Drumroll please

So yes. Big news. Today I accepted an offer of a new job in Dublin and quit my job here. I finish up on June 29th and move home on July 8th.

It doesn't seem so big when it's laid out like that. But big it is! It's been some time coming but I am still shocked at how quickly things have progressed. Oran's been at home for a year now and I've said all along that I wanted to move home - just not without a job. Little did I know that I would get the very first one I applied for within two weeks of applying, and little did I know that it would be quite so amazingly brilliant as it sounds. In short, I couldn't have asked for more.

That said, I am gutted to be leaving Amsterdam. I had a minor meltdown in the middle of Nieuwmarkt yesterday evening as the enormity of it all hit me. I have been very lucky to have had the chance to live in such a beautiful city for most of my working life. I'm going to miss cycling to work with my ipod blaring, drinking and playing cards in the park on muggy summer evenings, deep fried bar snacks and a million and one other little things (I'm going to have to make a list, I think of something new every other minute). Most of all though, I've made some stellar friends here who've seen me through a lot and are going to be very hard to leave behind.

But, all good things must come to an end, and there are surely more good things to come. I can't wait to settle in to Dublin life again - it's a different city to the one I left five years ago. I can't wait to catch up properly with old friends I've been snatching snippets of conversation with on my all too short trips home. I can't wait to be close to family again and be able to pop up the road for a Sunday afternoon if the mood takes me. And most of all I can't wait to settle into all of this with Oran. I'm moving on up now... but first, I have a five week leaving party to plan. I'm going to make a list for that, too.