Last time at the Smallwood Road Children's Centre

We went to 'Stay and Play" at the Smallwood Road Children's Centre every Wednesday and Friday morning since Olive was 6 weeks old.

These sessions got me through many a tough time. I knew that Wednesdays and Fridays would be 'good days'. The staff are so well skilled in childhood development and I watched in awe of their respectful and gentle approach with wild toddlers. I learnt so many skills here that have helped me to be a better parent. Another free facility in London. Amazing.

Thanks bubbly Zara - even though I was always demoted to "second favourite" when you were in the room. Thank you clever Sally - when I'm trying not to lose my temper I think to myself  "what would Sally do?" and it calms me down.

This was my first set of goodbyes. I got a bit tearful. They wished us well at story time and presented us with cards with lots of pictures of the girls at the centre. I was a very surprised and a bit overwhelmed.

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Last time at the Garratt Park One O'clock Club

Loved this centre. A sensory room, loads of outdoor space, kids cooking and all for free! I don't know what I would have done without these Council funded facilities. Awesome.

Today Elsie dressed up as a princess, tore around the baby sensory room (oops), and made strawberry cobblers.

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Olive Sits

I realised this week that Olive was pretty much sitting up by herself (bar the odd topple). I felt a bit bad because she was so stable that I think that perhaps she has been able to do it for a wee while...but I just haven't sat her up before. It's been partly because of the vomiting (she was much more likely to 'spill' in an upright position), partly to do with our over furnished house (where I was unlikely to spend much time on the floor with the girls due to space constraints), and partly to do with my brain not being very switched on. Anyway, it's great that she is upright now as she can start to get amongst it...

Russell's 40th Birthday Weekend

This weekend we headed to Farnham to celebrate Russell's 40th and Emma's birthdays. Being without our car we headed down on the train which was great actually. Travel by train is so relaxing!

We had a lovely weekend celebrating with Iain, Maureen, Emma, Dave, Baby Luke and cousin Susan put in a guest appearance on her way to the Killers concert.

We had a delicious BBQ lunch then too much wine. Olive slept through the night (as she has done since we left Forster House. Perhaps it was all the beige...).

The following morning Olive nodded off on the airbed on the lounge floor. Looks lush.

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Bye Bye Forster House

Finished the cleaning, patched the paint, loaded the suitcases into Russell's car. Joel and Russell went ahead in the car and I shut the door for the last time and walked over to Russell's house with the girls.

I hated a claustrophobic space, poor light, minuscule bathrooms, crap shower heads, synthetic furniture, lack of bath and billion shades of beige. But I loved the security, cleanliness, the price, the G1 bus, the wide hallway and the incredible staff. From the cleaners to the accommodation office I've never lived in a better maintained building. Thank you Thames Valley Housing Association. Thank you St George's Healthcare NHS Trust. Bye bye Forster House.

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Elsie does headstands!

I didn't capture this very well. Little monkey!

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Elsie Walks the Tight Rope

I like this series of photos at our local playground, Garratt Green. It actually reminds me a bit of a series of photos Mum has of me at a playground in Napier when I was a girl. Must dig them out and compare.

The reason I took these photos was because I was surprised to find that Elsie could walk along the tightrope part on her own.

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Moving Day

So today was the big day when the packers came to take everything and put it on the boat. We worked hard to dismantle, flat pack and stuff everything in advance in an attempt to minimise our final volume. The company had given us an estimated volume of around 650 cubic feet which included 350 cubic feet at Forster House and 300 cubic feet at Osiers Road. I was sceptical of the estimate though as their software seems to assign average volumes per item and didn't take account of our demon packing skills. I was hoping it would actually be around 500 cubic feet and fearful that it might be 650 cubic feet.

On the day I was quite sleep deprived as we'd had a tricky week with Olive and had to use the wee hours to get all the packing, sorting and discarding done. Joel took the car to be cleaned and then he had to drive it up to the warehouse at Wembly. So I was in charge of overseeing the girls and the crew.

They arrived at 8:30am and cracked on. Olive fussed, Elsie ran riot and I found myself somewhat panic stricken and just wholly unable to function.  I just kept standing in the middle of it all like a rabbit in the headlights. The girls both had pooey nappies, they needed breakfast and lunch, the crew packed a chest of drawers that belong to Forster House and were carrying it out to the truck before another crew member noticed (I'd watched it all), the bolts that hold one of the Forster House beds together has also been shipped to New Zealand. I just stood by and couldn't pull myself together. Eventually I collected myself enough to realise that I being useless and just getting in everyone's way. So I piled the girls into the pushchair and navigated my way outside. Where I stood around staring vacantly there...

After a comedy of errors whereby the crew ran out of packing materials, labels and everything else, and a panic moment where the lead guy said to me "I don't think this will fit into our truck, I think its going to be much more than 600 cubic feet" they finally finished. It all fitted into the truck and the volume? Five hundred cubic feet. Currently winging it's way to New Zealand on the Northern Javelin.

Once the packers had finally left (around 4pm) we headed to the pub and met Kara, Jonson and Romey for a very much needed drink (or two). We then came back to the empty flat and ate pizza sitting on the floor. It felt great. Like a huge weight had lifted.

Emotional!

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Osiers Moving Day

Today we moved all the furniture out of our flat at Osiers Road. We are going to continue to let it as an unfurnished flat so this weekend we went over, dismantled all the furniture and moved it to Forster House.

Luckily Sharleen was on hand with her van driving skills. We are shipping all the big planters to New Zealand so we had to take the plants with us too.

Unfortunately I was fumbling to grab my phone so failed to capture the moment when Joel ran along side the moving van and then jumped through the window Dukes of Hazard style.

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Elsie wears her new goggles

Elsie considers her swimming goggles all round "go faster" goggles. Like all toddlers Elsie copies me a lot and it's not always favorable. I'm a bit of a faffer, particularly when heading out the door. I faff around packing things into the pushchair and nappy bag.  Elsie copies this and just as we are about to leave will often go "oooh oooh ooooh" and run around grabbing her essentials. It always cracks me up seeing the things she chooses to take. Insight into the toddler brain! Anyway, today it was swimming goggles and sheepie. We were headed to the library...

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