Leaving, on a Jet Plane

So.  The bags are packed, and the house echoes emptily.  We're waiting for the car to come, the dog boxes at the front door.  We've just said goodbye, sadly, to Mrs. Galapatti-da Silva, and remarkably held off the waterworks on both sides, although it was, truth to tell, a near thing.

At the office today it was all Champagne and last-minute paperwork, and in a few hours we'll be in the air.  Remarkable.

I've lived overseas for more than 14 years, and I've decided that as a result, our new destination will be, in a sense, a new foreign capital.  I'm sure it will be very pleasant, but it will be odd to surrender the little something one feels, even after all this time, about being a Stranger in a Strange Land. There's something in it of returning to civilian life after a long stint.  Our life in the Sandlands has hardly been the Foreign Legion, I suppose, but it has certainly had its moments.  And now a new chapter opens, unknown and familiar all at once.

Wish us luck.