The Reunion of ten little girls who all met a year ago...

Nelly at the reunion...feeling a bit miserable !

so we are into year two with Nelly and rapidly approaching her second birthday - and what does this bring ! a child that is delightful and challenging at the same time! When she is asleep we miss her, when she is at nursery we miss her, when she is here she charms us, every day she comes out with new words . She now wakes without crying out for Mama but plays imaginary games with her toys in the cot, reading them stories and in the evening we have a ritual tucking in ceremony every evening before bathtime ...



Nursery is going well although today she did not eat any lunch..spitting out the Chilli and Rice and refusing the jam tart and custard, I did have to tell them that she has probably never seen or eaten custard in our house ( one of my absolute pet hates! ) , she came home and devoured two bowls of Jerusalem Artichoke soup and we have been feeling the windy side effects for most of the evening! obviously a superior palette!

and it has been a year .............

so yesterday marked the anniversary of us meeting our little angel...We celebrated with a glass of champagne and some apple juice ( well Nelly had the end of a finger or two of champagne! ) this morning she slept in until 8 and today is the day that we will in future celebrate 'Adoption Day' this is the day that Nelly Grace Xiao'en became our daughter officially ....Today we spent the day as usual with a playgroup in the morning ( less said about that one the better as she was being a minx out for pinching all children in sight!! ) and this afternoon with the sun still shining and no rain ( what!!! ) we headed off for a walk that took rather a long time as she decided to push her buggy most of the way through the village stopping to wave at the people in the nursery! Then home for tea and cake with a candle...

It was lovely and we cannot quite believe how far literally we have all come in a year...she is a joy to us every day ..even when she whinges for England! and we cannot wait to see her and be with her every moring when we wake...

some moments past and present...


January 24th 2007 - adoption day in Guangzhou - enjoying a coffee ..in a sling!

January 23rd 2007 ...Meeting Nelly day - Nelly Grace Xiao'en

January 19th 2008 ...Nelly with her new haircut!

January 24th 2008 out for a walk , splashing in the ford....

January 24th 2008 .....

a year ago in Hong Kong ...

we were mooching around, taking the Star Ferry, watching the Tai Chi in Kowloon Park ...and this year...We spent the day with ten other families that were all out in China at the same time meeting their little girls. We ate at a fabulous restaurant called Dragon Castle...in wait for it ( for those of you that know London you will fall off your chair ) ...Elephant and Castle! amazingly delicious fabulous food just around the corner from the most hideous monstrosity of a shopping centre painted pink ! all of the girls were gorgeous as ever but Nelly was grim and grizzly due to the fact that she had a late night and it really does not agree with her. Cannot quite believe they have all been here for nearly a year ..this week we will celebrate her adoption day ( Jan 24th ) and will do something to remember her birth parents and make this a special date in our family calendar...Still to decide what will happen as yet but have a few days to plan that ...

Nelly also had a radical haircut yesterday - but still have to download the pics from the camera so once that is done will upload a funky new image of Little Miss N!

this time last year ...

we were so close to meeting our little precious one! can you believe it - I keep thinking about how far we have come and trying to relive those precious times ...so what where we doing in Jan 14th 2007 a year ago - we went into the West End on a Sunday to buy gifts for the orphanage staff, I remember being in John Lewis buying pen holders and going to a tacky souvenir shop on Oxford Street for fridge magnets..the day before we had done Woolies in West Norwood for stickers and numerous pairs of socks and baby gros for the children in the SWI. and then we headed to friends for a final Sunday evening dinner before becoming a family!


Let's go to Oxford...
Taking the edge off waiting for food in Pizza SloMo Oxford...
How long will those dough balls be!!!

This year January 12th 2008...After torrential rain on Friday and I guess floods down in the valley ; and Nelly's first unaccompanied settling in session at nursery - Saturday was a lovely day and we headed into Oxford for a mooch and lunch. We spent an inordinate amount of time in Pizza non express where Nelly delighted most of the staff and the customers while waiting on our salad nicoise, veneziana and some doughballs!!!

Nelly had her first proper session at nursery this morning - she was really good - did not cry when I left her, apparently cried a bit during the morning but most of the time she was really good...I was the tearful one when I went to pick her up and I thought it was meant to be the Mum crying when they left the child for the first time not when they got them back!! She just looked so sweet and grown up running around to get her gloves and shoes on and hugging Lucy the lovely lady who manages the toddler room..well that is that for another week, hope she is still as enthusiastic next week!

and the world gets smaller............

exhausted after the whole festive weeks - it is quite a relief to be back to normal - getting up, no lights, no pine needles, no leftovers etc etc...just us -

My great friend G and her son James came to stay which was fab and Nelly loved having them here - she played and ran around after him all day long! on waking she wanted to know where James was! some great photos below ...


this week is back to normal - groups etc and N's first session at nursery ! it was only for an hour and we are back there this Friday for a second two hour session ..she should be fine and the carers (?) are lovely , when we were there yesterday there only seemed to be about 8 children in the Benjamin Bunnies room!

and so the world is small... or is it that i am getting older ( answers on the comments section! ) ...since we moved here we have been amazed by the number of coincidences re people knowing people etc living in the area that we have since met, been introduced to or in the case of today have totally randomly bumped into.

I decided that as a novice AGa owner I should go along to one of those Demonstrations entitled A Day in the Life of an Aga ... with Marcia Poole! - It was good! Marcia was as you would imagine - a former Home Economics teacher who now roams the country teaching people how to get the best out of in excess of £5000 worth of cooker! Having inherited an Aga I was as I said before a tad sceptical but have been convinced...anyway after the demo chatting with another woman we both realised we had moved from London in the last month or so...but not only that we had also lived two streets away from each other ! how spooky is that! numbers were swapped and a date to meet is to be arranged....



Nelly and James ........
lets read together!
Yes Nelly this dog really does look like Rolo ...( Grandma's dog! )

Nelly with a photo of her beloved Fraser and Josh in her kitchen just before she kissed it !
Oh so angelic!

Oh so tired !

New Year ... a few days in

as well as living in the English countryside we also have a whole load of American neighbours! ( apologies to all friends and blog watchers from across the water\! ) about a half a mile out of the village is a US airbase RAF Croughton - a listening station so no planes...so there are a vast number of large and wide cars driving around the narrow country lanes and over the Christmas break when the wind was in the right direction something spooky happened...at 4pm every day - they play what sounds like the last post, followed by the British National Anthem followed by the US National anthem...playing out as loud as you like ...do you think they are all standing to attention...

Quiet country lane ...
more of the same...
Can you see what look like large pumpkins in the background - this is the airbase in the distance..

2007 - a year of new beginnings ............

That was the year that was ( as the old TV programme used to say ... or was that week! ...) well whatever 2007 for us has been the most wonderful year for us -

January saw us excitedly packing suitcases, making lists, putting together cot bed, buying clothes for a child we had never seen and managing to get through 19 days before flying off to Hong Kong and then train to CHina to meet our amazing, wonderful daughter....

February was our return home and the chance for Nelly to meet all those friends and relatives who had been waiting as long as we had....Rob finished full time work and spent the rest of the year Gardening!!!!!!! he then made it his mission to find us a house out of London . After an evening with friends who live in SOuth Northants - we narrowed our search down to this area...Nelly had her first birthday and started walking!

March - Rob saw Yew Tree House -

April we made an offer, June we put St Julians F Road on the market and July Yew Tree house was ours!

with Nelly we went to lots of playgroups and classes - London opened itself up to me in a way I did not know existed and we met some amazing people who will stay long term friends as where we are now is only an hour from Marylebone on the train...her vocabulary grew every day

Spring - and we spent hours in various parks - Dulwich, Bel Air, Brockwell Regents and Hyde to name them!

the summer passed through a grey cloud of rain, we had lot of worry about not being able to sell the house and being landed with two houses! but...

August we had a week where we got 4 offers on the house ! 3 in one afternoon! we sold to a very understanding family who were happy for a long completion as YT House was in a state renovation! Ceilings came down, new joists were fitted, floorboards ripped up, skirting boards replaced, black rooms banished! fireplaces out , shutters being made, bathrooms ripped apart, new bathrooms in etc etc etc

September - Rob spent a lot of time up at the house project managing builders - a job he said is a lot harder than going to work every day!

October - still not in the house - we carried on with our life in London

November - we did it Pickfords arrived and took all our stuff and we officially moved to the country! - a new round of finding toddler groups, managing to fit in some work , walks to see the horses and donkeys,

December - Nelly met father Xmas at least five times , spent two days in London and were glad to get back to the house to get ready for Xmas in YT HOuse.....

Happy New Year to all who read this ....