We're moving!

Time for a BIG update!

In short: Will got a new job, it's amazing, and we're moving to a beautiful town house in Basingstoke, 45 minutes from London.

Will just started applying for jobs about a week and a half ago and was asked in for an interview the Thursday before last.  A few days later, he was offered an incredible new job for an international company with full benefits in Basingstoke!  Start date: a week later (which is now tomorrow!).  No problem, except we currently live in Exmouth, about 2.5 hours away.

So this week we had to frantically find a place to live.  I never thought I'd miss craigslist so much; finding an apartment is such a hassle and huge expense because you have to go through estate agencies.  They have fees for EVERYTHING!  And their websites are never updated with apartments that are actually currently available.  Will and I tried phoning these agencies inquiring about the properties on their website, and they were all already taken.  The only thing we could do was drive up and start inquiring in person.

Wednesday we drove the 2.5 hours up and it was absolutely horrendous outside; rain drops seemingly the size of gumballs drenched us in a matter of 2 minutes.  We ran from estate agent to estate agent, all of them giving us the same answer "Well, there's really not much out there at the moment, we might have one property that may be okay." So we saw about one property from each of the dozen and a half estate agencies throughout Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.

We walked into one agency on the Wednesday and they initially gave us the typical response of only maybe one or two properties, but then one of the agents said they had just received a new property that they thought would be perfect for us.  It was an ex-showroom at a brand new housing development.  2 bedroom, 1.5 bathrooms, full kitchen with dishwasher and combination washing/drying machine (they always have it in the kitchen, weird) and fully furnished by a professional designer.  We booked the first viewing possible for it.

Thursday morning at 11am we went to view the property and fell in love with it.  It has a private garden, covered parking, beautiful furnishings, and best of all it only a five minute walk from Will's new work and the town center.  We of course said we'd take it (and at £825/month, it wasn't too expensive either).  Only problem was that because these estate agents have all these rules about leasing out properties, our combined yearly income had to be 2.5 times the amount of the yearly rent.  It would have been no problem if the government would actually let me work.  We could only go off of Will's salary, which was just shy of the formula to automatically approve us, even though I have tons of money in savings.  The agents were really actually quite understanding, they just had to see if they could convince the landlord.  With a lot of persuasion (and offering to pay the first three months up front in advance) they agreed, so we now have a place to live!

So that's our new place.  I love everything except the pink and orange, but that can be (except for the wallpaper) fixed :)  We can't wait to move in, hopefully by next weekend, as it takes the agencies a while to do all the reference checks and credit checks.  I'm so excited to finally have our own place together!!

Tonight it's back to the bed and breakfast for the week while Will starts his new job.

Happy Birthday Will!

Just wanted to announce that it is Will's 25th birthday.  Happy birthday Will! xxx

Word of the Week

This week's word is actually a phrase: "cheesed off"

Basically sounds like "cheese-d off" and it's kind of a nicer version of "pissed off".  I hear it all the time on the radio and television.

Definition: angry or irritated

Examples: "I was really cheesed off they made me go to the back of the queue."
                 "The system for London Olympic Ticket distribution has a lot of people cheesed off."


Cultural awareness of the week: going along with the word of the week, most people already know this but sometimes I keep forgetting, Cheddar cheese is white (not orange) in every country but America.

The only orange cheese that is really popular here is called Red Leicester (which I have yet to try).  I had macaroni and cheese the other day and it was white, weird.  Though the colour has taken a bit of getting used to, the taste has not; English Cheddar (the original cheddar, from Cheddar, England) is so good!

Longleat Safari Park

Will and I have been busy the past couple of weeks going on some traveling trips and continuing with wedding preparations.  Last week we drove up to Bristol for the day, had some great sushi and a round of crazy golf, and camped in Bradford on Avon (just outside of Bath) before heading to the world-famous Longleat Safari Park, the biggest Safari Park in Britain.

I'd never been to a safari park before, but this place was amazing.  Cars are allowed to drive through herds of giraffes, rhinos, camels, etc., you get to feed animals through your car window, hope the monkeys don't rip off your antenna or mirrors, and at the end you finish up with lions, tigers, and wolves just a stone's throw away.  Pretty cool, I must admit. The fun didn't end there though, oh no.

The safari park was actually only about half of the Longleat experience.  We headed back towards the Longleat mansion (which Will says has been featured on many British television shows) and were able to view even more animals in their Jungle Kingdom (I saw an anteater, they have amazing tails!)  I got attacked by a swarm of tropical birds after purchasing a food cup for them.  Maybe mine tasted better than Will's??  I couldn't get them off when I tried to leave and ended up gently shoving them off my arms.

After walking through the Secret Garden we took a boat cruise around a lake where we fed seals, watched hippos, and saw one of the oldest gorillas in captivity; he had his own private island and cable TV, not a bad way to retire.

Will witnessed first hand how bad my sense of direction is when we made a friendly competition going into a huge maze and I ended up at the final destination 15 minutes after he did.  We toured the mansion with all its beautiful rooms, furniture, and decorations, and finally headed back home to Exmouth.  It was a great trip, would definitely recommend visiting the park and I'm sure we'll be back again some time.