from one big smoke to another

Answers to your questions:

Dean was offered a job at the University of Toronto. And he took it.

He'll be doing roughly the same thing he's doing now, for around the same salary, but said salary goes a lot further in Canada and he'll be the unit's lead health economist, and he'll have his own office (a big selling point for Deano).

I'll be... writing and editing still, I imagine! Freelance is keeping me steadily employed these days, but I am missing the creative collaboration of a team. I will probably start looking for something permanent in early spring when my two big current projects wrap up.

yes, Dean is sad to leave his beloved England (will the Torontonians appreciate his British style? and where will he wear his Wellies? he wonders) but I'm mostly just sad to be leaving behind a few awesome friends.

Yes, Oxford is beautiful, full of history, culture and great architecture, but it is certainly not home.

and again, yes, admittedly Toronto isn't home either, but it's a heckuva lot closer, and has all this stuff going for it:
+ it cuts the Christmas commute in half
+ it puts me in prime proximity of this gal who is having a baby in Pennsylvania in May
+ it's Canada's publishing mecca
+ it gets HOT summers
+ it's on a major body of water (the Thames is not a major body of water, so forget what you were thinking)
+ it's a really big and pretty cool city - a big mash-up of cultures much like London, but with more places to park
+ we know a few people there who we like!

so i guess this is a fairly awesome thing.

Our timeline at the moment looks something like this:

Dec 11. Amanda to Vancouver
Dec 16. Dean to Saskatchewan
Dec 22. Amanda to Saskatchewan
Jan 1. Dean to Oxford, Amanda to Vancouver
Jan 7-11. Amanda to TO for apartment hunting!
Jan 16. Dean's last day of work!
late Jan. Dean to Vancouver
early Feb. D+A move to Ontario!

We look forward to seeing MANY of you while we're in Vancouver, Sask, and before we leave Ox, and we will have a guest room in Toronto for all you visitors.