So, I spoke to Microsoft this week and booked our flight to Sweden for 11th April. This is D-Day. Between then and now we've got a few things to sort out, and of course there's a whole load of stuff going down in our friends' lives as well! Over the next 3 weeks, purely in travel terms I've got to:
fly to Luxembourg for work on tuesday
fly to sweden to go househunting early next month
fly to spain for James' 2nd stag night
generally go to work most days and look interested
go to the swedish embassy to get some permits
beyond that, there'a a huge range of random and not so random things to do at home. Sarah is packing and decorating like mad before the house goes up for sale on Wednesday. I'm sorting out finances and all sorts of other administrative crap, but so far so good - its all going to (a fairly rushed) plan.
The last week here in the UK should be pretty mad, cos for a start there's 2 days of James & Prima's wedding to go to, but of course 72 hours after that finished, we'll be off to Stockholm.
I don't even know at the moment whether they'll be any time for a leaving party....
Categories: londonlife, stockholmlife
Sunday, February 26, 2006
Thursday, February 09, 2006
Dirty Volvos in Sweden
Now that we're moving to Stockholm, maybe we'll buy our own Volvo, and see if we can get it as dirty as this one we hired in Ostersund last year.
Monday, February 06, 2006
BLIMEY....we're off to Sweden
So I resigned today...it went quite well all in all, in fact it went damn well, everyone seemed to be happy for me, which is always a good sign. So no longer the Bank of New York in London, instead me and Sarah are selling up and we're off to Stockholm, and not only that, but I've managed to get a job with Microsoft in Sweden. How cool is that? Well basically very cool indeed - on many levels:
1. It means that I'll be able to support us when we arrive
2. Microsoft will no doubt help me with a few points of integration
3. I'm gonna work for Microsoft in a cool techie role.
4. Change is always rewarding, and quitting your job and country of residence in the space of 2 months is some pretty hefty change.
5. see point 3....
I'm gonna miss working with several of current colleagues (Dom, Frances, Sam, Howard, Tim and others) and my current boss John has taught me a whole load about the bigger (non techie) picture, but its time to move on.
More to the point I'm sure I'll miss all my London friends and family as well, its bound to be a bit tough, and god, let's not forget relocating the cats as well, cos that's bound to be quite stressful, but these are all details, and at the end of the day, its just logistics (or that's what I keep telling myself!) If I tried to write the full list here of things to do...well you can imagine, its quite long....
The past 2 weeks have been fairly mad, what with 2 telephone interviews with Microsoft, flying to Stockholm for a very very intense day long interview, including some very challenging technical tests, my wedding anniversary and general thoughts and planning on how the hell I'm gonna close down all my London connections in such a short space of time. But hey - it'll be fine. All I can in summary is that I feel alive and shockingly excited, so let's see what life brings...
Categories: londonlife, stockholmlife
1. It means that I'll be able to support us when we arrive
2. Microsoft will no doubt help me with a few points of integration
3. I'm gonna work for Microsoft in a cool techie role.
4. Change is always rewarding, and quitting your job and country of residence in the space of 2 months is some pretty hefty change.
5. see point 3....
I'm gonna miss working with several of current colleagues (Dom, Frances, Sam, Howard, Tim and others) and my current boss John has taught me a whole load about the bigger (non techie) picture, but its time to move on.
More to the point I'm sure I'll miss all my London friends and family as well, its bound to be a bit tough, and god, let's not forget relocating the cats as well, cos that's bound to be quite stressful, but these are all details, and at the end of the day, its just logistics (or that's what I keep telling myself!) If I tried to write the full list here of things to do...well you can imagine, its quite long....
The past 2 weeks have been fairly mad, what with 2 telephone interviews with Microsoft, flying to Stockholm for a very very intense day long interview, including some very challenging technical tests, my wedding anniversary and general thoughts and planning on how the hell I'm gonna close down all my London connections in such a short space of time. But hey - it'll be fine. All I can in summary is that I feel alive and shockingly excited, so let's see what life brings...
Categories: londonlife, stockholmlife
Friday, February 03, 2006
I've been rather busy the past 2 weeks
Because of this, I haven't really had the chance to post. I have a list of technical entries that I need to document, and more importantly some interesting stuff to write about my visit to Stockholm last week. For various reasons which will appear in the next post, I can't really document what happened there until the matter is offically closed, but hopefully it'll close later today.
In addition to this it was my 1st wedding anniversary last weekend. Me and Sarah went to town for the (extended) weekend, with me taking a quick 24 hours in stockholm on the Friday.
On Thursday night we ate in Levantine, the small lebanese restaurant just opposite Paddington Station (London Street). I've been many times before and its a personal favourite of mine. Despite knowing the menu well, as ever I was suitably impressed with the food. We had the meat based mezze menu, which was utterly utterly fantastic, containing all the normal lebanese classics. As ever after this they served us the most massive plate of mixed fresh fruit - more of a platter than a plate in fact - along with a 5 tiered tower of lebanese nutty honeyed sweets. It doesn;t get much better than that.
Following that we checked into the Hilton hotel over the road, since I had to be at Heathrow at 5.30am the next morning, and I couldn;t be buggered to travel from home. The hotel was built when Paddington was, and resides above the concourse. Its a true design classic and in my opinion both inside and out, and has recently been refurbished inside. Our room although small (there seemed no point getting a bigger one as we were only there for 7 hours in total) was beautifully finished in lots of walnut veneer (I think) and a lovely marbled bathroom. In addition to that its the type of place where when you walk into the foyer you take a breath as its rather stunning. My other recommendation would be to always use the stairs rather than the life, as the staircase itself is rather beautiful, especially when it sweeps down into the foyer.
On Friday night I just chilled at home, but then I'd been on the go in Stockholm all day and was utterly mentally exhausted (more info to follow).....
Saturday afternoon we went to see a cock and bull story in the curzon soho, which was good fun, and an enjoyable film. Then we checked into the Holiday Inn in Mayfair had a few drinks and went off for an evening of fish eating.
First off we champagne and oysters at Bentleys in Mayfair, which was dead good, and then jumped in a cab to Islington for dinner at The Fish Shop. Again its an old favourite of ours, but always good fun and great food. I have a roasted cod with broad beans, celery, peas and lardons (amongst other things).
Following a nice long and relaxing breakfast the next morning (the HI Mayfair dining room has some very comfortable chairs compared to some I've been to), we strolled through Green Park and St. James Park before catching the train home. Nice
Categories: londonlife
In addition to this it was my 1st wedding anniversary last weekend. Me and Sarah went to town for the (extended) weekend, with me taking a quick 24 hours in stockholm on the Friday.
On Thursday night we ate in Levantine, the small lebanese restaurant just opposite Paddington Station (London Street). I've been many times before and its a personal favourite of mine. Despite knowing the menu well, as ever I was suitably impressed with the food. We had the meat based mezze menu, which was utterly utterly fantastic, containing all the normal lebanese classics. As ever after this they served us the most massive plate of mixed fresh fruit - more of a platter than a plate in fact - along with a 5 tiered tower of lebanese nutty honeyed sweets. It doesn;t get much better than that.
Following that we checked into the Hilton hotel over the road, since I had to be at Heathrow at 5.30am the next morning, and I couldn;t be buggered to travel from home. The hotel was built when Paddington was, and resides above the concourse. Its a true design classic and in my opinion both inside and out, and has recently been refurbished inside. Our room although small (there seemed no point getting a bigger one as we were only there for 7 hours in total) was beautifully finished in lots of walnut veneer (I think) and a lovely marbled bathroom. In addition to that its the type of place where when you walk into the foyer you take a breath as its rather stunning. My other recommendation would be to always use the stairs rather than the life, as the staircase itself is rather beautiful, especially when it sweeps down into the foyer.
On Friday night I just chilled at home, but then I'd been on the go in Stockholm all day and was utterly mentally exhausted (more info to follow).....
Saturday afternoon we went to see a cock and bull story in the curzon soho, which was good fun, and an enjoyable film. Then we checked into the Holiday Inn in Mayfair had a few drinks and went off for an evening of fish eating.
First off we champagne and oysters at Bentleys in Mayfair, which was dead good, and then jumped in a cab to Islington for dinner at The Fish Shop. Again its an old favourite of ours, but always good fun and great food. I have a roasted cod with broad beans, celery, peas and lardons (amongst other things).
Following a nice long and relaxing breakfast the next morning (the HI Mayfair dining room has some very comfortable chairs compared to some I've been to), we strolled through Green Park and St. James Park before catching the train home. Nice
Categories: londonlife
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