Last Saturday we had our farewell BBQ in the courtyard which unsurprisingly lasted 13 hours.  We open open our first bottle of Champaign at 2:30pm and finally made to bed at 3am.  Throughout, we had a variety of champagnes, beers, cocktails and wines!

It was a combined effort between ourselves and all our neighbours and we were very grateful – thank you.  We were very unsure about the weather, rightly so, it rained intermittently throughout the evening until we retreated to Kim’s to huddle around the log burning stove.

We had a steady flow of friends, family and neighbours throughout the day, leaving the hardened drinkers to burn the midnight oil. We left Kim’s at 12am and headed over to Darren’s for the final few hours, much of which I barley remember.

Thank you again and we will miss you all dearly.  All the photos can be seen here.

We had to start somewhere.  Since leaving work two weeks ago we’ve been flat out packing and moving all of belongings to Ireland where they will be stored until we return – thank you Clive and Tracey for allowing us to use your crib!

Having removed all the hanging baskets, troughs and pots the house now looks so bare.  Trust us to pick the hottest day of the year at 35 degrees for packing and moving.  Then a 13 hour drive to Ireland in the pissing rain and back two days later in the sweltering heat with no air-conditioning – too stingy to upgrade :-).

At least it’s all done and we can now concentrate on packing only our rucksacks.

A quick thank you to our colleagues at ITM Communications and Acco UK for the presents, gifts and kind words of encouragement and support written in our cards.  We have been very lucky to have worked for such great organisations and we wish you the very best for the future.

It was such a strange feeling for me waking up these past few weeks and not having to iron a shirt or shave or do many of the things I had gotten accustomed to over the last 10 years – it’s a great feeling and I’m sure I (we) won’t miss it.