Up and' At 'Em!

Back on the line.... hello world!


We dunnit - we're all in.

It's chaos but lovely here. Funny how I fought moving to here so fiercely as I wanted to move closer to stuff we do but when I finally got here - I got all cooey. All the boys were still at Nanny and Grandad's, Minx was already banging nails in the wall up in her room and Mr Roving Blade had disappeared to score some chips. I wandered round the garden all peaceful-like (after the day's intensity) and spotted a smoking tree (deep red one) and silver birches and rose bushes and yellow dangly flowered thingies (must look this stuff up) and found I had a little bitty tear in my eye as it all felt wonderful. I even felt a bit guilty that I was being unfaithful to the 'old' house. It may only be 800 yards up the same road but I feel like I'm in a wholly new area. It's so beautiful!

Back to earth..... Priorities keep switching. Things are missing. Things appear in odd places. Things get pulled from a box to be stuffed straight into another charity bag. The panic packing was truly mystifying. Ooh what's in this shoebox? Nothing! Who packed that???!!!

But we are here. We are here. We are here. We are here......

The monkeys have carved out a bike track already that goes all the way around the house. Thuglet has a wild new vista of places to wee. I have built-in wardrobe and can see AND REACH ALL my clothes - for the first time EVER!!! (Funny sight but hey.... ) The Aga isn't an Aga but is a Stanley and after a couple of scared pokey sessions we are now on grunting terms. I can do part-baked baguettes and jacket potatoes and pizza - hey! I have the biggest ever airing cupboard which is so exciting I can't tell you. And a larder!!!! The perfect place to wedge suitcases. I can see donkeys and horses from my bedroom window. Although I was a bit freaked out the other night when I thought my white garden chairs were moving about - turned out to be them donkeys. Eerie things in moonlight are white donkeys. What else..... ?

Ohhhh - lots of STUFF. You know what it's like. There's still a mountain to climb - I mean that literally - the men came to pick up the boxes last week so we've pulled everything out. So now we have towers of STUFF to find homes for. It's the usual thing - a bigger house but less storage. So you know.... I have a stereo, tool boxes, a sack of percussion and four sleeping bags on the dining table. Stacks of empty baskets in every corner - they must've had things in them in the last place.... And a tub full of 'man' things - bits of dishwasher, knobs off things, assorted big screws and light switches etc. We all know we don't need them, but are too nellified to throw them away. Someone's dad might just know what it all means and think of it as treasure. Well..... we have a shed. However full it may already be with a lawn mower, drum kit, an inherited flowerpot cityscape and someone else's motorised golf trolley blah blah blah.... We've got a queue of half-ful paint pots ready to jump in ahead of all those bikey bits. Think we got a bit over-excited when we saw Sheddy. Think Sheddy's gonna blow......

But it's all fab. Even if we do get the occasional bucket of sausage skins left on the doorstep. 'The shop's shut - so I'll leave them here.' Thanks. That's what you get when you live in the farmhouse of a real actual working farm wiv a real actual farm butchers shop. Shame my kids only eat cheapo Richmond sausages really. They just won't entertain them real actual fat sausages that might just taste of something.

And we even saw people peeking around the old house. 'Did they look scared?' asked Mr RB. They didn't look very happy. Last night I spotted someone's chopped off the yew's big bough that stops big vans getting through the gates - we never thought of that. That's Mr Tree you unsentimental bastards! Poor Mr Tree.

So wot wiv all this work to do I haven't got time to sit here gassin'. Just got all perky when I'd seen Mr RB had built me little table for the 'pooter when I'd got back from a day of crazy bike-riding adventures. (Sitting on a nice padded chair - heaven.... ) He now has a ready-made office here so our time-sucker can be on a proper desk. There's another one in the sun room next to the tumble dryer (still getting used to that) that I imagine I will skip down to every morning and draw pictures on. Obviously when we've got everything straight I will. Obviously. But first things first - I waded through my 479 e-mails last night and announced my return on Facebook. Next job is to embark on the blog world catch up - let sleeping bags lie I say. My people are calling!!!

Deep breath. One blog at a time eh? Now who's first?