you know you have REALLY arrived when....

you leave the front door open for just a minute or two ...as you run around the garden with a 20 month old like a mad thing, dash back in to grab keys and bag and chase off to a new music group you heard of in a village three miles away ....AND your husband calls to let you know he found Robin Red Breast in the house perched on the side of a champagne flute on the kitchen window sill after he got back from a DIY shopping trip!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy Xmas everyone!!!!

that would have made a great pic but no....

Aga Saga ........

OK agas are the essence of country living , about six miles away is the head office of Fired Earth and Aga where you can buy an Aga, and any other thing that you could possibly want for the Aga - well I now have an Aga toaster , Aga thing to keep the hot plate cover clean! , Aga enamel cleaner, and some Bake O Glide that allows you to fry an egg without any fat on the hot plate!! THanks Mum!

It's a whole new world and I was fairly sceptical when we bought the place with an Aga and was heard to say ...Well if it is no good then we can always sell it...But after a week and a half I can say I am a bit of a convert! Yikes does that make me a country person - I will be sporting green before you know it!

No seriously I have roasted a chicken, mastered the art of simmering a number of pans at a time and worked out which oven does what ( after the first disastrous ready meal melt down in the Roasting Oven! ) so today our good friends Lisa and Karen came over for lunch and I managed fabulous roasted squash and carrots with thyme that N could not get enough of...and a roasted veg tart with blue cheese...- it was all Yum Yum Yum....and was fairly easy to do and then leave to keep warm while we did the guided tour!

tune in soon for the ' buying green wellies 'episode!

you know you have arrived in the country when.....

....



you are the only one wearing sunglasses in November in the winter sun ....



everyone else in the place is wearing some sort of shade of green!!!!! just not in my colour palette!

not seen anyone wearing a Barbour yet...but will report as soon as I have -

you do not drive any sort of 4 x 4 and by God you never will - please feel free to shoot me if we ever get one! I know I said that about a Volvo, but we have a Saab not a Volvo!



you expect the takeaways not to deliver and when they say they do you simply do not believe them and chase off in the dead of night after defrosting the car to collect the ( very acceptable as it happens ) take away curry ....



you have never really noticed people looking at you and your daughter in London and then in one fell swoop in one country pub , one lunchtime a table next to you suddenly starts talking about the one child policy in China in such loud voices ...and then you are in the loo and someone walks in telling her child that ' that little girl is a lovely China Doll' and when you come out of the cubicle she then tells you that your daughter is a lovely China Doll too....!

Oh well we have arrived! bienvenue a la campagne!!!

one whole week ...

since our stuff arrived and we officially moved in. Took Nelly to a new playgroup yesterday in a nearby village, they had loads of fab toys and N did painting and sticking - she made a Xmas card! it was in the funniest little old village hall - a really dilapidated pre-fab type arrangement and there was even a framed photo of the Queen! ( seemed to have switched on underlining by mistake! ) we discovered details of local music and yogabugs groups as well as details of other playgroups i the area...

this morning I got up and had a shower in our bathroom ( the pump was set up yesterday ) - had a lovely shower and came down to the kitchen to find you could have a shower in the kitchen at the same time !!! OOOOPs bang went happy contented faces in the morning - we finally isolated the problem and will not bore you wiht the detail but think we should not need to take down the ceiling in the kitchen!

Nelly has now come down with a streaming cold - those Northants bugs - or they could be Oxon ones as the group we went to yesterday was in Oxfordshire; we are so close to borders here within ten minutes you can pass through three counties ! SO today she was clingy beyond belief and watched DVDs most of the day with a brief interlude for a play at the swings to try and blow away the cobwebs. All in all it made bedtime a heck of a lot easier!

Some pics from the last few days..........


The dining room
Delilah settling in nicely - still not allowed out of the house though!

N's room

Rob about to go out in the evening snow to scare the locals!!!!

Relaxing !! and for those of you that know R this will amaze you that he can sit relaxed surrounded by chaos!
Nelly with the electronic babysitter! by the way the cupboards are white beneath the blue plastic protective cover!

Day five

sorry no pics....today we had great plans to go out for a long country walk through the autumn leaves! It has rained rained and rained non stop, this evening after putting N to bed I came down and it was snowing! but it did give us the chance to unload even more boxes - so think there are only about 8 or nine left to do ( that is pure guess work as I have not even ventured into the garage and that contains the contents of our cellar!! ) tomorrow our friend who lives about 14 miles away is coming over with her little girl and then my Mum disappears back up North . Apart from bedtime,which is getting better, N is really settling into the house - she loves the space and spends ages pushing bears and dolls from one end of the house to the other in the buggy! after having lived in a London house with what in essence were three and a half floors and lots of stairs she is in her element here!

Reason for no pics by the way that N has taken to grabbing the camera and taking pictures of herself while making a ridiculous funny face - they mainly come out as part of her clothing but she has a great time and I thank the day that digital cameras were invented while my Mum tries to grab her disposable wind up version from N's paws! today she even managed to wind it on herself! That is one idea for the Xmas list then I feel...

I have spent an inordinate amount of time in Tescos these last three days - 1) major shop to the Extra store....2) second shop a day later to pick up all the things we forgot in the big store because it was SO enormous...3 ) trip today to get one thing and one thing only... ( Sink Unblocker ! don't ask! something to do with our builders and a large pan of hot oil! ) and came out with Unblocker, bread, The Observer because I cannot live without my fix of Food Monthly and some chocolate treats to ease the pain of box unpacking!!!

Why is it that as soon as you enter a supermarket you cannot come out with just the one thing on your list! I know the answer of course and I can hear my friends and former colleagues from Tesco days screaming at their PCs as I write this ...but shopping on the local market town of Brackley yesterday really brought it home to me what these large stores do to local economies...

anyway camera charging again now so more pics of N's pyjamas tomorrow!

day four!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

well found the charger and the cable to download the pics!! so Saturday night in is updating the blog...
yesterday we went to a coffee morning and then onto a playgroup

so here are some images from the last few days ....

sleep was easier this evening only cried for about 10 minutes and this evening we managed to get a TV set up so we could tune into the Dancing ladies as we call Strictly - Nelly has really enjoyed chasing round the house back and forwards with her buggy and Delilah has had a free rein of the hosue since the Bulgarians left for London last night for the weekend...



Nelly in her new bath!
Life's essentials.....jo M candle, clarins hand cream and filtered water!
hey like the look of our new kitchen taps ....it will catch on in 2008!! our Corian worksurface was meant to be dleivered in three weeks time! ooops in the meantime we have gone back to the Belfast sink and this fab tap montage! ...the work surface is now delayed until Jan 14th - so this look will be a good one for Xmas!
Nelly walking mile in her fathers shoes...in a hotel in Deddington
some of the furniture in situ!
the kitchen ( the units are hi gloss white not that lovely blue colour 1)

A final look at our lovely kitchen - will miss this when we go...
.....

the removal man / van cometh....
looking empty the ST J Road sitting room...

Llokin gvery empty/.....!

Nelly and her boys at the last playgroup before the Pickfords van arrived!

A special moment with Hati and baby Jotch...

The ST J Farm Road possee!!!

day three

well it is five thirty in the morning on day 3 in the house...waking up early as we went to be exhausted at 10 last night. Nelly had another difficult bedtime which has been so unusual as she was a dream at the old house but I guess this is something that we just have to go though.

I woke early and have let Delilah cat out of the study -she has been camping in there as with a bunch of Bulgarian builders in the house as well we cannot trust for the front door always to be closed. We had a near miss on the first night when she made a dash for the front door and straight into the garage - where I managed to close the doors and rescue her about an hour later after she had a good explore. She is happily wandering around and finding her feet. I briefly let her out last night and she raced up the stairs only to wander through the bathroom across the newly painted white floor - ooooops lots of screaming and shouting ensued ! only four little paw marks quite sweet really! !! At the old house she ran through wet concrete when we had our kitchen extended..

It is so quiet here - the occasional car drives past ( at this time in the morning ) and I just heard an amazing owl call - N would be so excited as that is her second favourite animal sound- after the snake!

yesterday was spent emptying the boxes in our room - I never realised how many pairs of shoes and boots that I own - I can now see them all in the walk in wardrobes so hopefully will wear a few more pairs. I did throw away at least 7 pairs , it breaks my heart but has to be done.
We also braved the IKEA in Milton Keynes to buy dividers for the new kitchen cupboards, two of those mini steps so I can reach into the high cupboards in the kitchen and Nelly a little table and chairs.

This morning I have been invited to a coffee morning in the village! Hey we have arrived - I bumped into one of the neighbours in the local Tesco yesterday and she mentioned it then an invite came through the door...

Sorry no pics but still need to recharge the camera and find the download cable!

Sharing a house with Bulgarian builders is interesting! fortunately they are in the annexe so we do not feel on top of each other! will try for pictures later