The last days

This week is full of last days. Today is Ian's last day at work but he won't be resting as he has to train someone up. Tuesday will be the last day we sleep at the place we have called home for the last two years and Friday will be the last time we will be in it as we will be cleaning the house in preparation for handing over the keys. The packing men will arrive early tomorrow and start to pack away our belongings and I think that is when it will really hit me we are going.

Yesterday we got to speak at Timberline Oldtown (timberlineoldtown.org) and it was a real privilege to be able to pray for people who felt that they needed to leave the shores of certainty and step out into what God wanted them to do. The party afterwards was lovely, the food was great and the party low key just sitting around and chatting which is just what we love doing.

An email from a friend of mine reminded me that perhaps I haven't filled in all the gaps for my English friends as to why we are moving to Latvia now. Many of you know we always intended to go to Latvia but the timing wasn't right but we did feel that the timing was right to go to Denmark which enabled us to loosen the roots and we would be half way there with lots of holidays (vacation time) a whole six weeks plus public holidays. We weren't sure how long we would be in Denmark and I was praying about whether I should settle down a little more or be prepared to move and I felt God telling me that there was to be one more move between here and Latvia and that would be to the US and that would give us the key to get there. I knew that Ian would not be very happy about that as the US to our mind was such an intense and materialistic society and the thought of all those mega churches didn't fill us with enthusiasm. Ian was visiting the US at the time and I told God that he would have to enjoy his visit there if I was going to tell him this news. Almost the first words to me when he got back was "Fort Collins is a really nice place and the people are really nice" - it should be it has been voted the best place to live in the US. Gulp! I had to tell him. We waited a while and eventually an opportunity arose to go and live in Fort Collins working for the same Danish company, Dako.

Time went on and Dako decided to sell the Fort Collins site and it was bought by an American Company. We knew we weren't meant to stay in the US and Ian's secondment to the US was due to finish in February so we decided that we had to head back to Europe the problem was that there wasn't actually now a job in Denmark as they had moved all the flow cytometry work out to Fort Collins. Eventually, however, Dako agreed to ship us to Latvia as long as Ian resigned his job.

That is obviously the abbreviated version but I hope it fills in some of the gaps.

Now onto a totally useless fact and for all UK Children's Television fans this is not something you should try at home but did you know that it is possible to put a mobile phone (cell phone) in a 40 degree wash and it it still work once it has dried out? Okay Ian did have to take it apart a bit to drain out some water but miraculously the phone I left in my pocket still works.

To do lists and all that!

Our last full week in this house that we have lived in for just over two years now. I will be glad to get out, quite frankly. I have lost track of how many potential new renters have been looking round. One good thing about having lots of people looking round is it makes sure that you put away things that you would rather not let others see but the really bad thing is having to be careful about the papers left lying around when I am trying to get our accounts sorted. Talking of accounts it was with a great relief that I posted off the accounts to the accountant today, one more job to take off my list - well nearly - I do have one missing statement. Oh boy! Now all I have to do is re-file all the paperwork and work out what we have to take with us just in case our belongings ever end up on the bottom of the sea.

Now let me see what other delightful jobs do I have to do this week? Hmmmm!
1. Make sure we have taken all recyclable stuff to relevant recycling points (did take the styrofoam peanuts to UPS and they gladly took them)
2. Last oiling of my wood furniture - at least it can't take much more than the 7 1/2 bottles of English Oil it took to soak everything over the last couple of weeks. I bet the local Home Depot and Walmart wonder why they kept running out of furniture oil.
3. Finish counting household items for insurance purposes. Interestingly we 735 books and 48 pillow cases that is not all of our household items of course but I do wonder how we managed to end up with 48 pillow cases, books I understand but that many pillow cases!!!!!!!!!!!!!
4. Start to clean the house.

Oh well must go and make the tea now (dinner for all Southern English and American Friends). Tonight's offering is tomatoes (home grown earlier this year) with barley soup with smoked sausage, salad and tortillas. I have a feeling though that the offerings are going to get a little more weird as the week goes by and the fridge and freezer gets emptier.

Ever nearer!

Wahey! Managed to find out how to put pictures in. This is a map of where we are moving to, the first being a close up and the second a map to show you whereabouts in Europe Latvia is situated


















Well our flights are booked which is a bit too late for the Bishops of London and Liverpool's recommendations that people fast to cut carbon emissions for Lent http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/7226488.stm. It did make me think though as we are careful to recycle what we can and our bin (trash can) rarely has more than three carrier bags of rubbish (trash) in, yet while we have been here in the States we have one big Toyota 4runner .Ian is going to miss his 4runner and it was good for driving in the mountains. As for me I guess I should just stick to fasting from chocolate but I am not very good at that either.

The final countdown

Where did January go? If anyone knows then answers on a postcard to........ Seriously though, January did seem to beat a very hasty retreat! Well this is Ian's final month at work, and our final month in the house in Fort Collins. The great news is that we are finally in a position to book hotels, flights, car hire and removals companies (American translation - moving company).

Talking of Removals/Moving companies reminds me of the peculiar looks I got here in America when I started talking about Removals Companies, people just found it so strange, they kind of knew what I meant but weren't 100% sure. It also explains why I was having so much trouble finding companies in the phone book when I needed some quotes.

We are definitely moving to Latvia, to a little rural town and when I work out how to put pictures on my blog I will post a map of where we are going. We have an apartment there and hopefully by the time we get there there will be new radiators and a new bathroom. We will spend a night in Riga to recover from our flight and sort out what we need to sort out there and then head to our new place, Well those are our plans so far - well nearly - we are planning a fortnight (two week) trip to England since we won't have our furniture until around mid-April at the earliest.

A special note to my friends at Everyday Joe's (http://www.everydayjoes.org) you will still be able to learn all those British words even though I won't be there in person to give you the pronunciation..... mp3 links...now there's a thought! Only kidding!