Leaving on a jet plane
I’ve been extremely dilatory about this blog since April last year. The intervening months have been a bit weird to be honest. I went with my family to visit my brother in New Zealand again (and hang the expense!) last summer*. While I was there I had an interview for a job. Since then, I’ve been going through the immigration process, which is surprisingly expensive - though my prospective employer is picking up the tab for this. Now it’s crunch time - I’ve handed in my notice, indeed my post has just been advertised. Yes, the corpse isn’t even cold and they’re starting the fight over the spoils. In two weeks I’ll be off away from the UK to a new job in New Zealand. It’s both exhilarating and terrifying.
I’m leaving. After nearly fourteen years it’s surprisingly hard to write those words without a twinge of regret. Museums have been my passion and working here has been the largest chunk of my professional life. I will miss the place, the people, the collections, the things we have done and the exciting things we are planning to do. How could I not?
I’m leaving on a jet plane. Although I do know when I’ll be back again - in August, when I fly back to the UK to accompany the rest of my family back to New Zealand. And though I hate to leave, it’s also exciting: new job, new opportunities. One thing I have learned in my time here is that you have to grab opportunities when they present themselves - they may not recur. But as ever by doing one thing you close off the opportunity to do other things with the same resources of time or money. There’s no point worrying about what might have happened if other choices had been made. To quote CS Lewis in the Magician’s Nephew (and it’s not often that the Narnia books get quoted!):
Make your choice, adventurous stranger;
Strike the bell and bide the danger,
Or wonder, till it drives you mad,
What would have followed if you had
Still, I’ll be able to keep in touch. Scotland will be just a hyperlink away. Unlike Charn.
*Or winter, as I must now to learn to think of it.