At Home

So, it's November 10th and we're spending our first night in the new house. It's been an auspicious day since Sophie has, for the first time, said 'Mama' and 'Dada' quite clearly today! We've spent the last 72 hours scouring the local shops to get the things we need to fill this enormous place and feel like we've made a lot of progress already. By the end of this week we'll have almost all of the kit we think we need and will hopefully have started to build a routine here for ourselves and the kids.

Amelie is loving the fact that not only has she got easy access to all of her toys, but also the fact that she has space to enjoy them. Her new scooter - thank you Simon & Victoria - is getting a great deal of use downstairs and her new toy rack is making everything so easy to find and use. I don't know how we'll ever cope with a small house again.

Off to bed now to listen to all the strange noises of the new house. At least we'll not have the dubious pleasure of sirens at all hours through the night, although our lack of curtains means we'll not have much of a lie-in even if the girls don't wake early. The whisky will help with this at least for the first couple of nights....

On the Eve of moving

Here we are on the verge of moving into our new home. Something we've been looking forward to yet something we're now a little daunted by. The hope that somehow it will change our experience by being more settled seems over-ambitious as we're still going to have to strive to create a 'normal' life for ourselves. We still miss all of our friends and our life back home, and we've still got to get Amelie settled into the new nursery and into a new rhythm. It will get better, it must!

Our first Post

Here we are, three weeks in to our American adventure. The last weeks have seen us move from desperate unhappiness with our choice of move, to starting to see what a great opportunity this is for us. There's still some way to go as we're not yet even in our own home with our own possessions but the weekend just gone we got out to enjoy the New England fall colours, which are truly spectacular.

We've just had the pleasure of a visit from Sonia and Alex together, which has been a real treat given we've not seen either of them in the last year. The world is a small place but only if everyone's movements coincide; we both wonder where and when we'll see them again. It brings home the pleasure and value of having the family close by.

The kids are well settled already. Sophie has gained pounds since she's been here - and no we haven't been feeding her cheeseburgers - and Amelie has settled enough to not want her pete and bear with her at every moment. In fact, the time she's spent with Ali rather than in the nursery seems to have moved her on with her speech and her self-confidence. She's already started to say hi and I don't doubt it will be little time before she starts asking 'how're YOU doing?'

We hope to keep this blog going as we make Riverside our home and get properly settled here. Watch this space.