Well, we are now finally settled into our new place in London and Rachel has nearly completed a week at her new job, and even I am
beginning to think about job hunting myself. So, buy way of finishing up this blog, I thought I would post our new contact details here and hope that all of you will stay in touch, and maybe visit if you are passing by. Thanks for reading!

Steve Smith + Rachel Wheeler
11a Auckland Road
Battersea
London
SW11 1EW
0207 7380026

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After a few frantic days trawling round an endless string of South London estate agents we have finally found a place to rent. It's near Clapham Junction on a nice street, and of course tiny and extremely expensive. We can't move in until next Friday, so this afternoon we're heading out traveling again. First stop is Birmingham where Rachel has a hen party tonight and I can hang out with my Grandpa. On Sunday we are meeting up with my parents and then later in the day we're catching a train down to Exmouth to visit Rachel's parents in their new house.

We are enormously grateful to Josie and Rich whose spare room we've been using. Their advice and Josie's wonderful cooking have made the last few days much more fun than they could have been. Thanks guys.

I'll put a post up here with all our new contact details once they've been confirmed and we are settled in.

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After a great few days of eating brunch (thanks Giamal and Sylvie!)and enjoying Leah and Alan's hospitality, it is almost time to go home. But today is my birthday, so I had some treats. Naturally we celebrated according to English time which meant from 7 o'clock last night I was birthday boy - so we went to our old local bar and played table football and bored people with stories about our trip. Then we came home and somehow Leah had managed to make me a surprise cake, covered in Smarties. It was delicious. This morning I was woken with two fistfulls of cat shaped balloons showering down over my head, and another rendition of 'Happy Birthday'. Even my breakfast bagel had candles! Thanks everybody!

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Night had just fallen as we departed Tokyo Narita airport, but we soon caught up with the sun again as we flew east. Later we were treated to some great views down over the mountains of Alaska before it clouded over on our approach to Toronto. The sun was setting for a second time as we took off on our final leg to Montreal and the lights of our old hometown looked happily familiar as we flew in. After a wonderful night's sleep we are now relaxing in the luxury of Leah & Alan's lovely apartment, and dealing with unpleasant piles of laundry. And trying really hard not to drink all the homebrew...

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Well this is it, the end of our Asian travels, and time to start our next adventure. It's been fun, and we are looking forward to catching up with everyone in Montreal over the next few days before we carry on to London. We will shortly head out to the airport, to catch our very long flight to land in Toronto 30min before we left, 12 1/2 hours later. Hope that's clear.

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