Update

With the news that contracts will not be exchanged at all next week - our buyers' solicitors have asked for documents that will take a week to obtain - I will be forced to make preparations for our move with no guarantees of a survey and mortgage offer. Hopefully they at least might emerge next week, but I doubt it - it's now increasingly obvious that the reason our buyers' cheque for the survey only cleared last Friday was because the application was only forwarded to the mortgage company earlier that week. In other words, their financial advisor has sat on it for over a month, and there's nothing anyone can do about it, especially when our buyers seem unwilling to push things along. Oh well, I have left it in my solicitor's hands, and I believe estate agents and solicitors further up the chain will start to bring their pressure to bear too.

We've not heard yet whether the other end of the chain is collapsing, but it appears it won't be for now. No doubt if it does so, Plan B will be up in smoke because our second-choice house will have gone by then (and in a way, I hope it does, because it's unfair on the people who currently own it - they must be stretching themselves quite far right now). I can see us not exchanging until we're actually away in Canada - again, it won't affect the completion date, but it will leave us with no time at all to prepare. So I will have to take risks and start various processes in motion with no real guarantee that they'll come off. I guess one of my oft-used phrases over the next two weeks will be, "And what happens if the move collapses?"

So, next week I will be getting removal quotes, giving notice on cancelling the cable and looking into postal redirection. A dozen other things will no doubt pop up, but I have the checklist handy... Right, today I will be mostly finishing off some work for Aussie XP, defrosting our freezer and watching the cricket, which is glorious and a stark contrast to watching Birmingham City lose another match. They're on Prem Plus today, but I think I'll forego the £8 and watch the cricket instead...