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She's back!


It's official - Abi had a sulk this afternoon which means things are back to normal - woo hoo! Who knew we would be so pleased to see our daughter lying on her bed grumping? It's been a tough couple of weeks but we are definitely now through the worst and looking forward again. 

In other news, it was also Abi's birthday yesterday - our baby is 14! Goodness me, where has the time gone? It feels like only a few years ago we were bringing her into the world, and now she is 14! The one thing you don't want as a run up to your birthday is a spell in hospital, coupled with lockdown. It's fair to say the day itself came around quickly and I'd barely had time to plan properly for celebrations. Luckily coronavirus has put paid to doing anything anyway so we needn't have worried. Abi desperately wanted a new pair of flash wellies for her birthday so I managed to order these online, and then it was a case of make do for the rest - a new duvet set and some smellies - regardless she was very happy with her lot and wore her new boots while still in her PJs for breakfast, and why not?! The rest of the morning was quite relaxed and then off to Mia's for a birthday tea where she even got cake - good job someone is on the ball!

Alongside birthdays the big discussion has been our recent (and somewhat monumental) decision that we will put our lovely house on the market in order to move back to Somerset - eeeek!!!! I'm not sure quite how the decision was made, but Glenn suddenly started showing me houses in Taunton, to which I said "don't unless you are serious", to which he responded "I am!" - finally! It seems that the penny has dropped that Kerrie will soon be starting a family of her own and we will want to be closer, plus the kids asking all the time why we don't live closer to Ben and Laurie, plus me wanting to be closer to Mum and Dad and Amanda -  it's a no brainer really. All that plus the fact that if we get a good price for ours and buy well we could be relatively close to mortgage free and Covid means we are all working differently - now is definitely the time.  

This means we have had to speak to estate agents, which we did this week, to get vaulations and make a decision. Their advice was unanimous - get everything ready and launch in the new year.... they clearly have not met my incredibly impatient family!! No matter what I say about not even looking yet because whatever we see will unlikely not be there when we are in a position to start looking preoperly, they've all been on RightMove falling in love with properties which then go under offer and dash their hopes. Izzy is upstairs at the moment getting over the fact that her dream house (well today's dream house, yesterday's was sold) has just disappeared off the internet and has very likely also gone under offer... it's all very distressing for her. 

We of course all have different needs. I want a house we can move into without having to do much that is private but in easy striking distance of the train station as I'll still need to get into London a couple of days a week. Glenn wants enough outside space for him to have his various man-caves, Abi would like either room for a horse or for it to be next door to Amanda and Laurie and their yard, and Izzy wants a loft room and good wi-fi so that she can get away from us all! I also want good dog walking from the door and the list goes on. Who knows whether we will satisfy everyone, but the reality is we won't even be able to start to thinking about it until the new year when we know what the response is to ours - it's going to be a long wait...

Final postscript - only one puppy puddle today - we are making progress!!!





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