May
09
When you think of moving to a new country, the furthest thing from your mind is who you will vote for in an election, but the time came just 10 months after our arrival here. So it was time to sit down and start learning about Tory policies and what Labour stood for and what the “up and coming kids on the block” – The Lib Dems, were all about.
Image taken from Google.
Learning about an entirely new political system has been fascinating. Watching a democratic South Africa develop, and comparing politics to the way it is done over here, is just like a soap-opera,(just missing all the good-looking people). Was it right for us to vote? When you have only been in a country for 10 months and you could be gone again in 16 months, should you really be allowed to have a say? Personally, I didn’t think it was necessarily right for aliens such as ourselves to vote, but then it dawned on me that my children get to live with the schooling system decided by these politicians, the police who protect me every day are ruled by these politicians, many of the day to day things that we live with are controlled by these politicians, so the question remains in my mind…. Should I have voted?
This has been a cooler week in the UK. After weeks of glorious sunshine and warm weather, the winds changed, to come back down from the north again and brought along a snappy return of the cooler weather. It was nice to have some rain again (although you seldom imagine that someone in the UK would say those words).
Mitchell had a cracker of a cricket match today. He feels that it was undoubtedly his best ever performance on the cricket field. He plays for the local club team, and I think he has found a comfortable place within the team. He scored 23 (not out) today and took a catch while fielding.
This week we met with our landlords. They are currently back in the UK for a short stay and have decided to move to Australia permanently. This means that the house we are living in is soon to go on the market, but that is not a train-smash at all. It does however mean that house-hunting is high on the agenda at the moment. The markets have changed in the last year and fewer houses are available for renting. Far more houses are on the “for sale” market at the moment.
Yesterday was Jenna’s first horse-riding lesson. 
She has waited 10 months for this moment, and her excitement was just infectious. As I said in last week’s blog, the parents of the beginners have to hold the reins of the horse, so there I was, out in the indoor arena, in the soft sand in my heavy boots, and the instructor sets the pony off on a trot around the arena. You try keeping up with a running horse! After we had been to riding we went to get Jenna some second-hand horse-riding equipment from my niece. So now Jenna walks around the house dressed up like a rider all day.
One of the most important decisions that we made this week was to move Jenna to a private school. She is currently at a little primary school, but I honestly feel that this is not the right place for her. We met with the headmaster of the new school last week and I was excited by his open-minded approach and his willingness to listen and to treat Jenna, and us as individuals and not just as “part of the system”. She will be attending the school soon for a taster day and all my fears of her not wanting to move, leaving behind new friends again, were just squashed when I saw her excitement at the prospect of moving.
On Friday I took a trip into London to enjoy the city I have become so fond of visiting. I love to walk around London and look at the beautiful architecture. I love to wander down the narrow little streets and past the quaint old shops. On this trip I went to parts of London I have not been to before. I ended up in the modern banking area of London with its eclectic mix of old buildings standing alongside modern glass-fronted structures. There were “Suits” (the name given to the typical men in black that pace the streets of London – they are the stony-faced ones, with the iPods in their ears, who will walk right over you in the underground), pubs filled with people, and a general Friday afternoon hustle and bustle. I met up with James at Liverpool station and it was so good to catch up and enjoy some of his favourite jaunts. It was just a wonderful day with wonderful company.
