Our ship on the Panama canal

All the furniture and stuff we are taking is now packed up in a sea container in Felixstowe waiting to be picked up by the ship that will take it to Boston. We’ve just had confirmation it will be loaded on the same day as we fly and arrive in Boston by the end of February. We should have stowed away in it — there’s a sofabed, a Mac, pots and pans, clothes, hifi. We could have had 2 weeks on the high seas.

Marvellously, you can track the progress of the ship itself here

Part of the Family

Today we gave away Charlie. This has been the hardest part of the move without a doubt. Everything else has been about organisation and planning and preparation, but this was about giving up our little companion who has been with us since he was seven weeks old. We didn’t want him to go, but with Robin likely back and forth to the UK, me travelling a lot on business and being unable to find a place to rent that would let us bring the dog, we couldn’t see another way.

Lots of people wanted to have him off us, but they all fell through. It even got to the point where he went on a trial weekend with the person we thought would be his new owner, but she had a family crisis and backed out at the last minute. So, he’s gone to a shelter and they have promised us they have families lined up who will look after him. We were there over an hour and they asked us loads of questions about his temperament and what he loves to do. He was so excited and wanted to go and meet the other dogs.

And now we’re back home and his bed’s still here and his bowls and his toys and I can picture him running over the fields now and diving into a river. Goodbye, fella.

Let us go, then you and I/When the evening is spread out against the sky

This week has been a time of real contrasts that’s starting to bring home to me the reality of moving to the US after living all our lives in the UK. We’ve just taken off on flight VS012 back to Heathrow and journey time is supposed to be about 6 hours. The view taking off from Logan across downtown Boston lit up against the night sky was amazing. The towerblocks are shining out, it’s 1am in the UK and I’m about to turn back to reading a fascinating book I found in Borders for $3.99.

The Wild Places is a book which sets out to answer whether there are any truly wild places left in the UK  (as the blurb puts it more eloquently) as the author embarks on a series of breathtaking and beautifully described journeys through some of the archipelago’s most remarkable landscapes.

I never thought of myself living on an archipelago but maybe partly from the thought of our imminent tranistion to the US, I find myself fascinated by the landscape of the UK. The author is a fellow of Emmanuel, Cambridge, but this is not an intellectual tract. It’s more like a meander down a curious river, with the sound of birds in the distance and a crisp frost in the air.

I’ve been dipping about the book all evening and landed on this:

We shall not cease from exploration,
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
TS ELIOT