Calm down! Calm down!

The weekend just gone saw us on the next leg of our great goodbye tour 2007, with Liverpool the destination. And more specifically, to visit Kate, Mike and Anna. This emmigration lark has been such a good excuse to catch up with friends who we just don't see often enough. I recommend it to everyone. The weekend involved food, wandering round both cathedrals and more lovely food (the black forest trifle was my personal highlight!)

I've seen the two cathedrals before, when I went up to visit Kate and Mike, and also Euan, back in February last year, but I wanted Jo to see them. Such real contrasting buildings. I definitely prefer the Catholic Cathedral, or Paddy's Wigwam as it's known. Not so much for the outside, although it is strikingly different, but particularly for the inside. OK, so there's a little too much iconography for my liking, but it does contain some really moving art. The highlight for me though is the use of stained glass that just fills the place with colour. And depending where the sun is, and where you're stood, the colour is different.

Also Saturday afternoon we drove up the coast a way to Crosby to see Antony Gormley's latest work. Basically, for those too lazy to clink the links, Gormley is the bloke who did the Angel of the North, and this time he's made 100 cast iron figures, moulded from his own body, and liberally scattered them along two miles of beach all looking out to sea. Euan and I went to see it last February, but again, I just wanted to show Joanne. It's rather strange really. The photo doesn't do it justice.

Yesterday we got to go to the church where Mike works, St Andrew's Clubmoor, which was good. It's a very different experience to what we're used to, and a very different demographic in the congregation, but it was really good to go along and see where Kate and Mike serve and to see how God is working in people's lives there. Also we got to hear Mike preach too which was a first. Joanne and I find Mike and Kate such an encouragement. We love seeing them and hearing how they're living for Christ, with all the struggles and successes that that entails, all through His strength. I'm sure they don't even realise how much we appreciate time with them. I pray that God could use my and Joanne's lives together to encourage and support others in the same way.

One thing I am not going to miss about this country is the trains, especially on Sundays. The tickets the website had sold us allowed us five minutes for a change at Stafford. Which would have been fine, had our local train not waited outside the station for the Intercity we wanted to catch to go first. So we jumped on the next train to London which was heaving when we got on it so we couldn't get a seat. We got off at the next stop and waited half an hour or so for the next one (sat around on Cov train station platform waiting for a train - now that takes me back), which was emptier. We eventually got to Euston an hour later than we were meant to. I'm not sure if it's better to have a rail system that doesn't work properly, like here, or have virtually no rail system at all, like in New Zealand.

I finally got an email back from Katie at Sheffield this morning. It seems they "have a few concerns around [my] suitability to the role given [my] lack of experience within the Investment industry". I cannot really fault her conclusion. I have the same concerns. At least I've heard though. She does want me to call in to see a colleague of hers when we arrive in Chch though, for a second chat. She's off work for August it seems. That's why I have to see her colleague. I sent a reply back thanking her and asking whether Joanne should send her CV with her being a management accountant and looking for work too. The affirmative reply came back so fast it nearly broke the computer screen (if that analogy works at all). It seems that "finance is an area where there is a shortage of skilled candidates". No need to rub it in, lass.

My boss was back in the office today. Didn't get so much as a hello for the hour he was around. All afternoon he was in a board meeting, but some sort of acknowledgement would have been nice. Am I being too sensitive? I just want to be able to tell Trixie and Princess Kirsty and others in the office my news. Three weeks, four days and counting.

An idea that came up out of the blue today from someone was for me to set up an independent cocoa and coffee research service running it out of NZ. I won't go into the various details and options we discussed, for confidentiality reasons, but it's an interesting idea. He assures me that there is a gap in the market and a business model that will provide timely, independent, quality research will find supporters, investors and subscribers. It's an encouragement to know that he thinks I would be capable of it. I'm just not sure the time and effort and travelling that it would involve, at least for the first 18 months, are really what I'm looking for. If I was career-driven then maybe. But then, if I was career-driven I wouldn't be moving 12,000 miles, deciding on the city to live based on a church would I?