Skip to main content

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!!!





Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Diary management!

This part of the summer is definitely typified by me trying to remember who is supposed to be where and when. Abi likes to be off doing something with someone while Izzy is happier to know she's close to home and so for the last week they've gone their separate ways. Abi has been down in Somerset making the most of Ben and Laurie being about. From what I can tell she's having a lovely time. Apart from the covert phone call one evening to tell me she was 'starving'  (Mum was cooking for the hordes and so it had been delayed), I've barely heard from her. The few calls I have had have very quickly ended in "can I go now" like I'm making her speak to me! Today she switches from Mum and Dads to a night or two with Kerrie - not sure who is more excited! Izzy didn't want to be away for that long so she opted not to go. She's very conscious that Abi and Laurie are joined at the hip when together and Ben has his own things he wants to do so she ...

Blame the jet stream...

Shed prep, with oversight from the dogs Apparently we have the jet stream to blame for the truly awful weather we are having right now. I blame our builder - if he had got his act together and sorted out Glenn's workshop roof as he promised, sods law the sun would be shining from dawn to dusk. Instead it's still pouring every half hour and Glenn is constantly worried about how much water is coming though the roof / walls / floor etc. Apparently he 'literally' just needs to put the ridge on the top and the gully down the side and it will all be fixed. We are literally at the point of wanting to do him some actual bodily harm. The moment he disappears the better. This week he was also literally going to clad the office ("done") and has failed everyday to turn up and do it (which in my book is literally not "done"). He was also going to have Gary come and finish the electrics (not done), whack down the paving slabs (not done), render the last of the bri...

Ypres

Walking around the lake in Ypres while waiting for the rugby to finish! A wet Monday evening after a lovely long weekend away in Ypres - just the two of us and just what I needed after what has been a relatively stressful few months of decision making. The decision is now made however and on Monday I resigned my job in order to join a new company in January. This will be the same role, but a company that hopefully offers more long term stability than my current one. It's been hard going through the initial round of telling people.Despite only being there for 7 months I've made some good friends and very quickly become established and everybody who I've told has been happy for me but very sad that I'm going - it hasn't made it easy. I do feel like I've been through the mill a bit this year - what with leaving EY, ramping up to a big new role, finding out it probably didn't have the longevity I was looking for and then going through the process of finding ...