Hurrah! 2005 at last

January 1, 2005

Made it into another year and have survived the last stressful few months in this infinitely strange and frustrating country. Hopefully this year will be better.

We spent a surprisingly enjoyable six nights in the UK with Beryl and David. The trip there went very well also. We drove to Boulogne and then took a fast ferry to Dover and drove from there. All up it took around six hours. All was going very well in the car, the boys had played and then napped, then they pulled the armrest between their seats down. Unfortunately, the item sitting directly in front of the opening was their toy box with the favourite book of the moment (popup book) facing directly at them. The tears and tantrums that followed trying to explain that we couldn’t get the book…Daddy won’t make that mistake again.

Beryl and David did such a great job with preparing the house for our visit. They had made a room for the boys, bought beds, got toys, books and videos for them. Done a great job of twin proofing the house and putting a barrier on the kitchen door and had bought a set of table and chairs for them. I was so surprised and hugely relieved. Because of this, they settled in immediately, slept and ate well each day, a vastly different experience to Sth Africa. Even David enjoyed it.

The really funny thing about this trip was the weather, as it turned out we went to the uk for good weather, not many people can brag about that. It was cold and very frosty for Christmas and boxing days but clear blue skies and sunny.

We visited Brendan and Sarah and their new baby, Grace (11 weeks old). I was pretty pleased to discover that Sarah (the previous chimney) had completely given up smoking apparently the day she found she was pregnant. Brendan on the other hand, is still a chimney. She told me she has been making a pretty determined effort to get him to give up and absolutely hates the smell of smoke now – quite the crusader for non-smoking. How ironic.

We also visited Christine and Mike in their new digs in Buckinghamshire, a lovely new converted Victorian Dairy. Fantastic place, the suburb is very rural and very much a designer pad. Christine has great taste in all things interior, I aspire to have a house as attractive and orderly as hers. I get a bit tired of buying everything second hand or the cheapest we can find (except for electronic gadgets). It is funny, we have known each other going on 23 years now but during our adult, independent lives we have lived in separate continents. I know what Christine likes in books, clothing and jewellery but the rest was a mystery to me. We have always been close and in good contact but our day-to-day, adult family lives are only now connecting.

Her pad is magazine spread good looks, tidy and clean. There was a bit of Connors toys around but it did not look like the child tornado that ours regularly does. I was reminded of Kath’s place. Chris seems to have a fine tuned sense of order.

After three hours of all three boys racing around, the place did look like a tornado had gone through it – I was pleasantly relieved. Stuart made the comment that it must be a whole lot easier to keep order when you only have one child to consider.

I am grateful for Stuart finding this house as we have a loft area that all the toys and messy play can happen. Our bottom floor living area is reserved for adult living and eating. Although, I do find the house quite oppressive and depressing sometimes and get very frustrated with my limitations. We had to purchase quite a few things from the Olivers prior to moving in and the company also purchased some items that really should have been tossed, like the curtains, I flat out refused to pay for them and held out that if the Oliver’s wanted money for them, then PONL had to pay.

Margaret bless her, made some truly hideous curtains in all of the rooms. They are beyond description and have to go. Such a silly thing, but I really can’t look at them for three years. Finding suitable fabric is difficult, Spotlight would have a cornered market if they set up here. We are still finding our way around the furniture shopping side of things and apart from IKEA, we don’t know where to find good quality and design, curtain fabric. The other problem is coordinating ourselves enough to do this searching with the boys and the limited knowledge and shopping hours.

The house is cream everywhere and coming from our previous houses and total lack of colour around me depressing, even the sky is beige. When I go outside all I see is beige, the houses, streets, buildings even the cars are sombre colours. The sky is constantly misty and grey or beige and it is constantly damp and wet.