Blogging – how not to do it.

Well its not mine actually, its a rental, a 6 month (estimate) old Vauxhal Vectra 1.9 litre diesel, with leather interior, air con, sat nav, cruise control. I’m in heaven, I want this car. I’m amazed I was allowed to drive it.

In total I’ve driven just under 200 miles since we picked the car up on Friday afternoon. To say I’m knackered, since this is the most driving I’ve done since practicing for my test when I was 19 is a bit of an understatement.

Ok, enough of the car…

The Weekend.

Well, I picked up my mum, picked up the car then came home. Dropped stuff off and went out for dinner, nothing fancy, just pizza. Enjoyment was had though. We came home, put the kids to bed and booked tickets for  Cadbury’s World, just South of Birmingham.

At 9am on Saturday, we set off. I drove. At 1030am we arrived. We went in. We had fun. We ate chocolate. We made chcoclate things. We ate some more chcoclate. The kids played in a park. We ate more chocolate. We bought chcoclate in the factory shop. We left.

Next was Ikea. Mum drove (I hate Birminghame ringroad). We bought many pretty things. We then went round the corner to B&Q. We bought concrete and more pretty things. We left. Mum drove past the ring road. I took over and drove us home. We relaxed. I cooked.

Today, we went to Gloucester. We wandered and had soem lunch. It was nice. Kinda. I’m not sure I like Gloucester. Anyway, we returned to Cheltenham, wandered in town, had coffee, then drove mum to the station. She got her train at about 1415 and we then drove back to Gloucester. We shopped in Asda, then I drove us home. We made the kids dinner then went for an explore in the car. We found a park on a hill, fantastic views, Iron age settlement, nice walks. We then drove on a bit further, found an abbey and bird sanctuary, it was closed but looked very nice (we’re planning a quick jaunt back tomorrow whilst we still have the car).  We came home, bathed the kdis and sent em to bed (it was about 8pm by then).

Now we’re relaxing. I have my feet up and am tired from all the driving. The car goes back tomorrow at 4pm-ish.  I’m a little sad as mums’ gone home, Kai’s feeling down and I have to give the car back. Anyway, time to relax I guess. Laters all.

Well…I’ve been in our new home now for pretty much 3 weeks today and so far its all gone well. I have to be honest, when we first moved in I was a little, yikes, this is like a holiday, someday it may end I’ll have to go back to Edinburgh. By the end of the second week however this feeling was gone. My mind had gotten over this being a holiday of sorts and was accepting this as my home and to be honest, I am really very happy here.
I love this town, it has everything I could want in it, plus its gorgeous. Its close enough to many great cities like London, Birmingham, Cardiff etc. for us to visit them for the day or whatever. The town itself has some great parks, nice local pubs, very nice and friendly people and it even has an outdoor swimming pool at the local sports centre. All in all its as close to perfect as I can find for me. Its so great that, aside from all my friends, yes you wonderful people, that I don’t miss Edinburgh. I even found the local goth/rock club and store

The house we’re renting is amazing, we’ve really landed on our feet, we have 3 bedrooms, an upstairs bathroom and a downstairs toilet, a dining room (with my gorgeous coal/wood burning fireplace, and yes we’ve already lit it up and ooooo purdy flames), a good sized lounge, an office in the attic, a garage and a nice sized garden too. What’s even better is we are within 5 minutes of the local shops where we can get our small groceries, 25 minutes walk from the centre of town or the train station, 2 minutes walk from the local park, which runs events for our community all year round (like picnics, sports days, family days, etc.) and 2 minutes from the local school where we’ve just enrolled the kids. We’re talking red brick school with large playground, great staff and it scores as one of the highest national scores for the region. All in all we’ve landed on our feet, running! I mean, I went to private schools from P3 upwards and this place is just stunning even from what I had, plus the kids came back today saying they had a good day

Well work starts for me in just under 2 weeks and i’m not sure how to take that tbh, in many ways I’m a bit worried and nervous by it as its my first serious job (ie. one I intend to keep past the holidays). I guess I just don’t want to screw up, but hey I’m sure I’ll be fine.

Hmmm….what else, oh yeah well we’ve got our local rates sorted out now, we’ve got the phones up, the net (well duh) up and running, water rates, gas/electricity, sky and the council tax pretty much all taken care of. (phew) So now we just need to finish our unpacking, get some more furniture from the local Ikea (we need more bookshelves waaaah!) and start saving up for a car (I wanna do some driving round here).

The only complaint I have to date is that the local RP lot a very clique and hard to locate, I’m hoping that when I start work I’ll locate their RP soc (they supposedly have one). I’m also planning on joining the gym at work (YAY! £12 a month!!!) and start working out again. We’ve registered with the local docs practice (and its a nice practice too, friendly staff and online booking for appointments) and in the course of the health check it was decided I really needed to lose weight (its been coming for a long time, I am sorely overwieght). That was 2 weeks ago and so far I’ve lost 3 kilos, now thats not much but still its a start considering that was just by changing my diet, so when I join the gym this should leap up (or so I’m hoping). Kai and I are both now watching the calories. Its hard work but hey, we want the benefits.
Taking of my beloved, she’s very homesick, if you’ve been reading her journal then you’ll already know. She’s missing her family and her friends, understandable really. I left Edinburgh because I’d found a job AND I felt it was finally time to leave. Ever since I split with my ex Catherine, I have felt like it was time to start moving out beyond Edinburgh and now I’ve finally done it. Don’t get me wrong, Edinburgh is fantastic, a place I will always consider to be a home and I have almost all my family there but it was right for me to move on, for a while at least. I’ll be back up to Burgh sporadicaly depending on holidays (the next visit is planned for X-Mas) so we’ll just have to see what happens.

Talking of family, my mother is due to visit this weekend, we’re hiring a car so yay, I get to drive a bit *bounce*. So we’ve lots planned and for once I get to show her my cooking prowess. So far I’ve cooked (on my insistance) every meal bar one in this house and I love it!

Birthday-wise dang its been busy. We’ve had Keith Foreman, a damned good mate, Edith Craig, another damned fine mate, Nick Hewit, a nut but a good bloke, my own dear sister and of course Tommy, my beloved’s eldest. He seems to have a good one, he got robots from his dad, RC bikes from his gran, PS2/X-Box games and the new Optimus Prime transformer from myself and his mum. He had a Scooby-Doo cake which he’s had a huge chunk from and phone calls from loads of well wishers, overall he said

“This is the best birthday EVER!”

We’re just pleased he’s so happy and that he and his sis like their new school.

So all in all, life is great down here, the weather is warm-hot with a light sprinkling of thunderstorms (yes we’ve had about 6 in our time here so far and we got to see lightning each time!) and we’re settling in fairly well. I hoep you all have been having as great a time!

Take care y’all and please, let me know how you’re all doing.