New "Toy"

This arrived for me today: 

 

There is slight debate in the household as to whether this is a "toy" in the sense it's just a pleasure item. I have been told it's a hobby. I point out it saves us money; that it's an investment. Time will tell. But in the meantime, isn't it shiny and fabulous??

I don't even know what most of these stitches are for yet, but it looks impressive. I also love how they name sewing machines, in a manner similar to stereo equipment. It's very easy to look clever/geeky/obnoxious by rolling off a sentence like, "I was considering the DC3050, but after talking to several people, they suggested checking out the SMD3000, the 301 and  the 5124 as well." 

It also came with these as a bonus gift: 

That's 50km length of thread you are looking at. I could sew from my house to the 2012 Olympic Stadium with that. I could sew my way to the Olympics! More realistically, I could probably sew several cool things that I've pinned on Pinterest. 

Worryingly, it also came with these as a gift:

This may not look like a problem but it is. Mitchell is currently OBSESSED with cutting. When he saw the pack of scissors, his eyes lit up and he said "My scissors!" He was quickly corrected, but still, we'll have to watch him. Because this is what it normally looks like when he gets scissors:

But worse, it occasionally looks like this: 

Which yes, is about the fifth thing I ever sewed, (sob); a little bag to match a dress I made for Lena. Lena made sure he knew that cutting things rather than approved paper is not acceptable (with lots of tears and screaming at him) but he's only 2, sometimes the seductive power of cutting things gets the better of him. Watch this space for creativity and destruction to come. 

Off to School

Time has done its one-way linear trick of making 5 years pass since I started this blog. I now have a daughter old enough to go to school in Britain. This will probably bring about a whole new set of posts about how things are different. But it's a question as to whether things are different because of location or different because of the passage of time.

For example, when I was little, I walked by myself to and from school. As did everyone I know. Now no one here does this, certainly not for the first several years. They have some sort of adult escort with them until they are at least 8 or so. Possibly longer, depending on paranoia concern of the parent or the route the child needs to take to school. But this is no different to how it is in Canada either. I know my friends and relatives do the same for their children too.

Escorting your children to and from school is quite an interesting one for me already. Having walked the short path from our house to the school, I always felt that it would be relatively early when I would allow my daughter to walk to school on her own. However, that was before I saw how busy it is with cars at school drop-off time. The road we walk that goes past the school has no sidewalk on the part we take and there are loads of people driving past at that time. My daughter is sensible, but I don't know about the drivers. Late for school, late for work, kids fighting in the back, etc etc. One week has already made me postpone my plans for her walking herself by at least a year or two.

The other BIG difference for me is the uniform. When I went to school, you just wore your everyday clothes. But here, it's a uniform. There is a list of clothes that I had to buy over the summer and I spent around £130 on everything, and this wasn't buying the most expensive items either. One summer dress, part of the summer uniform which she can wear until the half-term break in October. After that it's the winter uniform which is either a grey skirt and blouse or grey pinafore (aka jumper dress in AmEng) and blouse. So a skirt and 2 pinafores. Plus then green tights and white socks, as necessary. Then also, they have to have specific clothes for gym class (aka PE). This is a bit silly to me, as for the amount kids sweat at this age, I really don't see a point of trying to get thirty 4/5 year old children changed out of uniforms, into gym clothes and back into uniform. I suppose it might save wear and tear on the uniform and be slightly less restrictive, but it seems like a big bother for little benefit. For this I had to get a shirt with the school crest on it and also shorts and "plimsoles". Plimsoles were a bit of a mystery to me. They were a word I was familiar enough from reading English books to know that they were a shoe, but I wasn't very sure what kind of shoe it was. In the end I had to ask another woman in the store who was school clothes shopping to help me know exactly what they were. And then there was the conundrum of whether they had to be black, or whether white was acceptable. And if white was acceptable, if the ones with the daisy embellishment on it that L. had fallen in love with would also pass muster.

This all was both amusing me by confusing me but also stressing me out slightly. You want to make sure your child fits in and feels accepted at the start of their school path. The last thing I wanted to do was to get the wrong thing and have my daughter upset because it wasn't the same as everyone else's or for the teacher to comment on it and me have to go and rush to buy the right thing. Not having at least the slight familiarity of how things work with a uniform and what the standards are, I had to use my common sense and place a few emergency calls to friends with little ones also starting to ask for advice. Fortunately my friends were quite helpful and in the end, my common sense got tired of me anguishing over a pair of £4 sneakers and said if they really wanted things to be so strict, they would have made the uniform list more detailed. So white plimsoles/sneakers with daisies is what I bought. And a crested cardigan. And crested fleece jacket. And 2 pairs of black shoes. And a water bottle. And I still have to buy the book bag. And the gym bag. And all the labels to put on all this kit so that there's a reasonable chance we'll finish the year with the same amount of stuff as we started.

This first week she went to school for half-days. Next week they will stay for lunch and then come home. The week after, it will be full-time, all-day. It's now the end of the first week and she's tired. She enjoyed it and both of us were excited on her first day, probably me even more than her. It's a bit sad, to see the end of this beginning. But we are long way from the beginning of the end; there is far more good to come.

A Glorious Week

The past 7 days have been absolutely spectacular spring weather. It's been sunny and warm every day. It's still only spring, because as soon as you are out of the sun you can feel there is still a nip in the air, but out in the sun you would think it was late May rather than late March. Lena and I have been enjoying the backyard and also trips up to the park and the allotment. Lena is much more into the allotment this year. She enjoys digging around with the little trowel. I have a toy one for her somewhere which I should find as sometimes I need the trowel and she's not quite willing to give it over. The hoe is also something she enjoys; by pretending it's the see-saw and singing Margery Daw while on it. I'm very impressed at how well she can sing it. I'm also happy to say she has no fear of bugs or worms or anything, whenever I find a worm to show her, she wants to have a "little talk" with the worm and give it a kiss. One day after being up at the allotment and putting in potatoes, I told her to tell G what we had planted. She happily told him, "We plant worms!" 

To me, it's unusual to get such a long period of time with steady good weather here in the UK, so I have really been enjoying seeing the sun everyday. Coming from one of the sunniest parts of North America, (Alberta gets more sunshine hours per year than Florida) it makes it easier to get things done and to get out and about when the sun is shining. Of course, now that I've blogged about it, it will likely rain to biblical proportions or descend into the next ice age or something.

Going with my gut

One of the negatives of living as an expat means that your extended family usually isn't close. Some people might actually view this as a positive, but they tend to be wrong. If for no other reason that we can't take advantage of Lena's grandparents for babysitting opportunities. It's hardly like we are total socialites with a busy events calendar, but there are occasions when it is an adults-only affair, or we would simply like a couple hours together without having to include a near 2-year old in the conversations.

The first time we used a babysitter it was on a recommendation from a random person on a local parents' email group. We've ended up using her many times since, but the first time it was really a case of her showing up, us spending 10 minutes talking with her, then walking out the door to leave our small sleeping child in the hands of an unknown person. This didn't bother me that much actually, for a couple of reasons. One, we were only a 5 minute walk away, so could be home easily in case of emergency. Two, I think I'm a fairly good judge of character and don't need that long to make a decision about someone. I have made mistakes in the past, but these are rare.

I think for lots of parents, this must be something really hard, to be able to leave your child in basically a stranger's hands. Of course you don't have to live in a foreign country to face this situation, but it does make it more likely. I can only hope my judgement remains accurate in the future for any new babysitters.

Grand European Tour - with child

Once again, we have been on holidays. This may seem rather excessive to some, but I always say everyone makes their own choices in life. We live in a small house, only have one car and live well within our means. We choose to spend our money on travel. Others make other choices and that's their choice. Plus, if we didn't travel, we'd hardly ever see any of our family or friends. So this trip was a trip around Europe to see friends scattered around the continent. We were in France, Switzerland, Germany and The Netherlands. Only Italy was missing for the classic Grand Tour. We took our car and did around 3720 km or 2310 miles. We were gone 16 days in total. Sounds a bit insane to most people, but the trip went exceedingly well. No major meltdowns along the way, we saw and did lots. Some tips if you think you are crazy enough to try it yourself.

Our daughter was 19 months old for this trip and still takes a long nap every day. So we tried to plan most of the driving to happen over this nap so that she didn't get too bored. Children nowadays are so strapped down into their seats, it's hardly a wonder they get bored, despite all the distractions. When I was a kid, I could move around, change position, fight with my sister and stretch out for a nap which helped make long journeys easier. As we went through the trip, we saw that so much driving would never have worked without these naps. So if your kids are past napping, I'd reconsider so much driving. Maybe some things like DVD players or such would help keep them occupied, I couldn't say at this stage.

We tried to break up 2 days driving with at least 2 overnights in the same spot. That way there wasn't a constant packing and unpacking of stuff, plus some consistency in location. The longer you can stay in one spot, the better. And other than one major drive of 6.5 hours (which took 10 hours with breaks), the most driving we did on any one day was 3.5 hours.

Accept the fact that you are going to explore a new town via its playgrounds and parks.

Packing was tough, but we went as light as possible. G and I shared one suitcase and laundry had to be done along the way. Having a super-light and small travel tent for Lena was good for packing. Everything we packed, we used, but even so, the back of our little hatchback was full. In fact, G was the only one who could properly pack it. Anytime I tried to do it, it was piled too high to see out of the back window.

We took a cool bag that we kept stocked with both things Lena liked for snacks and things for lunch for all of us. This saved us both time and money by not stopping in a cafe or restaurant to eat or being forced to buy expensive food from the highway gas stations.

For goodness sake, don't forget whatever blankets, lovies, teddies or dollies makes your child feel secure. Lena is pretty easygoing, but with all the changes in location and new people, she was very attached to her blanket and her "nu-nu" (dummy/soother as she calls it) during the time. I was a bit worried at first with her having them so much, I thought she would become too dependant on them even after the trip. However the day we came back, she hardly needed them at all. Having them at her beck and call during the trip offered her a good deal comfort.

If you are interested in a rough picture of what we drove, check out this link of our driving route.

Once again, thanks to everyone we stayed with and good to see all of you.

The Joys of Home Ownership

We have a leak in the roof over our bathroom. This was discovered during some of the monsoon weather earlier this month. Who knew that January was the rainy season in England? Anyways, this will hopefully be fixed soon. But it does lead to a topic of great interest to Brits.

DIY. Do It Yourself. It was years ago when I first heard the term, but I do remember not having a clue what the person was talking about when they said they had spent the weekend "doing some DIY". And of course, not realising that the term DIY isn't universal among English speakers, the person I was talking to didn't understand where the confusion was about their weekend activities. DIY refers to anything someone might attempt to do to improve their home without calling in professionals. Which could be anything from fixing a blocked drain, to hanging a picture, to putting up an extension on your house. Usually slightly closer to my first two examples, but not always. For some Brits, it's a national sport.

For our leaky roof, we are NOT DIYing it. A couple of reasons. One, if we get it wrong and it still leaks, we'll definitely have to call in professionals. It's not something like a slightly misaligned picture on the wall that you can either live with or take down until you are ready to try again. Two, I don't have the resources to call on here that I would if we lived closer to family. Because if we did, my first port of call in such a case would be to phone up my dad or father-in-law and ask them. I think that's what fathers are for a good percentage of the time - fixing stuff. Especially once you leave home and find you don't own everything you need to do something. Which they probably do own, having spent a lifetime collecting ladders, nails, screws, extra shingles, generators, old skis, odd bits of wire, random sturdy boxes, receptacles made out of pop cans, radios, band saws, 4 types of glue and a claw hammer. Without this big collection of materials (plus their experience) to draw on, calling in the professionals will probably be the quicker and more efficient option. And with something like a leak, it can't really wait until one our dads visits again.

A New Cousin

We received news today that Lena has a brand new little cousin. Eleanor Rose was born in Australia at 7:30am local time today. This makes Lena the youngest cousin on one side of the family and the oldest on the other side. All the best to Matthew and Justine and their new daughter!

As I don't have a picture of Eleanor to share with you, here's a picture of G and his sister Claire first hearing from Matthew and Justine that Eleanor was on the way. I'm sure they are even happier today than in this picture.