I feel life I have a bit of writer’s block at the moment, which explains the lack of blog last week and frankly the slightly Christmas newsletter style of this one. My editor has been suggesting all sorts of changes, additions, corrections: mostly all met with a “nah” from me. Hopefully normal service will be resumed next week!
So here goes…
It’s hard to believe we’ve been here for four months already. In a strange way, time has been running at two different speeds simultaneously. The weeks here are flying by, but at the same time, our old life in London seems long gone.
As you can imagine, we’re gradually slipping into a routine. I take Alice to school three days a week, which I could never have done in London. Even better, my office is only about 15 minutes from the school, so I can be a lot more involved with what she’s getting up to at school: yesterday, for example, I went to watch her in a dance recital at lunchtime. Charlie is juggling three jobs: two different Pilates studios and subbing at Alice’s school. So far, she’s taught Spanish to some early teens, taken a class of first graders all day, and helped with younger children. Whilst the school teaching has a lot more responsibilities attached than Pilates, it’s true that teachers do it for love rather than to get filthy rich.
Alice is doing everything that we hoped: swimming a lot, cycling, playing outside with neighbours her age, and living the outdoor lifestyle. The other week she decided to wade around in the marsh, get covered in sticky black mud and lose a shoe. I did try to find it, but almost lost my own shoe too. It’s not uncommon to get through several sets of clothes per day – and that’s just me…
The good news is that, even though some parts of daily life are getting routine, other parts are not. We’re finding it easier to do many more different things, from spending a weekend at the beach to taking the bunnies for a drive on the golf cart in the evening. We’re enjoying every minute of it, and almost every day we find time to stop and appreciate how lucky we are.
(no filter!)
South of the Mason-Dixon line 