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The move that makes for a good blog entry. Wednesday, 28th December 2005


We are here. At home. We love it.
Getting here, we didn’t love so much, except that it was memorable and we love memorable, dull is not my ‘thing’.
Woke at 6am with terrible pain, excruciating pain, the like of which could be described in such gory detail as to hold you spell bound.
However, I am tired, so shall merely say that with the coughing …good heavens, how long can this cough last?? Anyway, the coughing pushed my hernia out..it was ENORMOUS and sort of moon shaped and frightening, not as frightening as painful but ye gads it made me turn all unnecessary……sincere prayer, much weeping and a very brave shove got the blighter back in place and I managed to go and collect my darling dad who was going to drive the truck for us.
“ Dad, have you got a new license, a picture one?”
“yep”
“ well, you’ll need the paperwork that comes with it too”
“yep, got it”
“ and 2 other forms of I.D”
“yep”

Hoorah….darn it, blasted van hire place is very shut, not a soul about…called and got answer phone and left very succinct and to the point message along the lines of “ I am here, you’re not, I’m annoyed, call me…very inconvenient, I am cross “ sort of thing.
Let’s go and get dad’s cell phone because he forgot it…..
Back at office, lady whose car wouldn’t start because it might snow later this week was there…marvellous, leave dad with forms, my signature , already paid bill, tell lady have lots to do.
Drive 300 yards down the road…dad calls, has lost his temper with lady whose car wouldn’t start because it might snow later this week and called her incompetent because A) she was late and B) she has the audacity to ask him for the paperwork that comes with the new picture drivers’ license…
“where is it? I will go and get it but I am late for the bank…”
“ you have to come get me because LWCWS ( lady whose car wouldn’t start) has walked away from me and won’t come back”
“ were you very rude?”
“yes”
“ do you remember me asking you to make sure you had that very paperwork?”
“ I thought you meant the other stuff”
I began to think that the day wasn’t going to go like clockwork somehow.
I was right.
Got to the bank. What do you know? I didn’t have the right paperwork, took an hour longer than I thought, left H at new house…when I went to join him he was still outside the house…..drove to office but was very calm and thankyou Lord for that because it seems we were meant to go there at 10.30 not the house….all signed and GOT THE KEYS. Whoops ,nearly wept like a baby but not quite..not yet.
We had more help than I ever imagined. Mum and Leah had Elijah and helping to move was Dad, H’s dad, Brother in law who lives down the road, brother in law who lives in Utah, 3 nephews of enormous and bull like stature and strength, Jordan of long gangly stature and bull like strength, 2 sisters and a friend or two. The whole move….ALL OF IT was done in 4 hours, start to finish , including the buying and collecting of new beds and mattresses. I lifted not a thing, I didn’t even pack anything just went out at 8am and never went back to the mould mansion.
The only drawback to this kind of move is that said bull like and young helpers moved so quickly, bringing in and dumping things, that not much is where it should be, but WHO THE FLIPPING HECK CARES?!? My bed is made , my children’s rooms are beautiful and not black or furry…

OH! I so wish that you could feel the fun we just had when the lights went out! It all went black (10.40pm) and an emergency light came on…we discovered that our electricity is supplied by a coin meter…how hysterical!! Thank heavens we had a pile of pound coins and are back in the light again. Honestly you would have thought someone would have told us don’t you?!?
We have also discovered that the shower pipe is split and squirts you in the eye whilst only dribbling warmish water on your head, the radiators upstairs don’t work and the longed for and much discussed store room is locked and the tenant in the flat has the key….darn it. The main oven won’t work. There is an old washing machine where I want my big new one to go… Much to discuss in the agents office tomorrow but for now I am going to bed , in my lovely soft, big, freshly made bed that smells delicious……more tomorrow!




Honestly…we’re a bit pathetic in this day and age! Thursday, 29th December 2005

The house sort of reminded me of that movie called “ the money pit” yesterday….the heating was hopeless, in fact to call it ‘the heating’ is pushing my luck. None of the radiators worked at all upstairs and the ones downstairs had a mind of their own, on and off like a whore’s drawers without so much as a bye or leave. How did we react to this terror? We were very, very wimpy. It is freezing outside and it wasn’t much warmer inside!
The bath taps swivel when you try to turn them on and the water isn’t very hot out of those taps….all quaint and easily sorted things.
I couldn’t help but think how when this house was built, there would have been a fireplace and that’s it, no soft warm carpet, this house would certainly have had at least one maid who would have had to get up in the dark and light the fire….pathetic us, feeble at the lack of central heating for one day and night!! Hoorah- it is fixed now and we are all sporting ruddy, throbbing cheeks because it seems ungrateful to turn such glorious warmth down doesn’t it?
When I put my Isaac in bed tonight he said “ I luff nith home, I live here ever and ever til I 38, never, ever I go back nat old home. ” Absolutely, my Isaac.
Elijah had the hardest time yesterday and couldn’t quite understand what was happening but he is very proud of his big boy bed and is having a blast jumping down the stairs…..oh dear.
The very best thing? We can’t hear anything..no matter who Sophie and Jordan have brought in and taken on guided tours ( the world and it’s auntie) ..we can’t hear them….Sophie and her music? Can’t hear it! T.V’s playing loud teenage shows? Can’t hear it……little boys leaping off beds and jumping down stairs? Can hear that but that’s because we are listening, it’s fabulous.

I woke up this morning at NINE O’CLOCK!!! 9AM!!!! H heard the boys and took them dowstairs and at 9am I woke to silence, because I wasn’t tired anymore. Last night, my husband stayed in bed all night.. He didn’t need to get up and sleep in a chair. He hasn’t taken one single pain killer ALL DAY…since I have known him he has lived on Exedrin for crippling headaches to go a whole day without a single one is a miracle.

I LOVE THIS HOUSE!!!!!

I have walked into town a few times, no need to drive, Sophie picked up dinner tonight ( have to milk this’ take away- can’t cook , don’t know where the pans are’ as long as I can) because KFC is just over the road).
Our new doctors office is 2 doors away!
Jordan keeps saying things like “ HA! I just went to cost cutters, bet you didn’t even know I was gone did ya?”
Both the big kids are so thrilled with their rooms, Sophie’s is already a bit pink and fluffy ( girlie fluffy, with fluffy fairy lights..not mould fluffy with poisonous spores)
Jordan’s is very manly and brown and apart from the freezer and washing machine that have yet to be lovingly found a place, he is a bit proud of it. Happy days indeed.



Oh bugger Friday, December 30th 2005.

Elijah has chickenpox…..perfect, although it does mean I have to stop and sit down to snuggle him every now and then, every cloud and all that. Poor baby, his spots are sort of welting into massive ugly blots, they look like horrific burns, he seems unworried by it and is considerably more cheerful than the past 3 days.



Dropping like flies…..Saturday, December 31st 2005.

Isaac has the pox….or should I say ( in his words) “I not have chittinpotth, I duss only have spots, I hate chittenpotth. Me too my Isaac.
Happy New Year people….I feel it is going to be a great one.
I’m missing the internet but only a little bit-, we are busy, busy and we’re being happy, nice feeling that, here’s hoping it’s the beginning of a new trend.



Sunday January 1st 2006 …HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!

If I could feel like this the rest of this year, well…it’d be FANATASTIC!
I haven’t slept like this for years, I have still been going to bed hours after everybody else but in all honesty, that is more because I want to soak in the feel of this house, it has so much spirit. Built in the 1800’s, it has hundreds of years of peoples’ lives within it’s walls and you can feel, as soon as you walk through the door that it is a peaceful house. Isaac, always known as the 5am boy, is sleeping until at least 7am, Seth slept ‘til 11 am yesterday!!
When everyone is asleep, I walk around and potter, put some more bits and pieces away and try to picture how it will look when it is straight and more ‘mine’. Every time I walk down the stairs it hits me that this is truly our home and we actually live here….
I lay down this afternoon for a nap and woke up 3 hours later! Dinner was cooked and just being served by H and grandpa…..sheer heaven.
The walls are so thick and all stone, now we have had the heating running for a few days, it is warm and welcoming. The boys are happy…even with spots and snotty noses they are settled.
Sophie came home early last night as all her friends went to a club and she isn’t old enough…not a single bit of screaming or swearing or blaming the world, she sat next to me looking beautiful and just wept a bit, grabbed some party food and went to her room!! She snatched the littlest spotty monster when the itching woke him at midnight and snuggled him for an hour or so…..did I say that I LOVE THIS HOUSE!!!!??



Upstairs, downstairs in my lady’s chamber.
Monday, January 2nd 2006.

The big kids are like pigs in muck…..they have had friends of all kinds and description staying every night since we moved in, Rachel with her somewhat scarey goth makeup and sweet disposition, Big lanky boys who seem to be different ones every day, I might know better who they are if they spoke to me if they are different or the same ones but they are teenagers and although happy to sleep on floors and eat leftovers, speaking is beyond them, so we smile and say good morning and expect little verbally from them but they are handy at carrying washing machines and freezers if we point and say “there please”. They all find the spotty infants irresistible and hysterical , especially if the infants manage to squeak out ‘shut mouff’ or “ luff you Dordan, out a window and up a sky”
Jordan’s own entrance to the house is proving a God’s send, it has elevated him to a status close to a hero and has the added bonus of being soundproof to us as we sleep….the end of the house opposite to us and down many stairs, through the kitchen and almost in another world, except it is next to the kitchen which is stocked high when we go to bed and diminished considerably when we wake up…a teenagers idea of bliss if ever there was one.
I woke for a pee at 4am this morning and as I am a mother I checked to make sure teenagers were home and sleeping, safe and sound. They were. All 5 of them. Rachel and Sophie in Sophie’s bed, Jordan in his bed, Big tall boy on Jordan’s floor and a person with shaved head, IN SOPHIE’S ROOM. It was a boy person. Now, I take credit for being a bit cool and am popular with teenagers the world over ( with the exception of the ones I gave birth to as I ask them to do wash their dishes and clean up their own mess, mean and wicked me) but this one is too cool for even me…
“ Good morning all you big people, eating all my food, how lovely to have you all stay……must say though, that people with shaved heads in my Sophie’s room brings out the frumpy prude in me, let’s not do that again or I might have to be uncool .”
“Ha! Mum, we’re not 12”
“Quite, 12 wouldn’t be a problem, 16, 18, 19….big deal, not in my house…thankyou”

There are 18 stairs from upstairs to downstairs….and from the store room to the first floor there are another 15 steps…..the drier is in the store room, the washer in the kitchen. Bedrooms, bathrooms and laundry baskets upstairs. I am getting fit, my calf and bottom muscles are feeling the burn, I have lost 5 lbs since we moved in because I am walking everywhere. This is very good.
Tomorrow we hand back the keys to mould mansion, H has done all the cleaning and I have stayed here. I love my husband.

Goodbye, Mould Mansion. Tuesday January 3rd 2006.

The keys are no longer in our possession…it is no longer our home.. THIS IS!! WHOOHOO!
Jordan’s rather grand bed was delivered today,
We are the proud owners of a huge pine table and 6 pine curved back chairs…we can eat like civilised people .
Sophie has a dresser and wardrobe so all her things can be stored or displayed, she can sit on velour, pink stool and tittivate herself.
I love this house ( did I mention that yet?). 12 visiting teenagers at midnight is not so much fun…..grumpy mother came out and put her foot down with a firm hand…although she was slightly touched by the sight of so many sweet youngsters piled in Jordan’s room….ahhhh bless. Nice to know where they are ( she thought, in as positive a way as she could muster, even though she actually didn’t feel this way at all)
It’s 1am, I am going to bed….tomorrow we have nothing to do except what we choose to do, no more old house to work on, just this one to dream in and plan for and drill holes in. Hoorah. Night, night.



A place for everything and everything in it’s place. Wednesday. January 4th 2006.

It will be lovely when I can truly say that everything is where it should be but I can’t, not yet.
We have done remarkably well though and we are looking as though we belong here now. I am impatient to be straight and not have any boxes and with the boys back to school tomorrow it will be easier.
My Isaac in school, big school, with his uniform..hard to believe, he seems ready, although we’re not sure he understands that it is school all day, not nursery with beloved Nicky and a visit to school once a week. He has new shoes. Black of course with flashing lights and I hope above hope that the uniform is a happy thing for him . I can’t think about a 2 hour screaming fest every morning if the light jeans and short sleeved shirt are what he needs to feel safe. Please don’t make me live it. He is in a pretty brave place right now and is quite outgoing, however, he saw his very best friend in town and hid….so we won’t count our chickens just yet.

Taking it all in his stride. Thursday, January 5th 2006.

The boy was a star…..he wouldn’t wear the green sweatshirt but the flashing shoes, white shirt and black trousers were very popular. He said he had a fantastic day and slept for 2 hours as soon as he got home….marvellous!
It’s hard to believe that both Seth and Isaac are now in school…..Elijah is very bored without them and bored Elijah means naughty Elijah! Off to see about playschool for him 2 mornings a week, keep the beastie busy!
I have been a snarling monster today…here’s hoping tomorrow is a better day ( I think I hear my family praying….)



Faggots, in this house, are served with gravy and chips. Friday January 6th 2006.

In England, faggots are a quite delicious type of meatball, cooked in a rich, onion gravy. My father-in-law, is American and faggots, to him are something quite different. Although I love him, and he has many admirable qualities, he is quite the most bigoted and prejudiced person I have ever met in real life. If you can think of a derogatory term for almost any type of person (except a white, heterosexual male), he will have said it and meant it. I have lost count of the times I have cringed and tried to counteract some hateful and scathing comment about a fellow human being.
This evening, I had said I was going to go to my parents house and visit, use the computer and just escape from the seemingly incessant whining that the little ones have been subjecting me to. They follow me everywhere and whine, grizzle and whine at every step. So, it was getting late and the good TV was about to start, I had pretty much changed my mind and was settling down, H said something about checking online for some kitchen stuff, I replied that I had changed my mind and that Emmerdale, a soap, was about to begin. This particular soap has a storyline at the moment, very tastefully done, about a very handsome, out and flambouyant gay man who is having an affair with a young man who is very much in the closet, terrified of coming out and facing the music so to speak. Now the show is on at 7pm and is family viewing…..nothing explicit, nothing offensive and, as far as I can see, very well done and true to the situation that many gay people will be in or will have been in.
“Ugh…..full of damn faggots anyway” Said Grandpa.
“ Pardon?” Said I…not quite understanding or grasping what had been said, thinking that maybe he and H had been to the freezer store and seen an over stock of delicious meatballs in gravy.
“ Faggots, in that show…. Too many damn faggots….”
Steely stare and absolute silence from me, while I let it sink in what he had said and remember that my son is gay, a fact he is well aware of.
DING!!!! Penny dropped and ….
“uh, oh… too much emphasis on that at the moment in that show, it’s all they are showing.”
( which is absolute rubbish it is one of several storylines going on)
Not another word did I utter, merely put my shoes on and left the house.
I cried, because every time I hear remarks like that, it is a slur on my gay son.
A judgement on someone who is the most divine and glorious being, a man so full of morality and integrity that I am in awe of the fact that I gave birth to him.
Not only my son, but many, many more sons of many other mothers.

Shut your filthy and mean mouths, any and all, who dare to presume they have the right to look down on another human being purely because of their sexuality. In fact, how dare anybody judge another human being on any one aspect of their lives?
I wish I had been brave enough to say “ oh the faggots don’t bother me but the bigots make me want to puke.”
I am my mother’s daughter and kept my mouth closed, thank heaven for blogs where I can say and feel what I like!


Oh I do like to be beside the seaside. Saturday, January 7th 2006.

January 7th ?!?! Blimey, It’ll be Christmas again before we know it!!
Today was a great day, after all the hullabaloo of moving and Christmas, today we just took time out for a day trip, we went to Exmouth and had a good day. The boys were delightful and we adults enjoyed being out and breathing the fresh sea air!
I bought some homemade apple and cider chutney……. Dinner was pork chops, broccoli and white rice with a dollop of chutney on the side, delicious!

My Elijah is in a big boy’s bed, huge twin bed with a teeny little man in it, he is beyond thrilled to have a football duvet cover like the big boys and although he looks like a pimple on an elephants arse in such a big bed, happy is the boy! His speech is fantastic, he has a sweet lisp but is a joy to listen to, listening to him chattering and being so clear and articulate makes me realise just how poor Isaac’s speech was. Just a year ago Isaac couldn’t say a word other than ‘dad-dad’ now he is driving us all beserk with his never ending chatter, I know I should have enjoyed that peaceful silence while it lasted!
The house is taking shape, I am becoming more and more excited about how it is looking, every day it feels more like home, I am looking forward to posting some pictures as each room becomes as I want it!
We are already saving so much money with not having to drive everywhere, I drove a mere 80 miles all week, we are feeling great with the walking and exercise, win, win, win….long may it last!

Home again home again, jiggety jig. Monday,January 9th 2006.

So, grandpa has gone home today, actually, G/pa, H and Seth have all gone to London today and are doing the touristy thing, Seth is in heaven at the idea of going to the Museums, seeing dinosaurs and all things fascinating, H and Seth will be home tomorrow evening and G/pa will fly back to sunshine and quiet tomorrow morning.
I am excited to get back to routines and normality….if our lives can be called at all normal that is!
It is 6.15 am and Isaac and Elijah are still sleeping, this is truly a peaceful house, these little boys have ALWAYS woken at 4.30-5am, ALWAYS! I have to wake Isaac in time for school since we moved, simply splendid. I have washed and dressed in absolute solitude, I get to shower in peace and even manage the odd pee without company, I am in heaven!

Trouble in paradise. Tuesday January 10th 2006.

Of course we were bound to find a cloud to surround our silver lining and we have….bum. The cellar of this house has been converted to a flat, one bedroom, nice kitchen, just enough to house a couple, with no kids, not one, and not any understanding of how kids live. The man of the flat under our house( in mode of troll under bridge), has taken to banging on the ceiling every time the boys drop a toy or walk…if they run ( if--ha!!) he is heard banging fit to bust a gut. Shame…..we barely hear it and could care less anyway.( although Isaac DID hear it tonight and was very afraid that the man would come upstairs, tempting to use the fear as a tool to stop the lunacy before bed but the good mother in me stopped the sadistic one just in time) The boys are in bed by 7pm….2 of them are at school all day and if they can’t stand the sound of Elijah the Elephant running or playing during daylight hours I suppose they are going to be miserable. There is not a hope in hell of me stopping normal play, I am not going to panic or worry about everyday noise from my children. We were out all day today, home for an hour before the boys went to bed, Isaac had a tantrum and kicked 2 kiddie chairs…..oh the troll under the bridge almost came through the floor for that one.
It is mildly irritating but the good news is they are only living there while they look for a house to buy, here’s hoping they find one quickly. I might suggest to the owner that she rent only to deaf, child loving, workaholics when this pair leave.
Funny how the teenage noise from midnight that actually DOES have me shushing and threatening, doesn’t irk them a bit, the troll says they never hear a sound apart from the herd of elephants constantly running from one end of the house to the other during the day.
I might start banging back when they slam doors, something that one of them does endlessly, I hate to stoop to such childish measures though…..someone stop me!!
H and Seth are due back any time, grandpa will be touching down in L.A in an hour or two as well. His house is going to seem very quiet and lonely ( or silent and heavenly, take your pick!!) very different from here anyway. I am excited to get back to normal and live our new life, troll or no troll, it is looking pretty charming from where I am right now.