Long time no write

It's been a while since I updated and that's mainly because little has happened. We've made a few outings of course - to the beach on a freezing day, shopping, the pub. You can see J's page for a description of the beach. Suffice to say it wasn't quite what we were expecting!

Winter has begun. Most of the leaves are gone, and it belted down with rain yesterday. In a scene familiar to some of you I stayed in my dressing gown the entire day.

Today we are off to a meal at a colleague from work's home - the first time we've been invited into an English person's home, if you don't count M.

It's very quiet at work. This month's run was early and went smoothly (and so it should after all the mistakes made the previous two runs), so the bulk of my work is done until the end of December. I've been documenting, helping others where I can, getting the drinks in, and so on but it is going to be a boring month coming up.

Last week they announced a recruitment freeze because of the fall-out from the 'sub-prime' collapse in the US. This has hit J just as she was looking for work, and she had two interviews cancelled. It may mean my assignment doesn't get extended into Jan as well, but since I'm already there I may be OK. LloydsTSB is one of the bigger employers around town, and if the other banks are doing similar it will make finding temp work that much harder. The flip side is that the agents are desperate to get other income so are offering J all sorts of crappy work, presumably so they can get any sort of commission. They certainly don't seem too concerned about her own needs at the moment.

Mum's starting to think about a trip over here next year, and R is doing the same. We hope they will be able to coordinate their efforts, as they can help each other through the hassles that travelling inevitably brings. C's trip is much closer of course, and she (and O) is busy working every hour she can to make up for the unfavourable exchange rate.

JP has sent over his first drafts of the book, so there has been much toing-and-froing over that. There is still a long way to go of course. If any of you know anyone in Washington DC who might have time on his/her hands, we need someone to get into the US archives...

But first we have to survive Christmas. Bah humbug.