Well, we are far more normal than that, folks! Not only are we from Australia, but we are from Western Australia.
But just for now we are going to be living in England ... oops, sorry, here we call it 'the UK' ...
We are going to be living in the UK in a normal house - a 'delightful' Victorian terraced house in a normal street (with nowhere to park our car because there is a double yellow line outside our front gate.)
Across the Country
We were living peacefully - though not very normally and certainly not profitably - in beautiful hilly Torquay, in Devon. We had an idea which didn't work out, at least at this time of year, and so we ended up spending a couple of months pottering around like a couple of retirees with nothing definite to do ... pleasant enough but a little scary to see how quickly retirement can turn into endless lie-ins and, in foul weather, not leaving the house for days at a time, glued to the computer and/or TV screen.
And then 'they' said would we like to have jobs again and come to East Anglia right now?
We spent several days peering at Google Earth aerial photos of Norwich, comparing them with ads for rental properties, trying to work out where we would live. 'Moving over Christmas ... that's difficult!' the agents all said - they all closed down from several days before Christmas until several days after. And there were referencing checks to be done, and they couldn't possibly let us have a place that we hadn't viewed.
We were intending to spend Christmas with our Australian friends, Crosby and Susanne, near Cambridge (only an hour from Norwich), so we could just keep on going from there. We persuaded an agent to do our referencing by email, and our new boss went and looked over the house.
So we popped our bags of clothes into the car. And we lugged our telly into the car. (Yes, I said 'telly', that's what they say here.) And then the car was full, but there was a whole lot more stuff to take - like cans of beans, and towels and pillows, and last minute stuff. So we filled up every last little hole with this and that - we had to be really careful about opening the back doors because stuff would come tumbling out.
All the way by motorway
British roads are brilliant. We found we could go up to Exeter onto the M5, then north to Bristol and switch to the M4, then east to London's ring-road the M25, around the northside of London as far as the M11, and then all the way to Norwich (although by then is is only the A11). It's a six-hour trip, nothing to an Aussie.
When we left Torquay it was cold ... but it got colder as we got away from the coast. Our car has an outside temperature thermometer, and it didn't rise above 0.5 degrees until around midday when the weak sunshine broke through the mist and sloped across the hills to touch the road.
The biggest problem was the black muck that was thrown up onto the windscreen, and then it would set (or maybe freeze). Soon enough our windscreen washer was out of water, and we pulled into a petrol station to find some more water. There were rows of cars with their bonnets up and people handing around empty milk-bottles to fill from the tap ... everyone had the same problem.
We later realised that in this weather the motorways had all been salted. (Hey, John, remember those big bin things we saw by the roads? They've got rock salt in them.) By the time we got to Norwich our car was coated in black salt sludge and our numberplates - like everyone else's - were obliterated (so much for the endless speed cameras!)
First taste of Norwich
Our house wasn't ready - they were putting in a new boiler and central heating - so we didn't mind spending the first night in the Beeches Lodge down the road.
Four poster bed, ay! The room stank of smoke as we walked in - odd considering the new laws that have been in place since July.
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