The land of smiles

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In precisely one week time we will be on an aeroplane flying off into the night on our first big family adventure...

In seven days we leave for Thailand and do not plan on returning for 6 months. Our bags are pretty much packed, our visas and passports ready to go and now we are just saying farewell to our friends and family. 

Every now and then it hits me and my stomach does a little flip and my heart swells. We are well and truly treading the path we have always been too timid to follow. 

Busy bees

Things here have been a little bit manic. M has gone back to work and looking after little and littlest has been a new experience for me. My days have been filled with moments of pure love, and joy and moments of utter pain and frustration. We are all working hard to find the best way to make it work and some days are more challenging than others but I am getting a new insight into how to keep my babies happy in the midst of change and uncertainty. We have also taken a couple of trips to see our loved ones who live further away. A week full of birthday parties and smiles in London and a weekend by the sea meeting our friends' scrumptious new baby boy. I feel incredibly blessed to have such wonderful people in my life although my heart often aches as so many of them are so far away.

This week we have been packing up the last of our bits and bobs ready to be on the move again. Our time here has been lovely and has helped us start weaving our ideas together into a full picture of our family's future. This Friday we move to my parents for a week and then on to M's parents for the following week and then...

Expending all my energy keeping my little ones happy has meant that writing has somewhat fallen by the wayside. I have a computer full of half started blog posts, a journal full of ideas and a camera left at the bottom of my bag. We have made some big plans for the coming months, fulfilling some dreams and have a lot to look forward to. Keep watching this space...

A change of plans

When we first decided to move away from London our dream had been to buy a camper van and pootle around Europe for a year or as long as we could manage on the small income we were getting as rent for our flat. So we sold up most of our belongings, found an interim home to birth our daughter in and started planning. The more we planned the more we realised that driving around Europe would not only take a lot more money than we had but would also put a lot of strain on us at a time when we all needed to rest and realign . After the birth of Little Bit we came to the difficult realisation, the Europe trip was going to be too much for our little family to cope with at the moment and that we would be over stretching ourselves.  Roaming Europe has been not given up on, just postponed. Hopefully, when the girls are older and can get more from it and when we have spent a little more time planning and saving we can make it a reality.

So we are having to make a change of plans. We need somewhere where we can live as cheaply and easily as possible for as long as possible. Somewhere away from the cold and rain. Somewhere we can relax and just be together. Somewhere M can spend time with his children, watching them grow and building the relationship with Bean work constraints had prevented him from building in London. We don't need much in terms of space or luxuries, we are all currently still in a family bed in one room so a one bedroom shack would do. We are daydreaming of days playing and learning together under the sun and nights filled with starlight and the hum of cicadas.


This week I am grateful for...

• Achey muscles
• A moment in the sunshine
• Having my sister around
• A good roast
• Rich, dark chocolate

Reflection

As we tip-toe closer to the end of our time here we need to start making choices about what our future holds for us. Making plans has alway been a habit of mine, the plans are incredibly fluid and prone to change but in my little notebook there will always be an extensive plan outlining our goals and thoughts for the next few years. These plans were usually quite ambitious but always a little way in the future, but now, after our somewhat sudden upheaval, everything has been brought to the present, without our things we no longer have the ties that we were hiding behind, the reasons not to do the adventurous things, the exciting things we dreamt of. 

But, I realise now how torn I am, how much I miss the comfort of our day to day existence, the friends, the activities, the joy of a warm house. I know when our time here has come to an end how heavy my heart will be, how much being close to my family has meant to me, the opportunity for my family to get to know Bean and Little Bit a bit better, the chance to reconnect with old friends. I know tomorrow is full of adventure and excitement, the golden suns and splashing waves that my heart is yearning for on these blustery grey days but no blue sky or warm breeze will take away our need for those we love, for our friends and our families. 

We want so much to learn and explore but are  coming to realise that we will also still need roots, a home in-between wanderings, and that roots need to be planted somewhere, but the question is where? How can we marry our conflicting wants and needs? So we are trying to answer these questions and paint a vision of our future that makes our hearts sing. I am hoping soon that we will be able to share it with you. For now we will sit in the present, drinking in the things that make this moment special before our world changes again.

This week I am grateful for...

• Nights where we are all in-sync
• Ice cream and catch ups
• Good friends
• Sharing a weathered smile
• Moments alone with Bean
• Smooth skin and button noses
• Knowing that even on bad days the love is still there
• Moments of laughter on days filled with tears
• A rare blue sky

Go West

So, here we are. The deed has been done and we are now officially (albeit temporary) citizens of the West and it is lovely. I can't quite get over how idyllic it is. I've missed walking past people who almost all give you a nod, a smile or hello. It's nice to be able to smile at a passer by without them instantly assuming you are going to mug them. I can now say thank you to bus drivers and strike up conversations with strangers without feeling like a complete weirdo. It's good to be back home.

Our walk into town is like something out of a Dickensian novel, cobbled streets lined with beautiful cottages with the scent of freshly baked bread wafting from their windows. Streets filled with the most beautiful little shops where we have so far visited the apothecary, candle makers, cobblers, butchers, bakers and green grocers. It really is like another world. Part of me fears that we could get a little bit too comfortable here, to settle down again and disrupt our best laid plans. We will try our hardest not to, but for now we will bask in the beauty of it all and wait for our own little festive miracle to occur before we start the planning and prepping for the next stage...

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