Phew!

Yes, we finally exchanged. Last week, as it happens -- it only took FOUR working days -- but we've been in such a whirl of activity since then that I've hardly had time to post. A birthday party in London, followed by the longest train ride back to Winchester (via Feltham and Virginia Water!), evenings watching Tex Avery's Red Hot Riding Hood -- a highlight of the Film Studies MA -- and an evening out with friends in Winchester. That's right, we finally have friends here. It's taken 10 months, but was well worth it.

What else? Oh yes, the tedium that is trying to find furniture that we both like. We need a new sofa and a bed now, having agreed to buy our vendor's oven. We know what we don't like and we know what we're not prepared to pay, but it's much harder to find something that we positively like. After all, it took us 3 years to buy a sofa for our Amsterdam apartment. However, it looks like M&S are going to come to the rescue. Next week, they're launching a collection of environmentally friendly furniture, made from organic cotton, plastic bottles, and handcrafted by well-paid pixies in magically clean and light workshops, somewhere in the UK. We can therefore opt for "smugness" over "style" -- much the best course of action.