We thought packing and preparation for the move would take about a day, plus the work that the movers said they would do (pack all the breakable stuff). We’ve been at it two days and there is still more to be done. Good thing we left ourselves a wide margin!

Done:

• Packed all books (20 boxes) and CDs (3 boxes) and DVDs, comics etc
• Disassembled bookshelves
• Emptied attic of camping gear, summer clothes, diving gear etc, and repacked all that
• Packed all plants and most toys
• Emptied most drawers (of clothes, tools, and office supplies)
• Disassembled our bed and Ingrid’s cot

Still to be done:

• Pack remaining clothes
• Pack away our computers

… plus all sorts of odds and ends that will probably grow like a hydra, chop off one head and two new will grow in its place. But we’ve got all day tomorrow to finish (the movers arrive early Friday morning) so it shouldn’t be a problem.

Drinks have been shared, farewells said, and hugs and handshakes exchanged. It feels strange to think that I will never walk into this office again, never touch that code again, and (most likely) never meet most of these people face to face again.

I’ve moved several times within the firm I worked for, and each time I moved, it was clear that the new job was more “right” for me than the old one. (With one painful exception.) After my last move I was pretty certain that I’d finally figured out that writing software was what I really wanted to do. I really enjoyed this job. What I hadn’t expected – although in retrospect it makes perfect sense – was that a job that fits me would also bring with it a team that fits me. While all the previous teams have generally been made up of bright, civilised, mostly-nice people, and I generally liked them well enough, I’ve never felt like one of them. This is the first team within the firm where I didn’t feel like an outsider, where I felt a sort of kinship with the other members of the team. I felt, for the first time, that the rest of the team were folk like me, and not from a different planet. (Believe me, traders really are from a different planet.)

After almost seven years with the same employer, today I’m saying good-bye. I’ve been with the firm through recessions, market crises (remember Enron?) and legal upheaval. I’ve quit and come back; been a permanent employee, then contractor, and then an employee again. I’ve been in 3 divisions and 6 different teams. This was my first employer after graduation, and the reason we moved to London. And very soon this long relationship is going to become history.

I’ve already emptied my desk and my drawers, packed my books, and found a new home for my plants. I’ve almost gotten used to saying “here’s how you could fix this bug” instead of saying “here’s how we could fix this bug”. In a few hours we’ll go for farewell drinks, and then I’ll cycle home with a rucksack full of books, and that’s it. It’s almost enough to make me teary-eyed!

It will feel very strange to get up on Tuesday and not have a job to go to.

Meanwhile, this is the first time I blog during office hours!

Two weeks to go until we move, and only one week of work left. My brain has definitely switched into ‘whatever mode’: I’m taking a short-term view of just about everything. Desk getting messy? Whatever, it’ll all be packed away soon. Tower Hamlets starts collecting recyclable rubbish separately, so we need place for a recycling bag at home? Whatever, just stuff it in the cupboard on top of all the other stuff. New CVS tagging approach proposed at work? Whatever, I’ll be long gone before it has any effect. Gas company raising prices again? Whatever.

… and bubble wrap and packing tape and other fun things.

A month to go before we move. We have a place to stay in Stockholm, and we have a moving company, and we have flight tickets. That means the essentials have been taken care of. Now we’re ordering boxes and bubble wrap. A load of boxes should arrive in time for this weekend, so we can start packing things like books and DVDs and other stuff we don’t need day to day. Then we’ll start disassembling our bookshelves and wardrobes. All this should lead to lots of climbing opportunities for Ingrid.

We’re also cancelling all sorts of subscriptions and catalogues and memberships we won’t want to keep, and notifying the rest of our change of address. The aim is to get to the point where all essential mail should be coming to the new address without relying on Royal Mail’s mail forwarding (which they probably won’t do to a non-UK address anyway) and ask our neighbours to forward the rest.

We’re also loading up on things that will be hard or impossible to find in Sweden. Eric’s filling a (small) box with Sainsbury’s ginger snaps; I’m thinking of making a trip to GAP to buy tops for Ingrid in the next size up.

We’ve started working on the details of our upcoming move. The two most important things to organise are (1) finding somewhere to stay, and (2) moving all our stuff.

Finding somewhere to stay actually has two parts. We are hoping to become homeowners for the first time – we’ve been renting until now. But it’s hard to buy a house from a distance, and it would entail more travelling back and forth than we’re willing to accept. So instead we will stay in a temporary place during our first few months in Stockholm, while we look for a permanent home. We have a temporary place lined up so we won’t be homeless, but we will be living out of suitcases and boxes for some time.

It turns out that the actual move will be horrendously expensive… We’ve found two companies that manage moves between Sweden and England. The first one came up with what I thought was a jaw-droppingly expensive quote for moving our goods and furniture. But they prepared the quote without having seen our current home (they’re based in Sweden) basing their estimate only on our floor area. We have a rather sparse furnishing style so we thought that might be a bit excessive, and contacted another firm for a second opinion. This second firm actually has a local representative in England. Their man came by, surveyed the contents of our apartment, promised us that they would “sharpen their pencils” to give us a really competitive price, and went off to work. A week later they sent us an estimate that was indeed based on a lower total volume (32 m² instead of the 40 m² that the first firm guessed)… but a total price that was 15% higher than the first one. Ouch. (Admittedly their estimate includes a bit more work on their part, including packing all breakables, but still – ouch.)

The first, lower quote isn’t quite high enough to make us throw out all our furniture and buy new things in Sweden, but certainly high enough to make that thought at least cross my mind. However my brain has now been numbed and is slowly getting used to the idea of paying several months’ salary for moving.

After six and a half years in London, we have decided to move back to Sweden.

London has always been a temporary place for us. We’ve always known that we’ll move back sooner or later, but it’s always been one to two years in the future. But now we’ve made up our minds.

Ingrid is the main reason. London is fun when you’re young and free – there is so much to do. Now we can’t really do many of those things any more. Instead we notice that there is no greenery, nowhere for Ingrid to play, and no family. We feel a bit isolated. We also want Ingrid to be closer to her extended family. She has two small cousins in Stockholm. They both really enjoy meeting their extended family, and our visits are always big events for them. We want Ingrid to have that kind of opportunity as well.

The contract on our apartment runs out in March, so it was either move now, or move next year. So now it is.