Well, since Hilary has broken the news, I guess it’s safe to talk about our move. For a good few months now we’ve known that our rental contract on the flat would end in January, as would my PhD funding. Either we could find a new place to live in Southampton and I could look for job in the area OR we could do all that in the country we wanted to settle in. I was partially motivated by the theory that if we settled in Southampton now, we’d be here in 20 years — and that’s something I didn’t want.

So, we’re moving back to Ireland at the start of January (and most of our stuff has already gone). We’ll be living with my parents in Cork until we get ourselves sorted out. I’m going to be writing up my thesis whilst looking for a job in the Cork area. And, in a pleasant turn of events, although Hilary resigned from her job at the start of December, they have offered to let her work from Ireland — so at least we’ll have one salary.

I’m writing up at the moment but it’s slow-going and I’m far more interested in returning to employment again. It’s not just a financial motivation but a personal/professional one: I’ve been a very big fish in the very small pond of my PhD and I need to get out. I want to get back to a feeling of accomplishment and team-work that my PhD hasn’t provided.

Oh, and perhaps I’ll find something interesting to blog about in 2007