a series of "lasts"

We are soon moving on from London and the last few weeks look to be quite emotional. We are both very excited to be moving, but saying goodbye is proving to be difficult. Last weekend I went into Canary Wharf for Ant's leaving drinks at work. I know a few of his colleagues quite well and I enjoyed chatting with all of them.


The wharf area is beautiful in the evenings. Even though these shots are from my mobile phone camera, I hope you can still see how pretty it was. We will see lots more cityscapes, though, when we are in Hong Kong.

Ant left last night and this has left me feeling a bit bereft. He has arrived safely and is being looked after by Matt and Bree as I write this. Thanks, guys!


This is the view from the railway platform yesterday morning on my way to work. It's funny how everything seems more poignant when I am looking at it thinking soon I will not be there to see the everyday life in our area.

party with friends

Ant and I hosted a little house party this weekend. We had such a great time visiting with all our friends. We had an open house from 3 pm to midnight, and loads of people came over! Above are Mandy and Thom--Mandy is a colleague of mine.

Below are Pari and Geary, friends from church. Geary's wife Helen snapped a lot of these photos while I was busy pouring drinks and trying to find seats for everyone!


Ant and Craig provided so much help and support. They both were my sous chefs. Craig made some delicious cheese balls--I hope to write about them over on my food blog soon.



Classic Ant move: part way through the evening he asked casually, "So where are the muffins?" This set me mixing while he chopped chocolate and we made these crystallised ginger and dark chocolate muffins.


Ant's colleague and best friend at work, Viviana, came with her husband Victor.


My colleagues Rachel and Amira had a good natter, and I got to meet Amira's boyfriend Jess.


Fellow Canadians Joe (a physics teacher) and Laurie came by (they are our Settlers buddies).


Georgeta, my Romanian friend, came over and was enjoying meeting some new people.


At the end of the night, we left all the empty glasses (but saved the extra food!) and sorted them out in the morning. What a great time we had with all our friends. We had loads more people than we anticipated and we also learned that our little living room holds more friends than we thought.