A whole lot of hurry up and wait

It's all been a little bureaucratic around here lately. Lots of filling out of forms (thankfully lawyers seem to be handling the bulk of this work) and then waiting for things to happen. We did, delightfully enough, have to renew our passports early. That meant a new passport photo. Too bad I wasn't thinking about that when I got dressed that morning. Oh well, it's just five years, eh? Suffice to say, I'm not legally allowed to leave the country for the next two weeks or so as part of the requirement was having your previous passport invalidated. I didn't have plans to go anywhere, but it does seem a little frightful to not have a passport at hand. I can hardly believe there are people out there (quite a lot in fact) who don't have a passport.

In other news, I'm sick this week. I've been on the couch for the better part of two days now and am rounding the corner on this head cold. I blame children. But, then again, I'll always blame children for things. While on the couch, I delved deep into Netflix and came up with the film, "Love, Actually" and I'm shocked to report, I've never seen it. James swears up and down he has, so I can only imagine when he found the time to watch it...without me. The setting is all sort of London-y at Christmas which wasn't lost on me. I'll be there in two months and 23 days. I cried a bunch and I'm fully aware that I will cry most of this holiday season, being away from my family as we will be. London is exactly what it was in the film: a setting. In my mind it's a film environment or a tourist destination. It's not a place to live. I'm going to find it very odd, I think.

I suppose I could also share that we have a potential place to live for the first 8 weeks or so that we're there. The accommodations are all taken care of for us, so we've been sent the Marylyn Lodge to look over and approve. I don't really know what more I'm supposed to require, so this looks sufficient. And I did lose about ten minutes to Google Streetview already. Have located several places of interest, such as a Starbucks and one place called The Peacock. I feel like this will disappoint me, however I set myself up for it....nothing that's actually called "The Peacock" is going to be half as good as I imagine it to be. At the very least, the area looks like it will accommodate my stomach on a whim, but it's downtown. The point isn't to have a heart and soul, the point is to be close to the financial district and, in this case, mere moments from Tower Bridge.

Our yard sale is not shaping up as quickly as I'd hoped, but the interest is high. It makes me laugh, every person I mention the yard sale to has the same response, "Oh, you guys have great stuff! What day is it??" I wasn't aware so many people were interested in securing little pieces of our life. Thankfully we're taking the time to do a thorough cleanse shortly and now we have the added pressure of not wanting to disappoint anyone. It actually makes parting with my "on the fence" items a lot easier.

A little cultural integration

As mentioned before, my cultural experience, where London is concerned, consists mainly of overly-curated film and television selections. I don't mind this one bit, but it occurred to me that I'd like to find the London equivalents for all the various city-specific online content I dearly enjoy here in Ottawa. My very first foray into this turned up The Londonist. This seems like a pretty all-around site for information and news-like items, however, I'm still trying to search out something a little more finely tailored to my interests. The search continues, however passively, for the time being.

On the plus side, London, unlike Ottawa has a far wider variety of iPhone and iPad apps in all sorts of categories. Perhaps I'll write up a little about them in the next little while.

Brass Tacks

Though I expect this will likely be the first place my mother looks when she wakes up every morning (once I finally tell her it exists), and will fuel my parents' insatiable need for more information about us, I have to imagine people who don't know me/us will stumble on by and maybe they'll have questions. Are you one of those people? Have you stumbled upon me neatly tapping away at the keyboard? If you are, here's some basic and not-so-basic info that might help:

• My name is Katie, I'm nearly 30, and I'm Canadian
• I have spent a grand total of five days in England prior to December 2011
• Through my husband (British citizen) and my own interests, I have a basic understanding of British culture, garnered almost entirely from Fawlty Towers, Little Britain, Spaced and anything done by Sue Perkins and Giles Coren that Canadian Broadcast Services deem fit to share with us on Canadian airwaves (and some that they don't...)
• Until December 2011, I work in a sweets shop
• My educational background is Classical Studies and Visual Arts (I'm heaps of fun in museums!)
• Mashed potatoes and gravy really are  meal unto themselves

So there you have it! This is likely worth expanding in the future, but for now, I'm sure this will suffice!

Oh, hello blog!

I've put up some fancy new digs here on the internet! James (husband) and I will be moving to London, England in a matter of months and we're going to be documenting our journey for family and friends back home. If others happen to follow along, the more the merrier! We're expecting to expand this to include separate blogs for us both as well as ways to find all of our other online content, but that's all to come. In the mean time, I want to get cracking on my own posts so that I'm already well in the habit before we even hit jolly old England.

Welcome aboard, this should be, if anything, amusing.