Post Holiday update
The last couple of weeks have been absolutely crazy, so here’s a catch-up! Tracy will likely be on later to get you all a more warm and fuzzy update along with pics.
22-Dec – Spencer and I headed out of the flat early with a Van load of all the stuff we were not taking to Wales for the holiday. Our plan was to go to the lettings agent office, sign the final paperwork, and pick up keys for the house, then drop off our load, zip back up to Maida vale and pick up the rest of the family. The only small glitch in our execution was that I got slightly turned around after crossing the Vauxhall Bridge. We eventually found the place, and were still earlier than we needed to be…so plenty of time. We got our keys, and Spence and I headed over to the house…he was pretty excited since he was the first of the family other than Tracy and I to see the inside of the house. I gave him a quick tour, but we needed to get going since check-out time was upon us. We left the cleaners in peace.
The kids were super excited to get to see the inside of the house. We’d driven by the weekend before after we bought our new 1997 Toyota Previa, but it was dark and you couldn’t see much. They all got to roam around a bit, and all agreed with the choices of rooms we had made for them. The only hold-out was Taija. She wasn’t happy at all with the house, let alone her rather small room. Now, in fairness, she has a room that’s probably 10×11 (small for America, but could easily hold a double bed) and she has a loft bed (meaning, all of that 10×11 is hang-out space for her desk, chair, stuff)…she was disappointed because it had carpet (she wanted wood) and…oh, the reasons were endless.
Getting through that, we were ready to head out of the city to Wales. The drive (according to Google) should be slightly under 4 hours. We were getting away about an hour later than I wanted to be…but it was all good…we had a place to be for the holidays that had some furniture. We found the way, and although I’m sure the drive was beautiful, it so overcast that the light didn’t last long once the sun went down at about 3:50…I hadn’t realized exactly how short the days are this far north of the equator. We made our final 50 miles in darkness, which made navigating the single lane Welsh roads somewhat of a challenge. We eventually found the place, key hidden under the flower pot, and settled in. Since we hadn’t had room in the car for food, Taija and I took off to find a store in Carmarthen (apparently only a few miles away) that was still open to stock-up…luckily my urban planning skills held, and I found the giant Tesco Extra.
Anyway, we settled into life in Wales very easily…enough beds for all. It was a little strange being on someone else’s farm, in the middle of horses and pigs and cats and sheep, but it was all we had expected…and perfect for what we needed. We spent the first few days getting ready for Christmas, having Christmas, having our big boxing day feast (turkey and all the trimmings on Christmas day has fallen out of fashion for us). After Boxing day, we headed out to explore a bit of Carmarthenshire, and we found the ruins of a castle not far away…one that had been built about 900 years ago, and destroyed by an attack by Edward I of England. We also found a more modern monument to the glory of Lord Admiral Nelson (built in the 1700’s it was still pretty cool). Then we moved on to a 1000 years old Abbey…we had a lovely day…although the bitter cold had settled in, so our time out of the car was briefer than we would have liked.
The day before we left we headed over to The White Hart Thatched Inn and Brewery for Sunday roast…which was brilliant. The place was built 600 years or so, and it was pretty cool to be just hanging out there with so much history surrounding us…and our kind of history too…pub history!
29-Dec – Move in day! We made it back to the house with 10 minutes to spare…the movers were already staked out in front of the house, and it didn’t take us long to get them working. We all bundled up seeing that the heat in the house had been turned way down for a week, and the weather had turned bitterly cold…having the door open for the entire day wasn’t going to help things. The movers unloaded our two trucks in the first day, and then returned to unpack some stuff, and assemble some others the next morning.
It took fully three days for the ambient temperature of the house to get up to a reasonable 20, and the thermostat to kick off. I’ve programmed the boiler to stay on 24 hours for the next while until it stops being January weather.
30-Dec – Our first shopping trip for stuff for the house. We spend an unbelievable 5 hours at IKEA…apparently just like casino in Vegas, the lack of windows must be accompanied by pure Oxygen to keep shoppers full of energy. We got a bunch of stuff for Taija’s room and a whole heap of stuff for the kitchen in order to make it work for us. We had plans to do some other shopping but when we got out (in the dark) and noticed it was 6 o’clock, the wind left our sails and we headed home to unload and get some dinner.
31-Dec – Tracy, Jesse and I headed up to find an ASDA (part of the Wal-Mart family) to get the hors d’œuvres for our New Years feast. Exploring other areas of London has become quite a habit of ours. That done (another 4 hours shopping) we settled into an evening of games, food, drink and cheer. We were even able to enjoy some neighbour’s fireworks at midnight.
1-Jan – We’ve really spent the last week mostly just getting things unpacked, and working through the house room by room. It’s really coming together very well, and very quickly. The only unpacked boxes remain in the study which has become the catch all as we put the rest of the rooms in order. The house is more amazing that we remembered from our brief visit, and the more we find out about our neighbourhood, the happier we are with our choice. We seem to have found the biggest pocket of homeschooler’s in London, we have met a few of our neighbours already, and they’re all super friendly and happy here…some having lived here about 25 years. There are decent shops on our local high street, and two blocks down the road on the other side of the tracks is West Norwood high street which is even better. All the kids are super comfortable here, and the lack of a telly has been good for them for a while The three littles got Nintendo DSes for Christmas, and we’re finding that having such easy access to a video game system has done exactly what I’ve been predicting…it’s just another thing to occupy some of their time. They more often than we thought put them down to move on to something else.
