Running (ok limping) on empty

I have been rattling around on various drugs all week. I've done my back in while packing, I'm on tension headache pills, drinks to soothe my tum, on co codamol and naproxen for my back pain, not touched the Diazepam yet although the doc prescribed it for me (hello, I am in sole charge of two kids, a glass of vino makes me weird), I am on antibiotics for a painful whitlow on my finger and I've, quite frankly, had enough.

My house doesn't really feel like my house anymore. Not that it ever was as we rent it, but it did feel like home for 18 long, blissful months. The landlord left us to our own devices and we enjoyed the space, the garden, our family life. Now it is empty, with an echo.

Now it just feels like someone else's home, someone who is itching to move in and extend it and get fab new curtains and carpets and paint for it. My throat lump is pretty intense right now.

It's been rotten since I hurt my back, not helped by the fact I put a bag of frozen peas down my pants to soothe the inflammation and they burst and made my tights all wet while I was at work (yes, I pea-d my pants). Then I had to see the physio five minutes after (wearing the same wet tights) who happened to be young and fit. Oh the horror. Going back to see him this Thursday so will possibly work harder on my choice of underwear and avoid peas in my pants.......

I've left my very part time (ie 6 hours a week job) as a dental receptionist. No more root canal banter. Ahem.

"Yes we can book you in for Tooth Hurty, no problem.....mwaahhhhh!"

So the job is finished and the house is in chaos, we've packed loads but everywhere is filled with itty bitty bits and I hate it.

Yes the TV is older than my daughter and no I am not kidding!!!!!

We have Tues, Wed and Thurs and then that's it. Removal men come at 8am on Friday. Then I will no longer be a Royal Berkshire Bird.

I've loved it here and wow, I've known who my friends are. One is taking me out for breakfast tomorrow, loads joined me for my leaving drinks do (I was high on painkillers), one made me this awesome present;

which is made up of all the places I've loved to visit in the village (she gathered paper bags and leaflets from each one), some clubbed together to buy me a John Lewis voucher and I've had some lovely presents. People are already booking in to come and stay. It's lovely. These people are the ones I shall stay in touch with, they mean so much to me. There are two friends I saw three times last week because we couldn't bear to say goodbye, so have kept prolonging it. Now it's getting silly.

The Prince said goodbye to his friends, including the "Candle Twins". The mum and I met on a train to London when I was visiting KMMMS after Taya was born. We've been friends ever since.

 And I've come to realise our shoe pile has really stressed me out.

It literally goes on for miles and miles

And I don't own one pair of  f*** me shoes. I always go for comfort. Shame!

Pack it in

The house is resembling Cardboard City. It no longer feels warm and cosy. It's making me sad that all our happy memories can never be relived. We will never experience spring with all the pink blossom that scattered like confetti, the pale pink wisteria that crept around the pergola and shaded us in the summer will still be here, but we won't be the ones enjoying it.

Having friends round for impromptu food, watching the children play on the wooden play equipment that was here when we moved in. All these things I will miss. I ache to take "Chester" the cat with us. But alas, he too isn't ours. He's just a regular visitor. And it makes me very sad that the Prince won't remember his happy days here.

Yes ladies and gentlemen, the packing has commenced. Here I am tired, frizzy haired, sporting my own design in run mascara, stressed,  a little shouty with the children for unpacking what I've packed. Not my finest hour.

But two weeks today, we will have left this leafy village, where every one knows everyone. It's bordering on incestuous but whilst it drove me mad, I bet I shall miss it when I don't know a single soul.
So here is an update on the past week in pictures:

Living in a box

The husband is tackling the Prince's room

Which led to me counting my cherry tree stash of ladybird books!

121 books in total!!!

Which were your favourites?

Gotta love vintage Smoke and Fluff....

 In between packing we cheered as the kids ate properly with knives and forks (albeit in the wrong hands)

Hmm, someone should ALWAYS eat this way...

 We fitted in a lovely family walk

The husband reached the ripe old age of 39. I remember whisking him off to New York for his 23rd. Magical. This year he worked and I wished we were back in NYC snogging and skating,

It was only a matter of time with journalists as parents that the Prince found his perfect reading material:

He then took it upon himself to read a bedtime story to his eight year old sister.

Then yesterday we went back to the place that will be our home in two weeks time:

I wore my cosy red cherry tree coat. My lovely nanny (who died nearly two years ago) bought it from Help the Aged (originally Debenhams) and never wore it. I think of her every time I put it on.

Cherry tree coat £10. Cherry tree bag £2.50.

At the park on the beach

And I am excited about moving on and starting again. But I've realised I will be leaving behind some dear friends. A few months ago I posted about feeling I didn't have many friends. I was wrong. I have realised that during these stressful times, my true friends in the village have come forward. They will be sorely missed (but are already booking up to come and stay so it can't be all bad!)

Hoping tomorrow is just as glorious weather wise so we can sneak out for a walk and a break from packing.

Shop? I'd rather drop.

I battled the shops today with two kids. In my heart, it was to be a fun day full of festivities, Christmas shopping, a little mooch in the cherry tree shops, a stop for a well-earned hot chocolate with cream and marshmallows, time spent leisurely marvelling at the wonderful toys and generally enjoying the fact the teachers are on strike.

The reality? A bored, whingeing toddler trying to escape a dodgy, mouldy, wonky-wheeled, semi-collapsing stroller. Which, as the day went on, became more likely to collapse as it got laden with so many carrier bags, I needed one of those lorries behind me, warning everyone of the Wide Load (no, not my bottom on this occasion...something even wider).

The relaxing light luncheon (notice I go for the fancy term) which I envisaged would be in John Lewis (it is quite sumptuous in there in the run-up to Christmas) didn't go according to plan either. The Princess decided she wanted to go to McDonald's for a treat.

Now, I hate Maccy D's with a passion but I thought for a rare treat, why not?

After queueing for 40 minutes (would rather have teeth extracted by Captain Hook) and people-watching (someone tell me, why do ALL boys aged between 9 and 16 look like members of One Direction and wear mustard-coloured chinos which fall off their backsides?) we finally got our mediocre meal, which we ate in seven minutes and then felt starving hungry after. Why do we do it?

Then the Princess decided to hide from me in H&M and I couldn't find her in all the crowds. This also happened in Primark (which is hell in itself). Then the Prince shouted out "I hate you" (he gets it from the Princess) at the top of his voice to me while I tried to put his shoe back on for the six hundreth time (I eventually  took them off and shoved them in a bag).

It seemed the world and his wife were in Reading today. Everyone seemed stressed or pissed. Think I'd rather have been the latter, given the choice.

My mum swears by "what I call" Clickmas. Basically any online shopping and she has a point. It definitely has its merits.

Although I bought some gorgeous vintage Christmas cards, edged with glitter, and all of the husband's presents which I normally struggle with.

On another recent (more relaxing) shopping trip, I bought this Flat Stanley book from Oxfam which I read as a kid. Stanley Lambchop. Love it. Today I didn't get a second to nip to a cherry tree shop (not that I would have fitted in the door anyway, far too wide).

99p for retro capers with Stanley (he's flat, you know)

I never even got that hot chocolate with cream and marshmallows either. Think that's what hurt the most...

 Sometimes I wonder where the hell my children get their energy from. They like a mini disco every night before bed. I literally sit and watch, wondering what the heck has gotten into them. Then they sleep 12 hours through. They'll do it again when they are teenagers. Thought I'd share last night's moments with you!

Tomorrow I am out all day shopping with a friend, something we arranged weeks ago. Only her baby and my toddler in tow. Will I EVER learn...

Remember them

The following poem is written by my seven-year-old daughter and the head teacher put her in the prestigious Gold Book for her effort. I feel so proud of her, no one helped her to write it.

The Poppy Blows

The poppies blow
The poppies blow
All shiny and red
In the field
In the field
Where the poppy lives
Always silent
Always silent
The poppy is God
The poppy is God
Over again is blood
The poppy is red
The poppy is red
The poppy blows
The poppy blows
All shiny and red,
In the field
In the field.

Which witch is which (or Smashing, pumpkins!)

Happy Hallowe'en!! The Witching Hour.

Every night when it is the bath and bedtime routine, we refer to it as the Witching Hour. The children become dreadful, some may say vile. And everyone knows NEVER to phone during Witching  Hour. My mum, my sister, the husband, my friends, market research people. 

By day my children are adorable. Pretty well behaved.

 

By night it's a different story. So everyone knows to stay away til I've settled the bairns and got them to bed after a trillion stories and a battle in the bath. 

Then I know Witching Hour won't be upon me for another 24 hours and I celebrate another hectic evening over, with wine or chocolate. 

Or both if it's particularly fraught! Tonight it's been an entire bag of Cadbury's Chocolate Eclairs and no I'm far from proud. Just rotund.

Hallowe'en here consisted of a little tea party for the Princess in fancy dress of course. A menu of Witches Fingers, Bogey Brains, Wizard's Ear Wax and Troll's Brain awaited them (in basic terms: golden chicken goujons served with broccoli, sweetcorn and lovely jacket spuds!!!)

We had games galore. Apple bobbing, a Treasure Hunt, What's in My Cauldron game and then we went Trick or Treating. 

These witches/cat definitely had the X Factor

Enough to put me off my Chocolate Eclairs (nearly)

Enjoying a cup of Bats Blood

 I can't get over how fast the children are growing. I've looked back over the past few Hallowe'ens.

The Princess in 2007

The Princess and her skeletal cousin in 2009

Butter wouldn't melt (2010)

One for her 21st

Definitely one for his 21st!!!
One very wicked witch...poor Prince

Pumpkin carving in Yorkshire 2011

The Princess and her cousins, Yorkshire, 2011

Perfect for pumpkin soup
Not so perfect for my kids who HATE pumpkin soup

I would like to thank you all for your very kind words over my last post. It is stressful but I am literally "all cried out" now in true Moyet style and am trying to pick up all the pieces. I know we will be fine, I was never destined to be homeless.

I will catch up with all blogs over the weekend I promise.

P.S. look at my Sunday lunch yesterday (which went in the oven at 9.30am as I forgot about the clocks!) 

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.......

So with Hallowe'en well and truly out of the way, it gives me great pleasure to crack on with Christmas. Where ever we may be.

To be beside the sea

When I need a breather from the trials of life, I take to the sea. The air fills my soul with clarity and energy. It works wonders for my perpetually blocked sinuses and blows away the cobwebs. I feel at one with the sea. The waves mesmorise me, calm me, heal me. I watch it bring in the new and spit out the old. The sound, the feel, the motion....so soothing.

So we were expecting cool, windswept weather for mid October when we hit the beach yesterday, but alas, it went a little something like this. Yippee!

Oh I do like to be....

So quiet for a hot day

Tempting huh...no?

Still not interested?!! Hmmm?

A chip fit for a Prince

A total beach babe

A bit of sauce at the seaside, naturally

I took this for my bro - the ultimate Beano fan

Who could those three lovely people be?

Ah! My greatest achievements!
(Look at the sea, like diamonds dancing on the waves)

Solid as some rock...

Mad sea hair and 100 per cent cherry tree outfit on me.
(The husband has no hair, thanks to the photo skills of the Princess)!

How can this be October?!

But now it's definitely getting chilly. I'm feeling it within my bones. I LOVE the sun so was thrilled to get one last blast of it this weekend and can now accept that autumn is well and truly here.

PS. Going off on a total tangent, as only I do best, look how proud the Prince is with his 95p Vacuum cleaner I picked up in Help the Aged. Just wish it really worked!