Birthday Boy

As you all know, it was Eric's 40th birthday recently, and his present was a book of photos and written pieces by his family and friends. I had originally envisioned it as a scrapbook-type project. However, when the reality of keeping it a secret from Eric sunk in, I had to change my plans to a more digital effort (I was able to work on my computer without Eric getting too suspicious).

Anyway, I ended up using Photobox, the same company who develop our digital photos, to put together the book. They have this really great software which allowed me drop in photos and pieces of text. And for those of you who haven't seen the book, just to let you know that it came out brilliant. I was very happy with it, and more importantly, Eric loved it.

So I just wanted to send out a big thank you to you all for your help and contributions. I really wouldn't have been able to do it without you. Though we couldn't put in all the written pieces, please know that they were printed off and Eric got to read them all. And the same with the photos - we easily got over 100 photos (all great!), which Eric was delighted to get and are going into a special Eric album. Posted are some of the pics.

Eric hanging with Ceci and Muttsie

Eric with his band (Brian on drums!)

Eric and Joe - tough revolutionaries

A full blog on the party and all birthday proceedings is to follow from the birthday boy himself.

On the Move

Eric posing patiently with two heavy boxes while his wife grapples with the camera

We are finally on the move! We spent today, with the help of Eric's friend, the lovely Mark Joyce, moving most of our belongings into storage (Mark Joyce's bedroom till he gets his attic sorted). Though it's another week before we go to Berlin, I really felt like today was the first step on our year long adventure.

I don't know what it is about moving one's belongings from one place to another, but it always feels significant to me. There's something about packing away everything you own into boxes, throwing away the junk that has accumulated and trying to distill your life into two suitcases that is both liberating and stressful. I think it is a mixture of letting go of the old and embracing the new, which, as my old buddies in San Francisco used to say, is 'all good' really.

I'm not that sad to be leaving our apartment though. For one thing this place is cooooooold (not enough o's in cold to borrow a phrase from Ben9). Our last two electricity bills were astronomical as we had the heating on a bit more than usual and the worst thing was that it didn't even get that warm!

But there are things that were great about the place too. Firstly, we had the world's best landlord - Cyril. He was just a very nice man with a wicked sense of humour, who always tried to make our place as comfortable for us as possible. Secondly, we really liked our neighbours and loved stopping to chat with them when we met them in the hall. And lastly, our apartment was in a great location. I will definitely miss the walks by the sea.

However, as we get closer to going away (next Tuesday!) I am realising how ready I am for this adventure. Maybe it is the Spring weather getting into my veins but I am really looking forward to a bit of a change. So though the moving bit is stressful, I know the arriving bit will make it all worthwhile. Berlin - here we come!

Our Place in Berlin

I thought you all might like to see some photos of our place in Berlin, where we will be spending five months from April. It is in the Prenzlauer Berg area of the city, which is in East Berlin. The apartment is in an altbau, which is an older style building. Our landlords are Nina and Dirk, who are heading off on an adventure themselves, which is why their place is free. They have shipped their campervan to Panama and are travelling from there up to Canada with their 5 yr old son Rocco and their 2 yr daughter Nona. We feel lucky to have found the place as we were really looking for a home away from home and feel like we have found it. I'll let you decide for yourselves.

Sitting room

Kitchen and bathroom

Bedroom No. 1

Bedroom No. 2

The apartment also has a small garden, where Nina tells me is nice to sit with a glass of wine when the sun is going down. Bliss!