So much to say...

Christ, I can hardly catch my breath. There's so much to say! I need to tell you about:

• Jo and Simon's wedding
• Finding out my JET placement - Fukushima prefecture
• Lewis and Angela's wedding
• Moving out of Manchester and in to Catford
• Chris and Flora's wedding
• Coming to Ireland for Andrea and Anthony's wedding
• Hearing from my JET predecessor

As you can guess, it's been an ridiculously busy few weeks. I'm lucky enough to be sitting in a hotel room at the amazing Tankardstown house in Meath, so maybe there's a little I can do to catch up. Let's see...

Moving from Whalley Range to Catford

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Whalley Range - Urmston - Whalley Range - Urmston - Whalley Range - Catford - Whalley Range. total distance: 429 miles; total driving time, as estimated by Google: 8 hours, 59 mins. Quite a drive to do in 24 hours. Well done Laura. As Tracy would say, "It's a shame you can't drive Dave."

Lewis and Ange's Wedding

photo by the lovely Jordanna over at Coterie Photos - check out the link for more. they're great!

Lewis and Ange were married in Wellingborough, and then had their reception at Tur Langton Manor in Leicestershire. As you can see from Jordanna's brilliant photo above, and others at this juicy little taster page, we had a brilliant day. Laura and I hung out with Chris and Flora for most of the day, which was brilliant.

The highlight of the day for me - happy joining together of two of my dearest friends excepted, natch - was a pizza oven for those evening munchies. Tasty!

It's been a while, hasn't it?

It sure has - and so much has happened since I last caught up with you all. What kind of thing? Well how about:

• Quitting my job - part one, part two, epilogue
• Joining the gym, losing 21-ish lbs
• Visiting the Tower of London - it's awesome!
• My sister's had a baby, a healthy girl called Baden Rose
• Finding out about JET - I'm in!
• Having an inpromptu Parsonage reunion
• Deciding to move to London for July

And that's just for the start of things, really. Busy busy busy. It's cheating I know, but I'll be backdating a few posts to fill in the gaps, and back-linking this post to them retrospectively.

And it's the end of things too. A kind of end at least. My last bullet point is the clue: no more Manchester. So no more DTRMCR? Well, let's see...

Mere Sands Wood.

What's wrong Laura?

What's that you say? The shinkansen is out of control? And Gojira is up ahead? OMG!

Goyt Valley walking

Laura's leaving card

It's much better than the card my colleagues gave me, because it conveys exactly my sentiments towards my former job. I'm so happy to be out of there.

Sorry to be such a smug git, but...

This isn't a political blog, but political decisions have an impact on people everywhere, and I'm no different. As a result of policy choices made by the UK's Coalition Government, my employer Manchester City Council are making 2000 job cuts, and soon. (check out the BBC, Guardian and Manchester Evening News perspectives at the links)

NB: this post is backdated, see my disclaimer after the jump.

Laura on Snowdon

Vega, BHMC, Arcade Fire

What a scrum! The Mountain Equipment sample sale in Hyde was far busier this weekend, with people walking around carrying armfuls of down and hard-shell jackets so as to stop anybody else picking them up. Somehow from within the melee, Laura managed to find a couple of anoraks for her cousin and his son, and to find me a Vega jacket, in Facebook blue. The only imperfection was that the zip was stuck; easy to repair, surely. At only sixty pounds, it was around a quarter of its retail price. Ker-ching!

The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come

I was really happy with the training session I’d organised, despite the usual grumblers. The exercises and activities that I’d devised got everyone involved, and I listened in on some productive discussions within the groups. My boss was there for the start of it, and I hope she was impressed by what she saw.

After work, Laura revealed her big surprise for me: tickets to “A Christmas Carol” at the Lowry! What a brilliant surprise!

Nothing flash

Great pleasure is found in the simplest of simple things. Food and wine, good company. A shared meal, shared smiles. We went out for dinner. Nothing flash – Zizzi at the Triangle, in fact – but pleasant enough to be a treat. A beautiful montepulciano, a couple of pizzas, a smooch, and a cuddle in the taxi home. It only takes these little things. Bliss.

Driving back from Wellingborough gave space to reflect, space I’d lacked all weekend. My family, my father, my brother and my past; faces flashing around me as Radio 4 echoed in my ears. Weirdness and unease, coupled with familiarity, an unsettling scent of déjà vu, through-laid with relief at moving away. The long cloud of Japan offers soothing shade from the overwhelming heat of a small town past. My small town past.

Moving by degrees

My new housemates helped me to unload the car. It's the little things like that that make such a difference. We sat, had a cup of tea, watched the snooker, and chatted. We talked about TESOL, Japan and college. My new housemates are very nice.

Yuzu

Yuzu is a new Japanese restaurant in town. I’d read a couple of reviews (Manchester Confidential here, and Taste of Manchester here), and I was keen to try it. Laura and I popped in after work, and before the cinema.

Accepted! Finally! and 8-9-10 too!

“Hi DTRMCR, it’s been decided: the room is yours if you want it! If you do, let me know.”

Excellent! Yes please, that’d be great. Phew! It took eight viewings, but I’ve finally found somewhere to live that I think I’ll be happy in. What a relief!

Also, woo for 08/09/10! By the time we get to 09/10/11, Laura and I will be in Japan! Yahoo!

My girlfriend and the dole queue*

Laura lost her job today. A hasty one-to-one with her slippery manager resulted in her work being shared between two of her colleagues, and her position effectively being dissolved. She’ll be transferred into a different department, though luckily one that’s located at the other end of the room she works in now. She’ll be doing something entirely different to the job she applied for, was interviewed for, accepted the offer of, and moved 250 miles to fill. She’ll be covering someone who left - natural wastage - and the money that Whitehall pay for her post will be used to plug a gap in her original team’s operating budget. No warning. No option of negotiation.

Is it just me, or is there something really fucking dodgy going on?

*Yes, I know there’s not strictly a dole queue involved in this story officer. What? You’d like to check my artistic license? Sure, just a second…

Viewing #6 - Withington

An hour before I was supposed to go and meet the housemates at the mansion, the landlord called me. The room had been taken by someone else. I might have smelled a rat yesterday, when my appointment to meet them was suddenly postponed by one day. It was, I conceded, ten days since I’d viewed the place. Then again, it was the landlord who’d suggested waiting that long before meeting the housemates. What a shame. I’d liked it a lot.

I went wedding dress shopping...

...with my girlfriend and her friend, the lovely bride-to-be Jo. Two shops and two hours later, we found one. How many metrosexual points do I earn for that? So many that I had to stay in and watch MOTD to compensate for it.