January: the month of goodbyes

As you would expect, with us flying out to Riyadh on Jan 11 to live for the next two years, the end of December and first half of January have been filled with farewell do's and visits.



Elliot and Abigail both left their schools just before the Christmas break, Elliot had his leaving do at Sea Cadets (he has multiple females fighting over him both at school and at Sea Cadets: must take after me! ;) ).

I had my last day in Bracknell on Wednesday this week, and went to lunch with some of my favourite Novell people: Sam W, Amanda R, Nikki H, Alison, Brian Green, Emma Silver, Kay Richardson, and BP, and they all wrote nice messages in my card.

Karen had her last day at the Foreign Office in London yesterday, and went out with the other members of her induction group last night. I think she may have had a couple of shandys because when I picked her up from the train station at midnight she was crying as only people who are a little emotional and tipsy at the same time, can.

Tonight we walked to Laura's (Laura is Karen's sister and lives about 1.5 miles from us).for a fish & chip supper and to say goodbye to Karen's cousin and her family. Yes that's right - I said we WALKED there. Why? Because I also waved goodbye to my car at lunchtime today, so now we're without our own transport for the first time since we met, 22 years ago. It feels really weird not to have a car in the drive outside.
Anyway, we went to Laura's and had chip shop fish & chips and champagne - lovely. We had a really nice time and were glad of the opportunity to say goodby to Sue, Trevor, and their children Daisy and Ruby.

Sob!