Thank you all for the friendly welcome. I feel better about moving to east anglia already (even if I'm not the member who is furthest away :)
I too have found linuxprinting.org to be very useful - I have just bought an HP 840c. Not yet installed under linux though. I will be glad to let you know how I get on with the multiple installs although Jenny's plan of getting to know one distro well is probably more sensible!
Syd