Mar
14
Here I am, back after a one week break from my writings on wrightaboutnow. I can’t believe that Jon was here for Christmas and New Year and now we are in the middle of March! It feels like only a few days have passed since we watched the fireworks of New Year. Can it even be possible that our lives can pass us by so quickly? We only have one life to live, so how can it be galloping away at such a rate? I just realised that in 4 months time we will have lived here for a year already.
In the two weeks since I wrote the last blog, Mitchell has become the proud owner of a new electric guitar. He loves it! He practices his chords every day, he looks so forward to Wednesdays and Fridays when he has lessons at school. He and a few of his friends from school are keen on starting a band. I asked him if I would have to pay for my ticket to attend their first gig and was met with a resounding YES. The amp that goes with the guitar is perhaps something I could do without in the house, but on the flipside of that – it does have sound variation settings, so it makes practice time a little less monotonous.
On Thursday last week, Jenna’s school celebrated World Book day and the children could dress up for school as a character from their favourite story book. Jenna went as Alice in Wonderland. I had originally told her to just wear her witches outfit from halloween, but in the end I am glad she didn’t. I am glad I went to the extra effort of getting her something different, because as we arrived at the school we were met by a sea of black-clad witches and Jenna with her bright blonde hair and her pretty blue Alice dress stood out from the crowd. On Wednesday this past week we met Jenna’s teacher for a parent-teacher feedback meeting. I am really glad at the progress she is making, and just how popular she is amongst the other children at the school. She has started swimming every Thursday now as part of the PE class at school, and I think she loves being back in the water again. I think she really misses the freedom to just put on her costume and run and jump into the pool we used to have in SA. Her gymnastics competition is creeping up on us quickly now and she has finally memorised her entire floor routine. It is now just down to perfecting every move.
Mitchell’s hockey season drew to a close this morning, so the early Sunday mornings are finally over for him, although I hear that the first cricket matches for the season are almost upon us…
A few weeks ago in one of the blogs, I wrote about a fox that sat outside our house for a few nights and had me puzzled by his (or her) behaviour. I have since discovered that the fox lives in the field across the road from our house. There are places in the scrub that are clearly used as his lairs. This week I stood upstairs in the study and I watched him chasing birds in the field. The wild creatures in England continue to remind me of the storybooks I read as a child. It is amazing how the authors get the descriptions of all those creatures so accurately defined and how the illustrators perfect the images of them. This fox was agile and could leap into the air, but when he realised that he had lost the battle against the birds for a while, he snuck of in that sly fashion and disappeared out of sight.
I had my first job interview in England last week Friday with a company that develops Accounting Software. The job means 2 days a week at the offices in Hadlow, which is about 5 min drive from the house we currently live in, and 3 days a week commuting to London. This does open up a whole host of issues around child-care for Mitchell and Jenna, though. I got a call last week to say that out of all the applicants they had interviewed they were going to make me an offer of employment. I am waiting for the offer to arrive in the post and although I am eager for it to arrive, I also welcome the delay, as other appointments for interviews are coming up and I don’t want to simply accept the first offer that comes along, when there might be something a little better waiting just around the corner.
In a few weeks time Mitchell heads off to France for a week. He will be visiting Euro Disney and all the other French tourist attractions. He will be spending a week in a hotel and this week at school they were paired off with the boys they will be sharing rooms with. He is excited and I am being a typical worrying mom. Mitchell and Jenna have grown up so much in the past 6 months. They continue to make me proud, beyond belief.
The springtime continues to advance on us. In the weeks of December our daily temperature was seldom more than -2 deg C. In January the temperatures hovered between 2 and 6 degrees. In the past 2 weeks we have seen beautiful sunny days of around 7 to 9 degrees. Looking at the forecast for the week ahead, we will have 5 days of “double digits” ahead of us. The flowers are exploding all over the garden, this weel the house was overrun by ladybugs, green shoots are appearing from the brown plants which looked as if they had all but died. The sun is setting well after 18:00 in the evenings now as we head towards with equinox in the coming week.
On Venus, a day is longer than a year. I think that means that not everything in this world can be defined by the way we see it here on Earth. Anything is possible.
