Spring is not quite here yet...

It was a beautiful weekend here in London-town. I decided to wear shorts to ride my bike to work in today. I froze. I have this test that I do when I first wake up. I look out the window and I judge the weather to see if it is suitable to ride my bike. It was dry and sunny, so I went for my shorts for the first time this year. By the time I was ready to go, the weather had turned. It was completely cloudy, windy and spitting rain. The weather here is always changing. It is sunny again now. The weather forecasts for England seem so futile. It is always "partly sunny with clouds and rain likely..."

The big news from last week is that Heather has found a new job. She will be a library assistant in a big library in West Kensington (probably the wealthiest part of London). Today is her first day and she is really looking forward to working in a library again. It is really exciting that she has found something that she will enjoy. It is the final thing that we were waiting for to really justify our move to London. Plus it means that we can keep on buying groceries and paying the rent.

This year I have been observing lent by abstaining from alcohol. It has been a long month so far, but with two weeks left until Easter, the end is in sight. The other day, I went to the pub to watch a football match and I had to drink a coke. It was a very sad sight. The other thing that was rough was when they were giving out free samples of beer at a local market and I had to turn it down! Imagine that, passing by free beer! I am trying to see the spiritual side of denying myself something for lent, but I end up just being grumpy about it.

The other news is that we have sold our car. It was a really good car for us for the last year and a half or so, but it really wasn't getting put to good use here in London. So now I am looking for a cheaper replacement. We have decided to get a VW camper for trips to the coast with the dogs and hopefully trips to Europe some time.

Rather than just getting the standard rusty English VW camper, we are going to go to Germany to import a van. The selection is greater, the vans are cheaper and they have less rust. The savings in cost for the van easily covers all the expenses of going to Germany to get it. And since we will be going after lent, I will also be importing plenty of German beer with the van.

JE