fairyland

what a week of excitement and nerves and sunshine. we have filled our lungs with the countryside everyday since we left london. we have walked and run and climbed and jumped partly thanks to the clearys and high lodge in thetford forest and partly due to the wonderfully hot weather. we have sat in pub gardens and parks and fields and even found time for a swim. but best of all we visited a place i could only of dreamed of living and it may even be a real possibility.

we went to see our potential new home in the middle of last week and i have thought of nothing since. the place itself, the woodlands, the dell, the buildings including a huge old (and in much need of renovation) greenhouse were beautiful. the couple who live on site and run the place with such drive and vision were fantastic and interesting. i love it. i love what they do, what they strive to do. it is everything i could of imagined and more. 

after falling so much in love with it and them i could only hope that they felt they could bare us enough to put with us. i worried constantly that i had been too distacted by the children (and my own excitment) and not chatted enough, not asked or answered enough questions. we emailed they the next day to propose that we camp there for a few nights as a sort of get to know one another, see how it might work trial. it took three of the most anxious days of my life for them to get back to us. i knew they had a busy weekend and the weather was glorious no one was sat indoors at a computer execpt me. checking and checking my emails until it finally arrived. yes, it said yes. camping is a fine idea. 

what huge relief and excitment. this is it. i feel it. i imagine myself there. i imagine my family there. living in fairyland. 

the show yurt

we are stopping off on our grand tour for a posh week in kensington. papajoes little bro runs a lovely pub  http://www.thequeensarmskensington.co.uk/ and we are staying in his flat. we even have tickets to see swan lake on ice at the royal albert hall. how classy! 

we have taken the opportunity to go to loads of museums and to finally visit the show yurt. it is the size we are thinking about so it felt really important to go and stand inside it and really get a feel for the space and the light. also it was built in mongolia. we have been strongly advised to buy an english yurt because of the wood quality so it was interesting to see the wear on one that is six years old. there is a substantial difference in price between local and imported and we need to be sure that we make the right choice. buying local will mean that we need to buy smaller but we are talking about our home so it needs to be able to stand up to some wear and tear.

i have been excited about this post for weeks, i was all ready to write about how positive i felt, how the space was great and the kids loved it but i'm afraid i have a slightly different story to tell.

it was definitely smaller than i had prepared myself for.. i know, i know.. it was always going to be tiny. when you plan to live in a space with a 19ft diameter you are not expecting a palace but when i have tried to imagine the space it was bigger in my head. the walls were lower than i expected, i think that is what did it. we have measured out the floor space before but the low walls enclosed around it shrank the space. the light was fantastic though. i had assumed that with only the small window around the wheel in the roof it would be dark and even the white walls would appear dull but it was wonderful. doll and i secretly planned hanging our disco ball from the centre to fill the space with pink speckled light. mind you, that was the only sense i got out of either of the big kids the whole time we were there. they clambered all over the poor ladies authentic yurt furniture and threw stones about the garden. i resorted to bribing them with chocolate to keep them quiet. 

i came away feeling unsure about what we had signed ourselves up for.. my first real doubts that this was a good idea. after a cup of tea with an old friend, a fantastic burger and a good night sleep (thank you baby, two nights in a row with only one wake!) i am getting on top of it. it is just a lot to process, being homeless and drifting is harder and more tiring than i ever imagined and on top of that we have big, tough decisions to make and so much organising to do. london is a very stressful city, i long for the open flat fens, where you can stretch and think. not long now, roll on monday. two weeks settled, sites to visit, friends to catch up with.. i can't wait.     

bongo a go go

i am taking a quick break from packing the golf the last time ever.. not because our road trip is over but because we bit the bullet and bought a bigger car. quite fed up with squeezing five people, three car seats, a enormous suitcase and all our other nonsense in to our fairly small vw we were swept up by the madness of ebay and have bought a bongo. we have a mammoth drive tomorrow to go and check it is up to scratch before handing over every last one of our pennies. the kiddos are so excited that they will be able to sleep in the pop up top and i must admit that i am too! 

our other super exciting news is that we (keep everything crossed now) potentially have three sites to go and visit when we next find ourselves in east anglia. nothing is definite but, people seem to want to talk to us and that is an amazing start. i am feeling really positive.

i won't say any more now i don't want to jinx it except... 

go me and go my lovely family things are starting to happen!!   

advertising me..

this week we have started to compile a list of interesting sites and i have started to write a small advert selling.. well.. me. when my mum suggested it a few weeks back i acknowledged that it was a good idea and then went on to completely ignore her advice and do nothing. turns out that is was not just a good idea but totally necessary. when writing an email to someone you are hoping may consider having you living on their land you need to sell yourself.

now, i think that papajoe and me are fairly likable and have some practical and useful skills between us but putting that into words has proven quite difficult. we are a hodge podge of random things and that is hard to quantify. our skills not necessarily connected and our interests wide and varied, i think that makes us interesting and potentially useful to have around but i am worried people will think we are scatty and unfocused. what we are, i am discovering more and more, is very determined. something that was just a pipe dream this time last year is becoming closer and closer to a reality. 

these first few days together have made me realise what this has all been for.. home made soup and long walks all of us together come rain or shine. 

papajoes last day

the last time i sat at a computer for any length of time i was settled very comfortably into an arm chair in the rolling hills of gloucestershire. we have since been to a rain soaked hampshire and our now hidden in a corner of the fantastic tourist destination.. cheddar gorge. 

despite the rain we had a wonderful week with granny knickers and the boys. big boy and baby had their first trip to the cinema, and we discovered a beautiful playground and some wooden animals at alice holt forest http://www.forestry.gov.uk/aliceholt. 

a momentous occasion has manged to slip by us barely noticed in all the hullabaloo of moving a family around the country. papajoe finished work. 

it was a day i expected to be full of tears of excitement and jumping up and down but was in fact, at least for the kids and i, a day of miserable traffic and poo explosions. so after a miserable journey we arrived at the worlds first garden city the kids ate and slept and i, although hoping to join papajoe and some work friends in the hotel bar sat in the corridor with my book. he came back at three in the morning, i was long asleep.

and now we are here.. some wonderful fenland friends came to visit and fill our first two days here with noise and thoughts of home. seeing them has made me long for east anglia in a way i never thought i would.

i am starting to tire now of this open endedness, this feeling of going nowhere. we need to get things moving this week.. maybe some more concrete plans will create a more settled feeling. now papajoe is at home we should have more time for thinking and organising.