7th Birthday

I'd promised Isobel that we'd take her to a local wildlife park/butterfly farm for her birthday months and months ago, but with the expense of the house move we'd been unable to book it, and when the time came it was fully booked, so I had to find something fast and plan a party at home in a week. Mad panics ensued and I called every animal encounters party in the south of the country, and somehow found one with a space on the Sunday afternoon.

The whole thing was brilliant, a seriously great idea for a kids birthday, worth every penny!

Nights out

I've been very lucky recently and have lots of fantastic nights out with my lovely friends, who have rallied round me and kept me busy. I went to the Lightbox nightclub in Vauxhall, London, for my friend Emma's birthday. It is a seriously beautiful venue, covered in millions of undulating coloured LED lights. It was very pretty!


Then a week later, with barely time in between to recover, I met up with friends I don't get to see very often, and some I've only known online, and went to Pacha and stayed in a hotel in London.





Both nights out were exactly what I needed to take my mind off everything, it's been a tough couple of months and it was lovely to forget it all and let my hair down.

The Big Move

Well, that was stressful. I don't ever want to do that again. Eurgh!

The whole thing was so tiring though, and Kit didn't sleep the first two nights. He has refused to sleep in his cot(the one I wasted an hour rebuilding), so he's had a big transition of new house AND moving into a big boys bed. Think it was all a bit too much for him and he kept getting in bed with me, but we cracked it last night and he stayed in his room all night. :)

I've been doing really well emotionally, until Pete and I had a massive row yesterday whilst cleaning the old house, and ended up sobbing on each other, which sucked.

All in all the house is fabulous though, it feels more like home every day that passes, and looking out of those back windows out on that view makes it all worthwhile.

My room

Kit was up at 5am. Yikes!

Taylor's room

Bel & Kit's room

Moving

So, a lot has been happening here. I didn't want to post about this before in case it didn't happen. I started looking at houses in the town we were planning on moving to anyway, Taylor goes to school there and I work there, so it was always in 'the plan'. All the letting agents wanted ridiculous admin fees, and a friend suggested I look on Gumtree for a private listing. The first place I saw in the search, in fact the only house in that town that came up, looked good, so I started emailing back and forth with the landlords. I went to view the house about 3 weeks ago, but they wanted a deposit that I just didn't have, and I cried all the way home on my bike(which was fun), because I knew it was 'the house'. I called my Dad; and told him that we'd split up, and he wasn't interested at all. I was, and still am, so upset with him. I'm his only daughter, his only child, and he couldn't even lend me £1500. So, I spent the whole weekend crying about it, I was just distraught.

Without wanting to sound like a complete nutter, I dreamt of this house, and knew it was mine. For quite a few years as a child, between the ages of about 6 and 13, I had reoccurring dreams 2-3 times a year, and they always started in a garden that backed onto fields, with a river, and poplar and willow trees lining the banks. The dreams have cropped up a few times in my day to day adult life, but never as obviously as this. I had to find a way to live there.

I went into work the next day, secured a loan for half the money from a dodgy company, and my work promised to do me a wages advance for the rest, so I called the landlord and told them I wanted it. I then spent a week on edge waiting for the tenant checks to come back ok. It was the longest week of my life!
To cut a very long story short, I am now here, in my final days in this house, that has been my home for 11 years. There have been some problems with securing that last bit of money this week, and wonderful family and friends have helped me out, and now the deposit is paid. I am moving in a days time, to the house in my childhood dreams. I think the little girl I was in the dreams wasn't me, it was Isobel. I was seeing the garden through her eyes.

Eleven Years

Eleven years is a very long time. I don't think I'd noticed before. The years just seemed to rush by, one moulding into the next. Each year bringing with it such gradual changes that I barely noticed them. Life is a pretty fluid thing.

It's only now that Pete and I have decided to split up, and I'm reflecting on all the things we've done, and the places we've been, that eleven years seems like an eternity. We have seen so much, alone and with the children, in those eleven years, that it doesn't seem possible to carry on breathing and seeing the world without my best friend by my side.

I'm having to look back through old photos to help Taylor with his homework, he has to make a slide show of his life, and each photo is like a punch in the stomach. I just feel sick. That photo up there was taken about a month after we met. Sadly I don't think I'll ever be able to look at them and smile again. I just was never perfect enough.

The Invitation by Oriah

It doesn’t interest me
what you do for a living.
I want to know
what you ache for
and if you dare to dream
of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me
how old you are.
I want to know
if you will risk
looking like a fool
for love
for your dream
for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me
what planets are
squaring your moon...
I want to know
if you have touched
the centre of your own sorrow
if you have been opened
by life’s betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed
from fear of further pain.

I want to know
if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.
I want to know
if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you
to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us
to be careful
to be realistic
to remember the limitations
of being human.

It doesn’t interest me
if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear
the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.
I want to know
if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand at the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
“Yes.”

It doesn’t interest me
to know where you live
or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after the night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me
who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the centre of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me
where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know
what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.
I want to know
if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like
the company you keep
in the empty moments.



By Oriah © Mountain Dreaming

Kit is two!

Kit had his second birthday this weekend, and he was a mixture of crazy and charming as always! We didn't throw him a party as he doesn't really have any friends so didn't see the point. He was happy to just have some new toys I think.

Second lesson

Isobel had her second riding lesson at the end of February. She's only going once a month at the moment, so I don't suppose she is going to progress too much in between, but she does practice on Bono her rocking horse at home!

Half Term

How can it possibly be the holidays? Surely they've only just gone back to school?

We haven't done a huge amount with the children, in fact I've felt quite sorry for them as Pete has been cracking the whip and making them de-clutter and clean when he's at home with them and I'm at work. Poor little souls! I took them to the indoor play one day, which was a good thing as it rained from the minute the sun came up to the minute it went down. We walked the 20 minutes there and back so were slightly damp from our travels. Taylor also went to a special holiday karting session today, his second this month, that he saved his birthday money and paid for himself. He was competing against 8 other boys his age, and won the time trial session. No surprise really as he drives like a lunatic.

I finally have a new full time job, I start in a week and I'm very excited about it! It's been tough these last few months to keep our heads above water. Today we have been a bit spend happy in celebration of me getting the new job, and have finally bought a new TV. We've been without a proper TV since the summer, after our big monstrosity inconveniently exploded. It hasn't bothered me too much but all the other family members are total telly addicts. We almost broke all our own rules and got one on credit, but held firm and walked away. We were glad we did once we'd had a look in Tesco on the off-chance, as we got a real bargain. I had quite a lot of vouchers to spend that I'd been saving up, so we got a Sony 40" LCD for £150 cash. Excellent! I also have a nice shiny new moped winging its way to me as we speak...well, once the new plates are released the first week in March. I cant wait to get back on the road and have a bit of independence.

Happy Birthday Taylor!

Blimey, twelve years old! Not that you'd think it, he looks and acts like a 14 year old. How can he have gone from this cute little thing:







To this great big monster?




He is 5ft5 and wears a size 8 shoe. Yikes!

Horseriding

Poor Isobel has never had a hobby because we've spent every spare minute and penny on football for the male members of the family for the last few years. We told her she could have a some money to choose a hobby, and with a little gentle persuasion from me she chose horseriding. It's a family tradition, we've all learnt to ride at some point.

Finding a good riding school here is tricky, they all seem so snooty and unfriendly when you look around, it is very offputting. I remember it being the same when I was a kid, when you found a good yard you stuck with it! We had a look round one just outside Wickford and it was just perfect, there were kids running around everywhere helping, and the owner was really approachable.

She had her first one last weekend and she loved it. She was a real natural, and was trotting round like a pro, and even did a little bit off the lead rein. We were all very impressed! My Mum has bought her a hat, jodhpurs and gloves ready for next time.

Bloody Ebay!

The people on there get right on my nerves. Our massive new-ish plasma TV broke in the summer last year, we couldn't afford to fix it so it has just sat there mocking us blankly ever since. I listed it on Ebay for 99p, and someone won it for about £55. They mucked us about for two weeks, sending messages about collecting it, then no one would bother, so in the end I had to open an unpaid item thingamijig. It all worked out fine in the end as I relisted it and got £65 cash for it, but it annoyed me that there is now no way to give that dodgy buyer negative feedback, so they can just go on messing sellers around. Buggers. I had the same thing happen when I sold my moped on there.

Go karting

Taylor had go karting vouchers for christmas from my Mum, and he nagged us like mad to take him as soon as the holidays were over, and we finally relented the first week in January. Thankfully the track is indoors, but it is still bloody freezing!
Kit enjoys watching the karts though, anything with wheels and he is happy.

Happy 2011!

I am keeping my fingers very tightly crossed that this year will be better. We seem to have one good year, then one bad year. We are due a good one, so I hope the pattern follows. Of course, that means that this time next year I'll have a terrible one to look forward to!

We went to a party at a friends for New Years Eve. We took Kit with us and put him to bed in his travel cot, and he was a massive pain in the rear and we had to take it in turns to sit with him for a while. Our friends 8 month old was also there, and he went straight to sleep. Maybe Archie can give Kit sleeping lessons.

We have loads to get done this year, and what better time to take stock of it all than the first day. We have so much to do in the house to finish it, and as soon as we do stuff, new things break or blow up. We still have the floor to lay in the living room, skirting and coving to put up, painting the whole of the downstairs, swapping bedrooms around, and recarpeting the upstairs. I just wish I could wake up and it was all done! We are both at risk of losing our jobs, again, so are desperately searching for more work without much luck, and of course we cant decorate with no money. We are plodding through it all slowly though.

Portraits

We had a little bit of nice daylight, for a change, so I took some new pictures of the youngest two. My camera isn't good at this time of year really, it hates the dreary weather.