Honeymoon

No ambiguity in the title of this entry! Jon and I had a brief, low key honeymoon in Cornwall the weekend following our little wedding. It was a trip that had already been planned for Jon's birthday which was 3 days after the wedding. It was a nice relaxing long weekend. I love that part of the country and don't go as often as I'd like and wanted Jon to see it. We stayed at a gorgeous B&B in Penzance called the Summer House and drove around some of the sights in the area.

On arrival at the hotel the Lady of the House greeted us with congratulations which I thought was a bit strange as I didn't remember telling her it was a honeymoon but figured I must have and my baby brain had deleted that bit of information. But when she showed us to our room I realised how she knew. There was a beautiful basket of flowers from my colleagues and a bottle of Champagne from my boss waiting for us there. I was pretty touched and then laughed as I recalled how curious my office friends had been about where we were staying! They had given me a big surprise send off at the office complete with confetti, bubbly, cake and John Lewis vouchers so I hadn't expected anything like this. What lovely people they are.

We had a great time and I started having pipe dreams about moving to the seaside and spending warm summer evenings on the beach with the kids and a dog, but then I slapped myself until I saw sense!

Another pregnancy landmark

As we were walking to lunch today Jon said to me, "Oh, you're starting to waddle a little bit."

Great!

Tying the knot

We did it! I made an honest man of Jon on 2nd July. As I'd mentioned in my last update we did things on very short notice, barely giving ourselves time to give our notices at the town hall. (Archaic procedure for getting permission to marry, don't ask.) We married at Chelsea Registry Office (which is where Jon's parents got married 30-something years ago) with just 4 guests - 2 witnesses and 2 understudies (because I always carry a spare!) and then had a lovely lunch at Gordon Ramsay's.

It was the hottest day of the year so far and just beautiful. We had a bit of a drama getting there, the cab driver we got was a bit rubbish and only got us there in the nick of time and only because I couldn't take it any longer and started barking orders at him. My vow to avoid turning into Bridezilla at any time well and truly went up in smoke in that cab! To complicate things we'd had a problem with Jon's wedding ring in that we didn't get it in time due to massive cock ups by the jewellers (Tip: If your husband to be wants a titanium/platinum wedding ring made, make sure you have more than 2 weeks to do it and call the jewellers a few days beforehand to make sure they have sent it to the correct place, and then when they resend it make sure they read out the exact address to you to ensure they haven't made a big mess of it) so we had to stop at the jewellers in Knightsbridge en route to the registry office to pick up a stand-in ring. It looked pretty hairy for a while and our guests all arrived promptly and when we weren't there by 10 minutes before our ceremony was due to start, sat in the waiting room taking bets on which one of us had got cold feet and done a runner! But we made it... just.

The ceremony only took 15 minutes and I vaguely recall uttering the words "Right! Down the pub then?" afterwards as we had some time to kill before lunch. Lunch was indulgent and fantastic. And Junior decided to make his/her presence felt for the occasion too. I had a horrendous bout of morning (afternoon) sickness during lunch and threw up spectacularly in the ladies room. Cue massive cleanup by the extremely efficient and sympathetic staff. I kind of wanted ol' Gordon to come in and shout at me though, would have made for a fantastic wedding story.

After a sumptuous meal and overpriced Champagne we went back to our (new) flat and sat on the sparse furniture enjoying some less pricey Champagne and delicious cake. By that time the pregnant bride was more than ready to slip into comfy clothes and I did actually fight the urge to throw on my pajamas!

A lovely day was had by all, and thanks to our wonderful friends, Vivien, Sophie, Nik and David for taking part. (And didn't we all scrub up well!) We are toying with the idea of having a bigger do after the little one is here, probably in California but we'll see if we get around to that before our silver anniversary.

Update avalanche

So many good intentions, so little time! There's a lot of huge stuff happening that I haven't been keeping you up to date on, although I think most of you do know the big stuff by now.

In a nutshell, since the last post, we have moved, got married, and are expecting a baby. It didn't totally happen in that order but it all happened. I'll give you the highlights here and endeavour to post each event in separate, more detailed installments later.

Back in April I discovered I was pregnant. To say it was a surprise would be the understatement of the century! It wasn't exactly planned and shock and disbelief were the dominant feelings for a while, but we quickly decided it was a good thing. You know me, quick to adapt to a situation!

We moved into our new flat at the end of June. The place was in good condition when we bought it but we spent a week or so making it our own with a lick of paint and a few new fixtures and some new bits of furniture. It looks pretty good, if we do say so ourselves. So far we love it. It's great having our own little place and we've been settling in there very nicely.

Just a week after moving in, we got married. Hey, I like efficiency! We had talked about getting married and there was a little parental encouragement on both sides, but weren't sure if we were going to do it until after the baby arrived. If I'm honest I wasn't that bothered about doing it at all and figured there would be time later, but in the end we decided it was best to do it before the birth to make things easier for Junior's dual citizenship. Things are far more complicated if it is the father that is the US citizen and the child is born overseas to an "alien mother", which I love being called, by the way!! Once the decision was made I characteristically went guns blazing into it, not wanting to wait too long and waddle down the aisle with a huge belly. In the end we barely had time to give our notices at the town hall, things happened so fast. I think it was a little less than 3 weeks from start to finish. Which I totally recommend by the way. It is the easiest, least stressful way to plan a wedding, in my opinion.

We also sold my family home finally. After a long time on the market I switched to a different agency who managed to sell it for us. We got a lot less than I would have liked for it of course but the timing was right so I took the offer. My dad agreed, wanting things to be done and settled in good time before the new arrival. It's quite weird, the end of an era, but a good move I think. Now we are in the process of buying my dad a new flat and hopefully we can get him settled in soon, so I can have some chillout time before my third trimester and then the arrival of the baby tornado.

I think that's all the major stuff. More detail later.

Property update

If this blog were a child I would most certainly be guilty of neglect! I really need to update more often.

To update on the previous post about being gazumped on a flat, we did find another flat shortly after that and the sale completes this week. Yay! We had a bit of a panic after we lost the last one as there really wasn't anything available in our price range in the area and a shortage of new properties coming onto the market, and we had a mortgage offer that was ticking away. With the interest rates continuing to come down I really wanted to avoid letting the offer expire and having to reapply as a) it was unlikely we would be offered the same low rate again, and b) who loves doing all that mortgage application paperwork?! I spotted a place in the next neighbourhood along (Kilburn, to those in the know) and we considered making the compromise of moving down the road to a not bad but not quite as swanky neighbourhood. The flat is bigger, a 2 bed, and 10 years old so in good shape, with gated private parking and very close to the tube and buses on a nice street. It was priced above our budget but worth a look so we checked it out and decided it would be the right move if we could get them down to our price. It took a few days of negotiations but luckily we managed to knock them down quite a bit to reach our price range. Bless them! Things moved quickly, thankfully, and we exchanged contracts within a few weeks. Such a relief!

We move in next week. We're dreading the packing and the moving but are really looking forward to being there and settling into our new home. It's a nice little flat and as it's so new it doesn't need much work. The owner we are buying from bought the flat new when it was built and is therefore the only owner it has had, and she has kept it in great condition so it really doesn't need much doing to it. Apart from a little paint and cosmetic changes to make it ours, it needs nothing. Hurrah to that!

I'm sure there will be photo and possibly even video documentation of the moving process so watch this space. We have hired movers to do this move though, so hopefully there will be no more falling down the stairs carrying a big box incidents this time!

Property crash chez Poon

It's been an interesting rollercoaster ride into 2009 so far. Some of you may know that Jon and I have been looking at properties to buy recently, with the prices coming down enough that West Hampstead where we live now and love, has actually become just about affordable. We've looked at a few places in the area and things got very real in the beginning of January when we made offers on 2 places we really liked. One we lost to another buyer, the other we haggled on and ended up agreeing a sale on, in the middle of January. We were excited about this flat. Although a small place it had some nice features and was in a lovely character building just 2 streets from where we are now, in prime South Hampstead. So we have been making plans to move and looking forward to owning our first home together.

The sale moved slowly, as in not at all, for a few weeks. After much chasing from our lawyer and the agent, we found out the seller was in the middle of an ugly split from his wife and she hadn't signed the agreement to sell and it was all being held up. The agent then spoke to the soon-to-be-ex-wife last week and she agreed to sign the papers and everything seemed to be on the move again. Except nothing happened and someone was clearly lying somewhere along the line. The agent finally told me a couple of days ago, he sensed something fishy was going on and he intended to get to the bottom of it but gave us the go-ahead to look at other properties so we could have a back up plan just in case it went wrong. The next day, he found out the seller had decided to sell to a private buyer for more money instead. Needless to say we were really disappointed as well as being annoyed at being messed around. The agent is furious too. And we are all anxious because despite what everyone says about it being such a buyers' market, there is nothing out there right now. All the one beds in this area have been sold in the last month or so. Crazy!

So it's a case of waiting and hoping for something else to come up. But wait, if you are angry with the seller for us, there's more. We popped into another of the estate agents for the area yesterday to re-register with them. On explaining our situation, they were really helpful and although they didn't have anything suitable right now they would let us know if something new came up. Then he asked where we were buying before and when we said the name of the street he immediately asked if it was Mr P's flat. After that followed a long conversation with some history on the flat and the seller. It transpires that this guy had been selling the same flat through this agent many months ago and turned down much higher offers than the price we had agreed, and had also let someone else down in the same way. They weren't dealing with him anymore and didn't have much nice to say about him. The agent even pulled out a log book and showed us the written entries. We were stunned, we had not expected to hear this at all and it's left us a bit baffled. What on earth could this guy be gaining from this? Was he trying to get us to up our offer? It's all very bizarre.

So anyway, we are registered with the 2 most prominent agents in the area (and I'll be signing up with a couple more this week) who are making us something of a priority given the situation and knowing we are serious buyers who are ready to roll for a quick sale. We can only hope something right comes along. Cross your fingers for us.

*sigh*

Merry Christmas 2008!!

Gosh, how long has it been since I updated? Shockingly long, is the answer you're looking for!

Not that much to report really. Been settling into the new place, working, taken a couple of trips to the States, including one for Thanksgiving. All good but apparently not worth writing much about!

This was just a quick one to say Merry Christmas to you all. I hope you had a good one. In the Poon household we enjoyed the time off work - with a lot of Guitar Hero, a fair amount of karaoke and shedloads of food, and that about sums it up! Christmas day was a nice quiet one here at the flat with my dad. There might be more details and some retrospective posts later, but I wouldn't want to a) jinx it, or b) get anyone's hopes up (neither yours nor mine!) by making big promises!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Another surreal office moment

Someday I might have enough of these bizarre office moments to publish a book of them! Today my boss said to me, "Could you remind me tomorrow I need to get some fake blood?"

????????????

Feeling connected

Finally! After weeks of struggles with BT we finally have a phone at the new flat. I had to fight the urge to randomly call everyone in my phone book, such was the need to celebrate. Soon we might even have internet service and fully rejoin the 21st century!

I'll send out an email with the new number shortly, and also post pictures of the flat as promised.

Happy Turnerversary

Today is my one year anniversary of working at Turner. I wonder if my boss will take me out to lunch? Hmmmm...

The opposite of nesting

My life seems to be all about change right now, and it's all go. My dad and I are putting the family home up for sale and it's all very surreal. I am spending my weekends at the house packing up my stuff and purging these days. It is amazing how much crap you can accumulate when you have space to spread out in and never really move out of a place for years and years. Some of it is nice, a real trip down memory lane. Some of it is just mind-boggling. All of it is very tiring! There is a lot of work to be done.

Tomorrow the agent comes to take photos and measure for the floorplans and after that it is officially on the market. He is optimistic and thinks it will sell fast, so let's hope he's right. It is really crazy and trippy to think about, and the sentimental part of me is having real trouble with the thought of leaving the house, but it's the right thing to do.

Wish us luck.

Goodbye to an old friend

How many of you have met my little car Oyf? How many of you have enjoyed a ride in the little fella? He is such a dear old friend to me - and yes, he is a he, I know all cars are supposed to be girls but he always was a boy to me! I have had to part ways with him and I must confess my heart is a little broken.

I sold him to a friend though, one who really wanted him, so I know he has gone to a good home and once in a while she'll send me updates and maybe even put him on the phone to me. Truth is he'll probably like being with her much better, she'll actually drive him regularly and not neglect him like I did, leaving him for so many lonely days on the driveway untouched. I barely drove him and now that we've moved somewhere with much better public transport connections and expensive and restricted parking, it had to be done. Pouring money down the drain is one of my better talents but even I could see how crazy this was!

So, goodbye dear little blue car, I miss you.

Something to look forward to

Our next Stateside trip is confirmed, we're over again in mid-May. I'm looking forward to getting away again. This trip was dictated by a business trip Jon has to make and I'm tagging along. He has to be in Milwaukee for a week and we figured it would make sense to take some extra days for a California jaunt so it'll be 10 days in SoCal and then a week in Milwaukee.

I'm looking forward to Cali and seeing everyone as always. It wouldn't kill us to get some decent warmth and sunshine either, after the miserable weather we've been enduring here lately. As for Milwaukee, I deliberated for a while as to whether or not I would go and decided after a little research it might not be so bad. I was surprised to discover that there is stuff to do there and I figured it might be nice to have some down time for myself there. As much as I love our Cali and other trips they are always really hectic, rushing around trying to see everyone and everything. The week in Milwaukee Jon will be working so I will get a chance to hang out and have a relaxing time. I plan to check out some museums, do some shopping, a spa day or two, walk and bike some of the trails around the lake shores etc. I think I can keep myself entertained. Plus, I bet the burgers are great!!

More surreal Turner moments

This morning my boss sent me an email asking me to find him the rabbit suit.
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!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

New toy! Shiny new toy!! Some of you may have read in my previous post about moving that Jon impulsively bought us a shiny new larger-than-sensible TV for the new flat. Well, yesterday I behaved like a classic enabler and bought us a new Nintendo Wii, which we have both been hankering after for some time. I just got so excited because some stores have finally started re-stocking them and I had a crappy day at work yesterday so I caved to no pressure at all except my own consumer greed and love of shiny objects. Jon was SO excited.

It does also have the slight added bonus of encouraging us to unpack the rest of our stuff and get rid of the boxes and piles, to give us ample space to play the Wii games. If it facilitates that, then it's worth it. It is also SO MUCH FUN!!

Now I'm off home to check on my (hopefully) immaculately organised new flat and my game addict boyfriend who probably already has tennis elbow. (Luckily our ceiling lights are spotlights so there aren't any we can break!)

Moving day and other traumas

As most of you know, Jon and I moved into our new flat this weekend. Those of you for whom this is news, it's been talked about for a little while but nobody (including us) really thought we would make it to moving day!

It wasn't a huge heap of fun but we are very excited about the new place. We saw it a few weeks ago and took it immediately and then wondered if perhaps it wouldn't be quite as we'd remembered it, but I'm happy to report we walked in there on Friday and remembered why we didn't hesitate, we absolutely love it. It's small but the flat is great and the house it's in is beautiful too. It's in South Hampstead which is a great location for both of us and is also my old stomping ground from my Central days.

In fact, right now I'm feeling like I never want to move house ever again, I'd forgotten what a trauma moving is. I put up with a lot of jokes about there not being enough boxes or bags in London to hold all my clothes and crap, but I will point out that I have downsized quite effectively. Jon had a fair bit of crap too and we have been quite good at unpacking but are not quite there yet. This is the "before" picture of the place from Saturday.
The weekend was not without drama, there was one minor little falling down the stairs with a heavy box incident. It was the end of the day (and the second day of moving) so I was already tired but was a little ambitious attempting a box that was just a little too heavy for me and probably also a little too wide for my short litle arms. Luckily I was near the bottom and it was only a couple of steps but I did injure myself and as it was a box of Jon's stuff I was carrying at the time, I will be utilising the guilt for as long as possible. Here is the picture of my very bruised and swollen knee (swollen, not fat!!). Jon was very worried when I got the camera out, he thinks I'm going to:
a) Sue him
b) Tell people he beat me up

Being a chronic commitment-phobe this is the first time I've lived with someone full time and I have just had my first experience of what it's like to live with a boy. There I was focusing on unpacking the kitchen and he was sizing the place up for a large TV. And indeed, when we made a trip to Argos on Sunday to buy kitchen stuff what did we leave with? A shiny big flat screen TV! Check out the picture of Jon's main project for the day thereafter.Oh yes, chaos all around and he is putting the TV together! The boxes are still not unpacked, merely moved aside so they don't block the TV!! And of course the important thing is, all the games consoles are plugged in!

And, get this, it looks like we won't have internet for at least a couple of weeks. I know!!! Me and Jon, the two people voted most likely to wither and die without internet!! It's shocking. Oh well, at least we've got a bigger than necessary TV to keep us occupied. Oh yeah, and boxes to unpack!

Anyway, must get on and get those boxes taken care of. I'll be back soon with some "after" pictures once we get the place looking and feeling like home.

Happy 2008!

I hope everyone's new year has got off to a great start. I think I'm only just coming out of the holiday season now!

Christmas was nice. It was a quiet one again, just my dad, Jon and myself at home. I cooked up a storm, traditional turkey dinner with all the trimmings.

Trying to work magic with parsnips and carrots

Apparently my cooking requires the supervision of 2 people!

Merry Christmas everyone!

After dinner - food coma

Jon and I both went back to work after boxing day. This is the first year I've had a full time job that requires me to work the days between Christmas and New Year and I thought it would hurt but it was actually quite cool. There were so few of us in and no bosses to be seen anywhere so it was a little eerie but nice and relaxed and never a full day. I am really loving working at Turner as you know, but the holidays really were fun, there were all sorts of shenanigans involving inflatables, mustaches, silly hats and a 5kg (!!) bar of chocolate.


New Year was a quiet one. Jon was sick so we didn't venture out, and just stayed in watching movies. I had to drink almost a whole bottle of Champagne by myself too, poor me! I must say, and this will sound weird to a lot of people, that I was looking forward to going back to work. I am not good at having time off without a holiday or a specific reason, I'm not much of a lounger or a pootler at home, and I need a regular routine and focus. Plus, my boss was away another week so I managed to ease myself in.

So, a brief reflection on 2007:

• Began 2007 in sunny Nice
• Left LBS
• Started working for Turner
  
• Went back to California in March and officially became a legal US alien
• Jon's folks visited in June and we took a trip to Istanbul with them
  
• Tuscany in July
• Embraced Turner's "summer Fridays" where we finished work at 3pm every Friday for the summer months
• Back to the States for November and Thanksgiving
• What is likely to be our last Christmas in the family home

That's extremely brief but I really can't remember anything else! It's been a good year but I'm looking forward to what 2008 will bring. Watch this space to find out what that is.

Happy New Year!

I feel like such a grown-up!

So I noticed that this year all the Christmas cards I got were addressed to "Waiyee & Jon" rather than just to me and were mostly from other couples, ie. my friends and their significant others even if I don't really know the partner. I don't remember this being the case in previous years. When did I become middle-aged?

Just an observation.

PS - Sorry you didn't get a card from me (and Jon!) this year, I just never got around to it.

Merry Christmas!!

Merry Christmas to one and all! I am actually feeling festive this year, which is a big change. It takes a lot to beat the bah humbug out of me but I think the new office was too tough for me - lots of home-made decoration making (with varying degrees of success and rocketing tackiness and amusement) and playing cheesy Christmas tunes wore me down. I've been dragging it out a bit too - an early Christmas lunch with one of the departments, another lunch with my boss and the Department Heads, a dinner with close friends and then the office Christmas party last week which was fun, the photos are here:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=78362&l=b1dff&id=692170356
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=78438&l=1fe54&id=692170356
But this is my favourite picture from the night:









I got a generous and thoughtful gift from my boss, which was a very pleasant surprise, and was even sent flowers from his wife! I even went as far as to get a tree this year, and have a big feast planned for Christmas day. It'll be a fairly quiet one, just my dad, Jon and my cousin and myself, but we will eat with Christmas spirit. I'm excited.

Wishing you and yours a wonderful holiday season, with lots of love,
Poonie xx

More California adventures

Look at those happy sunkissed faces! Who are those people? They are the people we would be if we lived somewhere so warm we could be outside in t-shirts and feeling the warm sun on our skin in mid-November. I did have to question why Jon moved to cold and gloomy London when we went back for another visit last month. Crazy!

It was a shorter trip than usual so it was hectic, we packed a lot in. It was a good trip though, we had a lot of fun. We did the usual friends and family roadshow and managed to get around to seeing everyone...I think. We also managed to visit with a couple of my friends who are newly implanted in California.







Vanessa in San Diego

John S. in LA on his first day as an official California resident

And of course there were all the usual suspects -

Lauri and Andy and little Michael who is growing like a weed!

Jon's cronies

Chris and Doreen and their new addition, little Rachael

And of course we ate a lot of meals, some good, some just okay, but all huge! Here are just a couple of examples:

Dinosaur ribs from Lucille's

Chili cheese fries from The Hat

We spent Thanksgiving with Jon's folks at what is now their main home in Henderson, Nevada. We were there for a couple of days and it was pretty low key. Jon and I went to the Strip the night before Thanksgiving and it was the quietest we'd ever seen it, so we walked around a bit and then called it a night. Thanksgiving day was spent at the house of some friends of Jon's parents, where we ate heartily. Then after a visit to Lake Las Vegas the next day, Jon and I flew back to Cali to hang out at the Fullerton house for the rest of our stay.

We had a great time eating, shopping with our favourable exchange rate, and seeing everyone and just enjoying winter sunshine. I have to admit that this is the first trip where I've felt a little more attracted to California. I was probably seduced by the sunshine and the fact that you can get so much more property for your money than in London but I was seriously thinking more about our possible move back in a few years. And I never thought I'd say this but I actually really enjoyed being in LA when we went up to meet John S. for lunch and actually felt at home! I'm guessing it was more the familiarity of seeing John but still, it was strange!

If you fancy checking out the photos, here's where you'll find them: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=77108&l=f7e58&id=692170356