Hey - it's a New year. Let's emigrate!

Well, so much for my determination to be a regular blogger: 26 months between posts is unlikely to give the blog the "diary" type feel I was aiming for. Never mind - let's start again, shall we?

This is the year my wife and I will emigrate to the Brazilian Amazon (just the other side of the river from the city of Manaus - click to see a larger image of the map, if you're interested), and I'm hoping to document the process. No doubt we will look back fondly at it in years to come, and remember with good humour such jolly tribulations as the time the ship carrying all our worldly good sank in a freak storm, and how I fell on my head getting off the plane. But perhaps I shouldn't tempt fate...

Anyway, the estate agent has just been round to value the house. Now all we have to do is give them the go-ahead. I have a bigger problem than normal with this, since it marks a milestone in the plan. Aargh. Perhaps we'd better sleep on it. Or maybe not - after all, the timescale is set, and we're expecting to get on a plane to Brazil on 1st June. On that basis, we might as well get on with it. Of course there are one or two other things to do before we go (I think I'll post a list - might be useful for others, and someone out there may have different ideas we can benefit from?), but the 'biggies' are the house and the jobs (my wife Naice has already handed her notice in and leaves at the end of February; I'm still dithering, with the intention of doing the deed on 1st February). Oh dear - the closer it gets, the more dithery I'm getting...