Where have I been?

So, it's been a long time since I've blogged.  Give me a moment to just dust away the cobwebs...

We've been in the Cotswolds for seven and a half weeks now.  I am working very hard at stopping saying "...back in Kent..." and I think I'm getting better.  The good weather is transforming our experience here, letting us fully appreciate what an awesome place this is to live.

We took a fabulous vacation to Texas - it was wonderful for our kids to get to play with their American cousins, and good for the grownups to see the extended family, too!  I ate enough Mexican food to stifle any and all future cravings (possibly... we'll see), did plenty of shopping, and indulged the kids' passion for Cars memorabilia (mostly to make the flight home a little easier).

Having discovered Burford Garden Company, I have been busying myself in the garden, figuring out where the sun shines (unfortunately, mostly on our driveway), where it doesn't (plenty of places to sit outside in the shade) and plan appropriately.  I'm experimenting putting in a flowerbed in a little sun trap using a no-dig method, so I can put in a little cutting patch for fresh flowers this summer.

I asked C to buy me three Sunday papers today.  He got home and excitedly asked if we were going to lounge around reading with cups of tea. 
"No," I said, "I'm going to put them on the grass, get them wet, and cover them with manure."
"Can I keep just one?"
"No.  But keep your chin up.  At least you don't have to do anything with the manure."
"Good point..."

Also exciting, I am getting back in to running and yoga (again...).  We're not too far away from the Oxfordshire Way, so I've been following the "couch to 10K" programme (not run since Christmas, really) and went to my first yoga class since we left Dulwich last week.  Still considering running clubs - sadly no Ladies Joggers 'round here.

That's mostly what I've been up to recently.  Apart from ginormous batch cooking sessions, which I will tell you more about soon...

She gave them some broth without any bread...

It's 6:30 and my kids have been in bed for 1/2 hour.  Not spanked soundly, because that's not how we roll, but I did send them to bed when they wouldn't touch their dinner.

I have been trying, thinking it was the best thing to do for the kids, to cook one friendly-for-everyone meal in the evenings (with tweaks for the kids and for us), but Miss A, especially, won't touch a lot of things, and Itsyboo, who adores his big sister more than anything, pushes his plate away if he sees Miss A refusing to eat. 

And it's not like I'm attempting anything outrageous.  Tonight's debacle was a beef and carrot stew served with a jacket potato.  Not challenging, nouveau, or any other kind of cuisine, just a simple meal.

We don't have a lot of rules around meal time: try one bite of each thing, no cutlery in your water glass, wait for everyone to finish before you get down from the table.  But even the "try one bite" is getting harder and harder and I despair, y'all, when I've spent a lot of time putting together a healthy, home-cooked, nourishing meal and the response is simply "nope."

Is there any way to raise a child who's not a fussy eater?  Should I just go back to nursery teas with a proper supper for grown-ups?  The kids clearly aren't starving, but I really don't care for the teatime battle.  Share your wisdom, please!

Seven days later

It's 9:00 and the bells have just stopped ringing.  It reminds me that we've now been here a week - there's bell-ringing practice in the church every Wednesday night from 7:30 to 9:00 and, as we live only a few doors down from the church, I imagine this will be a feature of our lives for the next few years.

It doesn't seem to bother the children much - I told them the first night that the bells were the church singing them to sleep.  We find it charming.  Other neighbours, including one who gave us our first Midsomer moment, warning us that "some of [the bell ringers] aren't very nice people."

In the fictionalised version of our Oxfordshire village, the bell-ringer will be either a murderer or a suspect within 10 minutes

 

So where are we after a week?  All the boxes are unpacked.  All of our rooms are habitable, save one.  Don't come stay with us just yet.  Unless you like the "surrounded by random bits of furniture, books, and linens" chic.  We have visited the playground, the wild garden, Chipping Norton, and Witney.  We may visit Oxford very soon.

 

The house, though, still feels like a holiday home.  It's good and bad that way - it's beyond gorgeous here, but it doesn't feel like mine, even with all the furniture and my new consolation mixer from when I was having a low moment (I am weak and don't want to have to clean up buttercream dust ever again).

 

It's so pretty, I am almost afraid to use it.

 

We're off on holidays soon, then the children will start at their respective schools (Itsyboo is starting preschool two mornings a week - I will have six free hours to do whatever I want.  It's heady).

 

I clearly need to sort our a few more mundane things like hanging pictures, etc.  But I think we're slowly getting there.  It's funny to rent again after ten years owning my own homes - I actually have big mirrors now, and paintings and TVs to mount on the wall and grown up stuff that we didn't have before. 

 

It's both reassuring and stressful to think how I'm going to put all the pieces together.  But until then, I'm going to enjoy the fire in my fireplace (with smoke* - going up the chimney of course), drink a glass of red wine, and soak it all in.





*Texan readers - in London, you can't burn fuels that produce smoke in order to avoid the killing smog of the 1950s.  The fact that we can is a sign that we're really out in the country now.

The move

I've been thinking I might need to change the name of the blog.  We're no longer in the suburbs.  It's full-on country now.  London is far. C drives to work.  The walls on our house are three feet thick.

We moved over three days (joy!).  There were laughter, tears, some good luck, and some bad luck.  One major corporation made me want to kick it in the shin.  Another redeemed itself in my eyes from "necessary evil" to "my bestest ever friend."  I decided I'd recap for your reading pleasure, to let you know what we've been up to.

Move day 1 (Tuesday): How many play dates can we fit in to one day?

The movers arrived and started packing.  We went for tea at one friend's house, did a library run to return our last couple of books and then dropped Miss A at school.  Checked in on the movers, answered a few questions.  Realised that I really didn't want to be home and phoned the lovely Deborah (of Lily and Mitch) and invaded her home for most of the afternoon and tea time.  Got home and dealt with the anguished wails of Miss A who, left with nothing in her room but a bed, cried and cried that she wouldn't be able to get dressed in the morning since all her clothes were gone.  I pointed out that I had already loaded her trunki up and that cheered her enough to get her to bed.  C and I ate pizza straight from the boxes for dinner, as we had no plates.

Move day 2 (Wednesday): Good and bad stuff

I realised early in the day that there was no real way to take Miss A to preschool and arrive at a decent time to the new house, so I phoned in and agreed that I'd come pick up her paperwork on our way to Oxfordshire.  The movers were finishing packing and loading, so I cleared the kids out and spent two hours at soft play.  Two hours.  And Istyboo still wailed and kicked when I cleared them out for lunch.  Lunch at the café in town that I always thought I should go to more.  Stopped by the house to check the movers got everything they were supposed to take.  Stopped by the preschool and cried saying goodbye to Miss A's teachers.  Hit the road with two children, a cat, and a dog in the car.

We arrived to find someone parked across our driveway.  Ugh.  Was irrationally panicked after a long drive in the rain that the moving vans wouldn't have access the next day.  Knocked on neighbours doors to see if anyone knew who owned the car.  Met lots of people including family across the street with a four year old daughter.  JACKPOT.  They invited us in for a cuppa and kids' tea.  Wine was poured.  Texted C to let him know that, when he arrived to find our home dark and cold, he shouldn't panic.  Was warned of the village's Wednesday night noise pollution - bell ringing practice from 7:30 - 9:00.  Wobbled home nice and toasty, car across the drive was moved (the owner came by to apologise and we were gracious).  Told the kids that the bells were the church singing them to sleep.  Blew up air mattresses and set up portable radiator in kids' room.  Ate M&S ready meal off paper plates for grownups tea and argued over who got to snuggle the hot water bottle most closely.

Move day 3 (Thursday): Our stuff arrives

The movers come and unload all of our stuff.  It's a full unpacking service, which was not as cool as I imagined it would be.  If, like me, you confused "unpacking" with "putting away", you would also have been disappointed.

At one point, a funeral procession tries to come down our lane to the church and can't get past our moving trucks.  Mortified.

However, sleep in our own beds in house that's finally up to habitable temperature.  Awesome.

So where are we now?  We're exploring the area (including soft play for Itsyboo's 2nd birthday last Saturday) and settling in.  It still feels like a holiday home and the spare bedroom looks like a bomb filled with house stuff exploded, but we'll get there!

Itsyboo explores Wychwood playground

Sailing away

I have been trying to live in the moment and avoid counting out the remainder of our stay in Hildenborough in "last times."  It's hard, but I've mostly been managing.  There have been some I have allowed - my last commute in to work was a positive, although it then took my breath away when I let myself think that I am becoming temporarily economically inactive.  It didn't take long for me to remember why I like working outside the home!

Reality is sinking in - we now have a tenant for our current home (yay!).  I've got the keys for the new home.  The children are booked in to their respective pre-schools - Itsyboo will start two mornings a week and I will have nearly six free hours every week in term time.  The mind boggles.

So I've been slowly saying my goodbyes to Kent (and Godstone farm.  Seriously, what will I do without Godstone farm?)

When the going gets tough, we go to Godstone

I knew we needed a change of scene today, though, even if it meant curtailing our mad rush to get things done.  So we piled into the car and headed out to Camber Sands.  The kids went wild chasing amenable dogs.  The literal wind quite blew all of our metaphorical cobwebs away, and we finished an hour on the beach with rosy cheeks and ear to ear smiles.

I don't think we'll ever get to the point where we feel ready to move*, but we're definitely starting to get excited.

*Apart from Miss A, who gets up every morning and asks if we're moving to our new home today.

Textbook toddler's guide to random cuisine

With less than a week to go to the move, I have been madly de-cluttering.  As we're being professionally packed, I won't be evaluating things as they go in to boxes, and as I recently discovered a box of baby rice that came with us in the first move (Itsyboo was well past baby rice by that point), I made it my mission to move only useful things.

Of course, I still needed to buy a tortilla press before we move because ¡tortillas! In the next six days!

As part of my de-cluttering, I have been trying to use up fridge, freezer and store cupboard ingredients.  I made hummus and, after a small wail that I had run out of tahini (quel horreur!), I chucked in a lonely roasted red pepper that had been languishing in the fridge.  Served on Tuesday, Itsyboo studiously ignored it.  It was orange.  He didn't want to eat the orange thing.  Today, after a tentative poke with pitta, he realise that hummus can be orange and inhaled it in short order.  Glad that my son is so very textbook!

That's good, since our food choices are going to get increasingly random over the next few days as I make a real effort to empty out the freezer.  Perhaps if I just coat it all in orange hummus, I'll have a fighting chance of getting some of it into his tummy!

In sickness and in health

I don't do New Years resolutions any more - no particular strong feelings there, I just think that it's a lot of pressure to put on yourself on the day after you've stayed up too late* and drunk a small vat of alcohol (yes, I am a parent of small children, why do you ask?).  But, as usual, in the first week of January, all the papers are filled with lots of articles on how to improve yourself (and, seemingly, one article each about how resolutions are stupid).

I am, however, no stranger to good intention and "improve yourself" type thoughts.  My first experience with meditation was at a yoga retreat a few years ago (pre-children!!!), which was probably the most healthy, relaxing experience of my life.  Seriously, folks, I came back glowing with inner health.  And I fully intended to keep meditating, but you know how these things often go...

So, in this frenzy of helpful articles on which diet to do, how you can do micro-exercise, etc, I came across one on meditation and, as the initial part was free, decided to give it a go.  For four days now, I have spent ten whole minutes sitting quietly in the morning meditating.

So far, my main breakthrough is that I have a cold, and more of a cold than I had been willing to admit.  "Checking in" with my body, my thoughts were "snot... snot... snot... ick..."

So there you go.  Meditation has told me I'm sick.  I clearly need to spend the day wrapped up in my duvet.  Who am I to argue?

Really, honestly, seriously...

So, we're moving, and I've found it much harder to blog about this move, because it often makes me feel like a crazy person.  I'm excited and exhausted and entirely fucked off by turns.

We are definitely moving.  We have signed a lease.  We will soon be leasing out our own house (another crazy moment... honestly... it feels like my house, warts and all...).  We have now withdrawn our Kent schools application and submitted an Oxfordshire one.

It's serious.  We're going in three weeks.  I'm taking deep breaths.

So I'm going to try to write about it without being a crazy woman.  And maybe I'll find something funny to say about it.  I mean, we're going from a village of 4,600 people within walking distance of a good-sized town to a village of 1,250 in the middle of an area of outstanding natural beauty.  What could possibly be funny about that?!?