I did indeed get the job -- lecturer in the Physics department at Queen's University Belfast -- and am very, very pleased about it! The people in my new group are simply lovely: they have been enormously helpful with areas of Belfast I would and (more to the point!) wouldn't want to live in. They are a friendly, cheerful bunch and I am looking forward to working with them very much.
I made a post, prompted by yours, so you should be able to read a little bit about it: I bought a house! Up until now I have always rented, and I was getting seriously fed up with it. It wasn't so bad when I lived in Sweden, where renting your home is a fairly normal thing to do, but here in Britain rented accommodation is seen as a temporary or less desirable form of living. There are quite severe limitations to what you are allowed to do with 'your' flat: for example my contract says I am not allowed to hang things on the walls! After speaking to my landlord, I got permission to do so, but that is sort of my point. It was something he granted as a favour, not something that was mine by right which it would have been in Sweden!
The house I have bought -- as of yesterday -- is lovely, with a little bit of garden for me to play with as well. I am really looking forward to moving in, which will happen next Wednesday. Of course before then there is the moving out to be done, but hopefully this won't be too painful. My new employer has a generous relocation package which explicitly states that they will reimburse me for not just the cost of moving my belongings, but having them packed as well. Hence I am getting the removal firm to do the packing -- they are coming in to start on Sunday morning, and will have everything out of the flat by 2pm on Monday when the cleaners are coming to clean the flat.
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I made a post, prompted by yours, so you should be able to read a little bit about it: I bought a house! Up until now I have always rented, and I was getting seriously fed up with it. It wasn't so bad when I lived in Sweden, where renting your home is a fairly normal thing to do, but here in Britain rented accommodation is seen as a temporary or less desirable form of living. There are quite severe limitations to what you are allowed to do with 'your' flat: for example my contract says I am not allowed to hang things on the walls! After speaking to my landlord, I got permission to do so, but that is sort of my point. It was something he granted as a favour, not something that was mine by right which it would have been in Sweden!
The house I have bought -- as of yesterday -- is lovely, with a little bit of garden for me to play with as well. I am really looking forward to moving in, which will happen next Wednesday. Of course before then there is the moving out to be done, but hopefully this won't be too painful. My new employer has a generous relocation package which explicitly states that they will reimburse me for not just the cost of moving my belongings, but having them packed as well. Hence I am getting the removal firm to do the packing -- they are coming in to start on Sunday morning, and will have everything out of the flat by 2pm on Monday when the cleaners are coming to clean the flat.