Moose on the Move!

Oh my, we are getting slack at keeping this journal up to date!

So we left off with us sitting in a cold tent, our fingers crossed about our rental application. Chris was due to start work the following week and I was heading up to London to meet up with Bev and Leia on the weekend.

So all week we hung around the campsite, got to know our city a little and hoped like mad that we would get the house. In the end the owners were happy to let us move in but were concerned about the fact that Chris's initial contract was only for 3 months and that I was unemployed. So they asked us to pay an extra three months rent up front. OK was the reply. And it was ours! We had a house and it rocks! We could move in on the weekend just before Chris started work! Hooray! What a relief it was to finally have a place that we knew we could settle into. A good friend of ours from Perth was coming to visit Europe and I was going up to London to catch up, so Chris was left to move in on his own.

I had a great long weekend in London. Bev and I stayed with Leia and it was great to see them both. We went to see a play in Leister Square and caught a boat down the river to Greenwich. We went out for dinner and did lots of walking around the city. It was great. While I was away, Chris had to pack up in rain on Sat 4th June and move into our new home.

When I got home our belongings (all removed from the car) were spread fairly evenly over the whole house. In his defence it had been raining when he packed up and unpacked and he had only been in the place for 24 hrs.

We got it sorted fairly quickly and Chris made it to work on Monday. First impressions - he likes the group that he is working with but is a little shocked by the amount of work needing to be done... I think this is almost always the case when a person starts a new job.

In the last month (you don't really need it blow by blow so here is the abridged version) we have joined the library, two video stores, been to both cinemas in town, tried the local Indian take-away (very good) and the local kebab. We have walked both north and south along the river and had a beer in several local pubs, (including the 'Walkabout' local Aussie bar). We have seen the fireworks down at the Quay for the start of the Exeter Summer Festival. We made dozens of calls home to people we hadn't talked to in a while (still working our way through the address book). We have been to craft markets and food markets. We have met up with the friend of a good friend from home, who is now living in Exeter (cool!). We bought a radio and a television and a DVD player. We went to a play at the Exeter Phoenix. We have watched over the weeks as a family of signets grows up. We have met a few of our neighbours and the guy in the local Subway shop.

We are feeling really happy here and really settled. This feels like home now.

After Bev finished her Euro tour she came down to Exeter for a couple of weeks. She got a bit sick on the trip and needed a place to chill out and get better.

A few weeks ago, Leia and a friend of hers, Michelle, came down from London for a few nights. The five of us had a good weekend, we visited the Exeter Cathedral and went out to Dartmoor National Park. There we visited Becky Falls. It was a dreary overcast slightly cold day, which turned out to be just perfect for the setting. It was a mossy little valley with cold water tumbling down over large glossy rocks. It was really the sort of place where you could believe that fairies might jump up from behind the rocks to greet you.

On the Sunday we went back to Beer. This time the sun was shining and it was really a beautiful day, the sort of day that is good for your soul. Fish and chips of a pebbly beach were in order! Yum.

Other good news... I registered with a temping agency here in town and picked up a few days of reception work at a car dealer. It was kind of fun and basically I did ok, other than answering the phone at one point and saying... 'Good morning, Bristol Street Renault speaking... no hang on, I'm Elke. Oh sh.. sorry.' The guy laughed and said that if I had worked out who I was he would like to speak to....

Since then I have also registered with teaching agency (that does cover Exeter) and have had one day in a Yr 5 class. It was good fun. I have also secured a once a week Art Teacher position in a year 5/6 class in a small country school to start in the new year in September. It is a very nice little school, it is on a road called 'Farmer Frank's Lane'. How sweet is that?!

For the last month or so I have been working full time at a company that installs water-meters. It is fairly repetitive and unexciting work, but it is regular and easy and the people that I am working with are good fun.

So things are good. They were a little odd a couple of weeks ago when London got bombed. We have friends there and the people we work with have friends and family there so it was a little tense for a while that day. Things have settled down somewhat and basically people are getting on with things here and in London. We are pretty sure we are totally safe here but everyone is keeping their eyes open a bit more now.

We went to Paris for our first Anniversary, we will tell you about that in a few days. Chris' mum, Fay, arrived here on Friday! We'll tell you about that later too.

Hope all is well where you are. Drop us a line when you get a chance.