Quick update

We’re here, in Zurich.

One of my new-start resolutions is to post quick and short messages here, rather than always feel the need to write epic entries — a bad habit that gradually appeared a couple of years ago.  I would rather write more frequent messages than agonise over spinning out some dense, meandering narrative.

We left England yesterday morning at 8:30. We’d planned to spend the previous evening in leisurely fashion, chortling at Spamalot in Oxford. Instead we opted for a chaotic evening of ‘packing’. This began as a civilised and orderly process of selecting things we would need for the next two months (until our furniture and other possessions join us). As the hours trickled away, it turned into the task of stuffing as much as possible into the car. At one in the morning, our considerable combined weight managed to persuade the final door to shut on the car, and we got to bed.

The first words I heard on the radio when I woke about 6 hours later were: “The clocks have gone back an hour. Welcome to the first day of winter.” I’m not sure the BBC were technically correct, but I’m happy to pretend they were. It makes the idea of escaping the country ever more appealing, though if climate is a consideration, some might say that a move from England to Switzerland is out of the frying pan and into… no wait. Out of the cold shower and into the freezer.

Don’t care. It’s an adventure, and something I’m still delighted about.

The quickest way to take a car across the Channel is Eurotunnel, but we opted for the ferry from Dover to Dunkirk so that we could watch the symbolically satisfying White Cliffs of Dover receding in the distance. The emotional metaphor got the better of M. A few minutes out into the dismal grey sea, she suddenly blurted out: “I don’t want to go!”

Me? I felt strangely matter-of-fact about the experience. Not sad or delighted or wary. Just relieved, I think. It had been 3 months since I first heard about the opportunity, and a month or so since I knew we were going. Seemed like a long time to be dangling. Now, at last, we were away.

We’d already driven 120 miles to Dover, and there were another 300 or so to get through before we could rest up in Metz. I wish I could tell you more about what seemed like an interesting and historic town, but we got there late in darkness and rain, and left this morning straight after petit dejeuner, and headed straight for the motorway. With another long drive in prospect, we couldn’t spare the time to sightsee.

Another 260 miles or so finally deposited us in Oerlikon, a suburb of Zurich where we are likely to be for the next 2 months, until our permanent apartment in Horgen is available for us to move into.

After collecting the keys we spent a sweaty half hour unstuffing the car and dragging our baggage up a flight of stairs to our self-catering apartment. You could almost hear the poor car sighing with relief as the final bin bag of socks was removed. Then it was a frantic dash around the block and through the station to the main shopping area. Here we found a Migros where we could load up with fruit and veg and Swiss plugs.

End of bulletin. Tomorrow, my new job starts.