3 weeks and counting...

I'd like to be more prepared than this, but really, I'm not

We had our meeting at RR on Tuesday and finally got told that the secondment paperwork was mostly all sorted and that we are good to go. They wanted us there for the 1st June, but we have put it back a week, primarily because of my eye appointment. So we leave a few days later!

I should be scared and quite frankly worried by the fact that it seems that we have done nothing much to prepare for this move, but it seems that it'll all be taken care of. They asked whether we would like a trip to Berlin next week to go on the scouting tour and see where the shops, doctors, schools, parks etc are and to try and secure an apartment, but there seems no point when we will be moving there just the following week. An odd thing to say perhaps but we have the option of moving into a serviced apartment for 2 weeks and doing the tour and apartment search then.

So the reason for starting this blog has finally arrived and yet now it's here I'm not really allowed to talk about it. The deal is really quite good and I am really happy that a lot of the worry has been taken out of things for us. We'll get a lot of help once we get there, so it should be a pretty smooth transition. Mind you, I always say things like that and of course it's a mess.

So since Tuesday we have arranged medicals, sold the garden swings and toys, read a lot of documentation, each had a sleepless night, sat and watched a whole evening of tv when afterwards we both felt we should have been doing something, had letting agents round to visit, got the car cleaned and ready for sale, and been to Woburn Safari Park.

The trip to Woburn today was great. We took ages getting there because i missed a signpost and we ended up about 20 miles away, and once we got there we had to scoot round as fast as we could so that we could race back for the first letting agent. No hanging around and taking photos from the front seat for us! Especially not as I left the camera in the boot and then couldn't get out of the car to get it in case I got mauled.

But it was great, and we got tickets for £1 each as it was their 40th Anniversary, so I am pleased that we didn't spend £52. The kids weren't too pleased about the whole being in the car thing. they had already sat for 2 hours and it didn't seem like fun sitting in it even with giraffes walking past. So kind and creative parents that we are, once we scooted out of the safari park with no stopping, we headed back on to the M1 and took them to the services and let them have a little stroll round WH Smith. I even let them both touch a Turkish Delight, and then it was back in the car and just back in time.

Tonight I am planning on retiring to my bed to read a folder full of boring Word documents and attempting to put them in some order of critical priority. There are forms which should have been with the removal company 4 weeks ago. Ah well. All this though after I start going through things for anything that we can take to the dump. We chose our container size (1000 cubic ft) and I didn't think till later that that's just 10 ft x 10 ft x 10 ft. Stevie thought it was adequate, but I don't think he knows how much stuff I have stashed in every corner of the house.

Goodbye curtain finials that I never used, goodbye lots of towels and bedding that I would have got rid of eventually, goodbye lots of Stevie's stuff that he'll never notice...

love, Disgusted from Derbyshire

Dear Childline,

My mum and dad turned my cotbed into a bed the other night after I threatened to hurl myself over the edge into the abyss. Not exactly a suicide attempt, just a call for help, well a request really, or maybe a demand to get into Mummy's bed. Things haven't really panned out in my favour though. I am being punished. Terribly. They gave me the freedom to roam my room but have shifted the stair gate from the top of the stairs to my bedroom doorway. If I knew some bad words I'd be using them. What will they do next?: Bars on the window? I have shown them my feelings on this by slamming the door in their faces every time I am put to bed.

I don't think they like me. Despite all their kisses and cuddles and words of affection; they just don't understand me. I never get to do anything I want. And just because I nearly gassed them in their beds, well that was an accident. Doesn't mean that my every move has to be monitored. Not my fault that they didn't check that I'd been turning the gas hob on before bed. And it was someone else I am sure that left the oven on all night and the freezer door just opens itself about 3 times every day. I'd send it back.

And I'm only being helpful when I turn your 30 degree wash up to 90 degrees somewhere through the cycle. Knitwear can never be too small. But it might have been me that tore open a big box of Cheerios, and put an open bag of flour into your handbag. Admittedly, I was covered in evidence. But it could have been my sister. I think it must have been her that pulled all the toilet roll out Andrex puppy style.

But it definitely couldn't have been me that emptied a big cup of juice into a little tiny tub on the coffee table, soaking my mum's new Elle Decoration and probably making it unreadable, and then letting it overflow on to the floor, because I've been busy typing this, haven't I?

Not that great that you need to steal it

Have you looked at the photos? After reading a few blog posts which mentioned Google Stats and the strange search terms that have led people to various blogs I thought I'd look into it.And then I googled my own blog and found this scoundrel!

A strange post to decide to copy I think. I am intrigued by the translation into another language and obviously back into English. But I am really shocked that they have even posted the picture of Hamish. It's just all a bit odd. What is the point in this? What's the purpose?

I left a message and a complaint.

The original post

Where's Tony Hart's Gallery when you need it?

An Elephant

A Parrot (side view)

A Pig (with tail)

A(nother) Pig

Drawing seems to have clicked in with Orla. One day it's all random scribbles, the next we have a lovely selection of animals. I think they're great, but I may be just the tiniest bit biased.

An offer you can refuse quite easily

Stevie, in case you haven't already realised, was raised by wolves and in his early 20's was discovered in a sunny glade by his 'parents' while out enjoying a picnic. There are many reasons why I believe this to be fact, and the more years I spend with him, the more convinced I am. While I don't want to publicly embarrass him I shall briefly list just a few key examples that have had me wondering...

1. S: "Where does leather come from?", F: "Where do you think leather comes from?", S: "I don't know? Monkey hands?".
2. Doing one of these word puzzles with a picture question in the centre: S: "What is this big rat thing?" F: "A badger"

Actually, there are many more examples but I think these two cover it pretty accurately. I love him to bits but I wonder how someone can get to 35 without ever having seen a badger, even on TV. He explains it by saying that as a child he wasn't interested in TV and didn't read much and really only wanted to play football. But it always seems odd to me that you can avoid just learning things by osmosis.

Apart from an all-encompassing lack of general knowledge, Stevie also seems to have a bit of a blank when it comes to etiquette or the general way that people do things. I find it harder to think of examples as our conversations on why people just do it that way tend to end up with me being very frustrated and arguing "that's just the way it is!". Sometimes the fact that he questions convention is a good thing, but mostly it's just odd.

So following the great bike robbery at the weekend Stevie has embraced the internet and has started looking on eBay for a new bike. I think he was looking for his actual bike, but then he found that there was a wealth of choice and exciting new bikes that he hadn't previously considered. I loaned him my username and password and let him bid away on whatever took his fancy. Except that's not what he's been doing. The Stevie way to eBay is to find what you're after and then contact the seller and offer them £100 less than their starting price.

Maybe I've been doing it all wrong.

too much time

Having too much time on my hands is not something that I struggle with very often. But Day 2 in the Scarlet Fever house and I'm bored of everything. I even turned to housework yesterday, which is just not like me. It must have sparked a thought in my subconcious that I must be coming down with something, for today in the little moments between seeing to Orla and prising Hamish off the back of the sofa, I started thinking about whether or not I might be suffering from a brain tumour.

I then:
1. Mulled over whether I could wait till my eye client appointment and ask if they could see any inflammation which might suggest a tumour.
2. Allowed myself to check out the symptoms on NHS Direct.
3. Unsatisfied with their vagueness, looked on a juicier, less reliable site.
4. Discovered I didn't have a brain tumour.
5. Remembered that I'd had my blood pressure medication changed and checked out the common side effects.
6. Bingo!

I did say I might go a bit mental being stuck in the house, but I didn't expect it to happen quite so quickly. So, we went for a drive. And I feel much better!

scarlet fever/cabin fever

Watch out for the symptoms of madness coming through this blog this week. Orla picked up scarlet fever from nursery on Thursday (these free nursery places for 3 year olds are a double-edged sword I tell ye!) and we've had a lovely weekend of vomit and feeling awful. It's not often that Orla is properly ill but this is the kind of thing that has her lying on the sofa and wailing "I just not feeling very well".

My trip to the out-of-hours GP on Sunday morning was extremely fruitful. We came back empty handed as Orla still hadn't got the rash, but every other symptom, and that's not enough for them to give her the antibiotic. So back home we went with 'suspected scarlet fever' to find in the 35 minutes we'd been away the shed had been broken into and Stevie's bike pinched.

The rotters! They left mine! It seems the robbers of today are a walking version of 'GoCompare' and can tell at a glance that my bike is worth about half of Stevie's despite the fact that mine is in sparkling, barely-used condition compared to his mud-splattered used-every-day one. We phoned the police so we could get a crime number for the insurance as Stevie needs to replace his bike for work as soon as possible. I didn't expect the police to come round for about 2 weeks, but seems Sunday morning is a slow time for crime in Derby and they came round just 20 minutes later.

Today Stevie is off to work on my bike and I took Orla round to our GP with a nice bowl to be sick in. Don't they do home visits anymore? I could feel the stares as people looked at the poor child being dragged to the doctor carrying a sick bowl, and I had to ask one woman to keep her baby away from us which was nice. I felt like the kind of irresponsible parent that sends her child to nursery with scarlet fever (not that I'm annoyed, or anything!).

So we are house-bound for at least a few days until the antibiotic kicks in, and already I have cabin fever. Please post survival kits to us. Oh and dinner too, because I haven't got anything in for tonight. And I promise we won't breathe on you...

(especially if you nick my bike as you leave)