60 hours
Pretty much all the companies who really need to know I'm moving now do, although I still haven't managed to get through to an actual human being at Nationwide. My office is packed up; the house is starting to happen today. Got up bright and early this morning to go to Tesco's and pick up some extra boxes, and since then it's been coffee and getting down to it.
Last night I went out for dinner with davesangel at the Apartment, a funky little bar-restaurant in town where they do a damn fine two-course meal for two plus a bottle of wine for £28 all told. They have large plate-glass windows overlooking the splendid neo-classical City Hall, and we were lucky enough to get placed at a table which must have had one of the best views in the venue. It's almost like the waiter knew I was going. We gossiped, giggled and discussed HP fanfic, while the sun faded from the sky and the lights came up in the square below. Afterwards, I walked home rather than get the bus, for the sake of some final quality time alone in the dark with Belfast.
It seems that almost everything I do at the moment is unpleasantly overshadowed by the word 'Last'. There was my Last Lecture back in June, my Last Cornucopia almost a month ago, my Last Supervision on Friday, giving back my Last Library Book and having a Last Hot Chocolate in Café Conor yesterday, my Last Time in the city centre last night, several people I know I've already said my Last Goodbyes to, and a whole slough more to add to that by the end of the evening - for tonight is the Last Sci-Fi Meeting.
I am going to get tearful by the end of this week: I can feel it coming.
Friends here in Belfast are plotting to sabotage the ferry which will take me away on Friday night so I can't go, or offering to murder my choice of the QUB Ancient History staff so I can take their jobs and stay on. Then again, on the other side of the equation I'm starting to get texts, LJ comments and emails from people in England checking when I'm coming back, and telling me how excited they are about it and what we'll do when I've returned. I already have the St. Giles' fair to look forward to next Tuesday, and B-Movie the following weekend.
Keep it up, English people - it means more to me than I can say right now.
Last night I went out for dinner with davesangel at the Apartment, a funky little bar-restaurant in town where they do a damn fine two-course meal for two plus a bottle of wine for £28 all told. They have large plate-glass windows overlooking the splendid neo-classical City Hall, and we were lucky enough to get placed at a table which must have had one of the best views in the venue. It's almost like the waiter knew I was going. We gossiped, giggled and discussed HP fanfic, while the sun faded from the sky and the lights came up in the square below. Afterwards, I walked home rather than get the bus, for the sake of some final quality time alone in the dark with Belfast.
It seems that almost everything I do at the moment is unpleasantly overshadowed by the word 'Last'. There was my Last Lecture back in June, my Last Cornucopia almost a month ago, my Last Supervision on Friday, giving back my Last Library Book and having a Last Hot Chocolate in Café Conor yesterday, my Last Time in the city centre last night, several people I know I've already said my Last Goodbyes to, and a whole slough more to add to that by the end of the evening - for tonight is the Last Sci-Fi Meeting.
I am going to get tearful by the end of this week: I can feel it coming.
Friends here in Belfast are plotting to sabotage the ferry which will take me away on Friday night so I can't go, or offering to murder my choice of the QUB Ancient History staff so I can take their jobs and stay on. Then again, on the other side of the equation I'm starting to get texts, LJ comments and emails from people in England checking when I'm coming back, and telling me how excited they are about it and what we'll do when I've returned. I already have the St. Giles' fair to look forward to next Tuesday, and B-Movie the following weekend.
Keep it up, English people - it means more to me than I can say right now.