31 days

We have 31 days to leave our flat.

Tuesday we contacted our landlord, giving him notice that all of us would be leaving the flat. In a time long, long ago, under a previous landlord of this same property, we actually had a contract, which stated that we had to give four weeks notice we wanted to move out. Well, we tried to give six. Our “rent month” runs from the 8th to the following 7th, if you follow. What we wanted to do was to stay on for another two weeks, through in this case to the 21st of February, paying a half a month's rent. We saw this as paying half a month's rent for half a month. Our new landlord, in contrast—who only bought the property in November—saw this proposal as “letting us off two weeks rent”. I still can't quite figure that one out. The English are quite irrational about Real Estate, and it would seem our new landlord is a true patriot. So we've exercised our other option: in four weeks we move out.

Well, actually it will be 31 days. It's most opportune that the fixed end of our rent month happens to fall on a Monday in February, giving us a good move-over-the-weekend option. It leaves us all in a kind of one-third off sale on our time to get ourselves organised, however. For Nick and Hayley the big deal is finding a new flat—they're not done with the big smoke. So it's up at 8am tomorrow and off to their chosen London district, a land of good sushi and better transport connections to both their workplaces. Smart as the Asgard, these people. (They txt like them, too, don't they bronwyn?) For us, meanwhile, it's a case of figuring out the best method for shipping our gear back to New Zealand, and deciding what to do with the deeply precious detritus we've accumulated in our 22 months here. What fun.

So another countdown begins...