think I might just be finally off the Irish project. There'll be a few bits and pieces I'll probably be hassled about in the coming weeks, but I'm now committed to two main things: an entertainment project and a pitch for some retail work, both of which are intriguing and exciting to say the least. This all kicks off on Monday. I'm also coaching a junior BA onto the Irish project - hopefully this won't take up too much time but we'll see, I suppose.

This weekend's been fun so far - yesterday the Kiwi and I went to the 'Opportunities New Zealand' show to get some info on things relating to moving there; freight, money transfers, jobs and so on. I'm not sure how helpful it was, but we did meet a shipping company who seemed to know what they were talking about, and I picked up a brochure from a recruitment person who had lots of technology delivery jobs by the looks of it. I'll be the first to confess that this isn't precisely where I see my career going, but it's the most likely option in an industry where ecommerce isn't really happening at any scale.

We also had a look in Trailfinders for flights over there via Canada (snowboarding), terrifically expensive as always, but some reasonable deals to be had and to be honest we'd sort of expected it wouldn't be cheap. Irritating that a single ticket is about the same price as a return though, not news to me but it always gets on my nerves. More on this as it develops.

In other news, I have a new toy to share with you. In the box on the right, I've linked up my Nike+ account, which shows all the running I'm doing. It's a little widget that fits on my running shoe and onto my iPod, which then tracks my pace, distance and times, and when my iPod is connected to my PC, uploads all the data to my profile on the Nike+ website. Brilliant.

In fairly typical fashion, I bought the widget and then had to buy an iPod; fortunately I picked one up on eBay for not very much. Today's run was to the tune of the new Elbow album, which is brilliant. I got the new REM one the other day too, but it still leaves me cold, much like every other thing they've ever done. I've really tried hard with that lot, but it's never worked, with the possible exception of Up, which most people seem to think is their bleakest and most depressing album... not sure what that says about me but somehow I found it a little more, um, profound than Shiny Happy People. That song provokes some very dark and violent feelings in me for some reason.

The (very) cold light of day

And so back to earth with something of a thud. The flight back wasn't too bad, all things considered, but it was still 24 hours in the air and two in Hong Kong getting continual electric shocks from the luggage trolley and marvelling at their rather groovy new airport. Monday, returning at 1400ish, was a bit of a challenge, and Tuesday was just plain weird. I'm almost back to normal, I think.

So, work. Although Kathryn's earlier and highly perceptive comment about my apparent work/life balance does strike something of a chord with me, I'm going to give you all a quick work update nonetheless, as I'm sure you're all simply dying to know what the latest is in the ongoing saga.

The plan, as I think I might have mentioned, was for me to roll off the Irish thing upon going on hols, and to be onto something new on my return. This spectacularly hasn't happened, and as such I'm stuck in this role until the start of next month, whilst the project manager goes on holiday himself. I'm feeling pretty sanguine about it though, it's another month of billable work which means the whole of this quarter will be, and so hello bonus. Which is nice.

To be honest, the past three weeks have reoriented the Kiwi and myself a fair bit. With the prospect of moving to NZ now a firm reality, priorities have shifted towards making plans, saving cash and (in my case) working out what to do with the mountain of debt left over from my misspent youth that I'm still shovelling through. We're also keeping an eye on the Auckland housing market (slowly slipping... fingers crossed for a monumental crash) and the exchange rate (currently in my favour, not that great for sending pounds over though).

So, work-wise the remainder of this year will be centred around reading worthy work-related books (have just hit Amazon up for a load of very dull but probably useful books), not spending any money at all and getting some relevant training out of work before I leave. Oh, and trying to get a new job in a city 20,000km+ away without actually being there.

I've also promised myself that if at any point I don't use the gym at least twice a week, I'm cancelling my membership, as it's currently costing me around NZ$160 a month, which would pay for a sofa or something within a year, I'm sure. Although reading that, the irony of trading a gym membership in for a sofa isn't lost on me.

This could get interesting...

Almost... there...

So here we are - within minutes of leaving my current job. This will be the last post from this particular work laptop (leaving me internetless for a whole weekend!). I may resort to using my girlfriend's (the Kiwi).

Deep breath... count to three... and we're out of here.