Oh wow. Where is the time going? This time next week I’ll be flying off to America on holidays. And my work in the Midlands will be done – literally. As I’ve worked here for the last ten years, I don’t think my brain has quite wrapped itself around that concept yet.
Although I’m finding it easier to step back from the actual work, I think I’m really going to miss the people and I don’t think that will hit me for a good while yet. Everyone who leaves the agency says that the people here are unique, like a little family, and I think it’s one of the things that has kept me here so long. They’re a really nice bunch. For example. yesterday I had to go home with excruciating toothache. One £50 trip to see my dentist in Yorkshire (long story) later, I’m stockpiled up with antibiotics and solpadeine. So when I came back in to work today, everyone was concerned: ‘how are you?’ ‘toothache is the worst’ ‘you went to Yorkshire??”Yeah. So whether it’s good or bad news, people want to know, and they genuinely care about the answer. I don’t think it will be the same at ECC. But who knows? Speaking of families, I’m very happy to say I’m now out of the rented house and in with the Walters family, who kindly agreed to put me up/put up with me (!) for my last week or so in the Midlands. They are a family I met through karate, and over the last 5 or so years have shown me just the hugest amount of kindness and friendship,. Too huge to try and explain, but I know I can never fully repay them (though I often try, in small cake shaped doses) for everything. Living with them is fantastic – the atmosphere is warm and welcoming, and I am eating well and sleeping pretty soundly. In case I do wake in the night and forget where I am, there’s a sign on the wall made by the girls reminding me ‘you are at the Walters’. Well, there’s nowhere else I’d rather be right now. They’re proving a good medicine for my relocation stress (which has seemingly melted away since I moved in.) So I didn’t feel sad at all to leave my rented house. Stressed, yes – overwhelmed by the amount of stuff, yes - but not sad. More like… it was just time to go. And so grateful my parents came and helped, they made the whole thing a lot easier and quicker. I managed to send 3 carloads back to Yorkshire for storage with them, so now their house probably looks like a jumble sale! It was a fantastic weekend in one way though, because I saw a lot of my friends and family who had offered help. They arrived, they helped clear, they rehomed things, they gave hugs and smiles of support. It made the weekend a hell of a lot easier. So I know I have to a do a lot of thanking people this month. And maybe for the rest of my life!
As I leave one home and temporarily pitch up at another, I’ve just got some more details from ECC about my Japanese accommodation. Basically I tell them what I’d like (a beautiful 20- tatami mat house in the bamboo woods in Kyoto with bishy neighbours please) and they sort it out (a small flat shared with a few teachers in Osaka/Kobe... like it or lump it) so on the day my plane touches down, a helpful ECC person can take me straight there. I should get exact location details about a month before I fly out. Which would be around next week then. Good gravy. Oh, and I have my first proper big leaving do tonight – and I won’t even be drinking because of the antibiotics. Well, maybe one won’t hurt. I just can’t believe I’m really saying to goodbye to people already. And that’s the whole tooth.
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