the romantic route home

It's a week since we heard officially that K is a temporary spouse.
In this time we have started to plan a bit more for the big trip home (and done nothing much to plan packing up our lives here, ofcourse, although I might start that today with a clear out).

We know we want to do the Trans-Mongolian Rail from St-Petersburg to Beijing (probably 21 days) and have been to see a couple of travel agents about it. But how we get to Russia is another matter. We have a romantic notion of doing as much overland as we can, and this leaves us with a couple of options:

1. Eurostar train London-Brussels-Cologne-Warsaw-Villinius-St.Petersburg.
2. Fly (boo) or Ferry to Bergen, Norway, Hurdigruten ferry up the coast of Norway and around to Kirkenes. Bus to Murmansk in Russia, Train Murmansk-St Petersburg. Originally we thought there was a ferry from Newcastle in the UK to Bergen but apparently this doesn't run anymore so we are researching other Scandiavian options. Stay tuned...

You're in mate. Says the Aussie Government

It's official. Kieran got his Temporary Spousal Visa. Personally I'm hoping it's the visa that's temporary.

After all the offical forms, stat decs & lists of every breath he's ever taken that he had to send in, the actual response seemed a little informal to me; he heard by email. And the subject was; "You're in, mate". Maybe it harkens back to the days when you needed a criminal record to get into Australia and it should be read as "you're an inmate".

Well, not quite. But that was the tone!!

So now it's full steam ahead (pun intended) on the travel back to Aus by train planning. And don't get me started on the lists of things to do before all that happens. One step at a time

Wimbledon Wombles

With Wimbledon starting again I'm reminded of my childhood where the word Wimbledon and Wombles went hand in hand.

And this reminds me of the theme song & the part where I always thought they sang
"The Wombles of Wimbledon, common are we". I thought was a bit harsh.
But actually, you see, they sing "The Wombles of Wimbledon Common are we."

Clearly a lesson on the importance of the comma and the capital letter is to be learned from all this. But nothing about tennis.

Have pigs. Will fly.

It's offical.
We've had the email from the head.
Swine flu has hit our school with 1 year 7 boy being a confirmed case. The students all just want the school to close. (who can blame them). I haven't heard much from other schools around the area closing or anything. It's all very quiet on the London front.

And come to think of it, haven't even heard much from my Aussie teacher friends, where H1N1 fever seems to have hit harder (probably due to winter flu season there and the height of summer here). Let's see how it pans out.

But we are closing a week early anyway; joy of joys for me who gets an extra, unscheduled 2 days to clean up my classroom & office of 7 years with all its teacher's stuff that you accumulate.

The (final) countdown

It's been a while since I've blogged and I could say things have been hectic (they have) but they are only going to get worse (in a good way) over the next few weeks as we count down the time left in London.

1 week til my Chinese lessons start
3 weeks left til the students leave school
3.5 til I finish teaching in London for good
5 weeks til we have to move out of our London flat
2 months til Kieran's job ends, we leave London and start the trip home
6 months til we hit Melbourne

I know it's going to fly by. These last couple of months in London. I have a list as long as my arm of things I want to do but never got around to in the past 7 years & that doesn't even start to include catching up with everyone and doing the farewells!! Let the sayonara parties begin.

I'm torn between wanting to tell my Year 10s this week that I'm leaving (it's their last lesson) and not really wanting the other kids to know I'm going until the last minute. If I tell Year 10s the others will know pretty quick- word travels fast! It will be very hard to say good bye to my form in particular (year 8s) as I've grown far too maternally fond of them all. Some of them will take it hard (mostly because they think they are moving into the brand new computer rooms in the new building with me next year) but also because we have a fairly high turn over of staff & I think our boys feel a sense of abandonment when the teachers who it seems have been around forever leave too. What to do, what to do. If I don't tell them soon though, one of the staff will! And my jobs have been advertised so it's only a matter of time before a clever clogs puts 2 & 2 together...

Adios Amoebas

So with the hype of Eurovision fading rapidly (still eating the leftovers though) it's time to refocus on the important job of immigration.

I have to hand in my notice at the end of the week if I'm to avoid having to go back to work in Sept (or ever) and the pressure is on from the school to hand it in earlier so they can offer positions to prospective applicants (back off, I have til Friday, I'm gonna wait til then)!! I mean, call me cautious but it would be just my luck to hand in notice tomorrow and then hear Thurs that the visa was a no-goer. So I'm taking my sweet entitled time. It will be a huge move- I've been there over 7 years and I've got the grey hair & wrinkles where my freckles used to be to prove it. I will be sad to leave, but onwards & upwards!

Oslo Calling

Well, it's all over for another year and the Euro train will be heading off to the Fairytale Norway. It was a very clear win for young Alex & his fiddling (we like a good fiddle us Irish). He won by the most points ever with a whopping 16 countries giving him the douze points and blowing all the "Western Europe will never win again because all the Balkan/Eastern Bloc countries just vote for each other" critics out of the murky-with-cynicism water. Clearly everyone was voting for the song/performance they liked the best. I wonder how much difference the change in voting system (50% jury, 50% televoting) made...

So, we have to wait another year for more Eurovision fun & games. K says what's another year. And anyways, we now have AsiaVision to look forward to sometime in Oct. I'm predicting this will be the Winter Olympics to Eurovision's Summer Games. Perhaps not quite as good but enough to keep you going half way through the waiting period...