A room of one's own

When we bought our first house together me and Hubbie were keen to have a garden. We were both living in flats in South West London and wanted some outdoor space. He had a small courtyard garden in his bachelor pad in Wandsworth and we would have brunch sitting outside and the neighbourhood cats would pop over to visit. On one memorable occasion when he had the front and back doors open one of the feline neighbours ran through the flat to make a hasty escape from someone or something, not even so much as an 'excuse me' if you don't mind ! My flat wasn't so much of a cat thoroughfare seeing as it was on the sixth floor overlooking Battesea Power Station and with about 12 train tracks running past the window. It was a spectacular view of the River Thames and the New Year's Eve fireworks alone were worth the mortgage !!

 Anyway, when we were looking for a home we wanted a garden because we knew we wanted to rehome a cat and we love spending time outdoors. In our first home together we had a lavender filled idyll where we spent most evenings and weekends in the summer months. I always called it our 'favourite room' and it really was - even with the East Grinstead line going past. Yes train lines are a theme with us. Then as our family grew with our boy joining the fold we decided to move somewhere bigger and even toyed with the idea of leaving the area so that we'd be nearer our respective parents.  After some to-ing and fro-ing and not a little bit of stress we finally found this house and when we read the details Hubbie said, "this must be a misprint, it says the garden is 200 ft long." We came to have a look around with our tiny little baby boy and saw this enormous garden and I just knew we had to live here. Yes it's a lot of work, but more than anything it has given us a whole new massive room to play with.

At first we didn't know much about what was in the garden as we moved here in Oct so the apple trees were full and the leaves were starting to shed, but it took our first year here to appreciate the full beauty of how many flowers and plants we have. Only today I realised that the white flowers growing on the plants I gleefully hacked back last week are Lily of the Valley (and only then because I saw our beloved bees on them and took a big whiff of the scent and it had a distinct hint of Yardley about it !). There are roses all over and after an apple free year last year we have trees groaning with fruit this Summer - bring on the crumbles and pies !! I also have a plethora of beautiful flowers that I can pop into a simple glass vase to bring some of the garden indoors - it adds to my love of 'indoor-outdoor' decor.

This year we've been able to construct more of a play garden space for our son to enjoy. We eat outdoors every chance we get (and Hubbie needs little excuse to fire up his prized gas barbecue when it's as hot as it is at the moment) and he sees it as we do as an extension of the house. Whether he's playing football or chucking water around it's all about having some fun and being outside. We do, however, draw the line at having a trampoline in our garden. I'm not going to get all Kate Hopkins and judgey about it, we just don't want to have one in our favourite room.

Having said that Hubbie has been busy this afternoon building our boy his own 'quiet space' outside. A room of his own where he can contemplate deep thoughts and park his favourite cars underneath when he's finished playing. He's already got some furniture in there and I expect at bedtime tonight he will run in there and hide as he knows Daddy can't fit in there to get him out.

I'm out this evening at a ball - which I need to go and get ready for, like ten minutes ago.

I expect to get home and find them both asleep in the 'new house.'

Twenty Twelve Vision

As everyone else is saying how rubbish 2011 has been I thought I'd offer my own review of a year that has been a bit of a curate's egg. I've watched Charlie Brooker's Newswipe and it pretty much encapsulated the news events for me, so I refer you to that for the newsy / political perspective done far better than I would have managed it.

The year began with a very close friend coming back from the dead. I mean properly actually dying then having the paddles to bring her back (like in the movies). I put it down to a desperate need for attention myself - it had been a few years since she got married and our friends live in other parts of the world so it took something radical  in order to get them to call. Mission accomplished. She is under strict orders not to repeat this so we're all waiting with bated breath to see what fresh capers she has planned…

I had my first Mother's Day as a mother this year. Of course my son was oblivous to the significance of this. In later years he may badly wrap a gift to give me, but for now I'm content that hubbie helps and we kid ourselves he has any idea what is going on. (I have deliberately left this dubious so you can decide who I mean).

In May we sold our house - the first home me and hubbie have owned together. The home we brought our son back from the hospital to. The home we brought Neo from Battersea Cats & Dogs Home to. Of course it took months to actually move (see Oct), but someone came to see it in May and said she'd buy it. Result !

To everyone else August in London was about lunatics in balaclavas nicking TVs from the walls of betting shops. For my family it was all about the "Monsoon Wedding" of my youngest sister complete with a flower strewn Ambassador and bangra rhythms. It was also a chance for Khushbir to dress up in his Bollywood finery and impress everyone by applauding at the speeches.

Having enjoyed a year of playgroups, back-to-back Come Dine With Me and cups of tea with other Mums the time came to return to work and in September I went back to a new location, but the same colleagues. I'm not sure if it just because I had been away and I missed my boy, but going back to work was truly hideous. The only silver lining in all this was that my boy had his first birthday at the end of September and we celebrated with cake and hats and singing so now he knows that the correct response to a rousing chorus of Happy Birthday is to put out his hand for a piece of cake. That's my boy !

After months of frantic phone calls between vendors, buyers, the bank, the estate agents and solicitors we finally moved house in October. We paid to have a company move all our belongings, which I admit does make life much simpler, but isn't entirely foolproof. We had boxes marked as containing curtains with kitchen items and picture frames in. I wasn't sure if this was simply a mistake or an elaborate attempt to make us laugh when unpacking. The final straw for me was having to wear the same two pairs of shoes for weeks until I looked in the box marked "baby's room" which had all my shoes in it the entire time !

In November after weeks of going into work and being pretty much ignored and sidelined I decided to leave. It wasn't the simplest decision, but one that having been made proved to be the best course of action. My work colleagues continued to ignore me and on my last day only two people actually wished me well. If I could be bothered I'd take up a case of constructive dismissal, but frankly being able to spend every day with my boy is the best outcome I could have asked for - regardless of how I came to it.

So we come to the last month of the year when I had already finished going into work and was able to concentrate on preparing for Christmas and more importantly the wedding of our own TOWIE stars. I love, love, love weddings and this one was in a fairytale setting (albeit in Essex) with the funniest best man's speech we've heard in a while.

My year began with a friend's health scare and it ends the same way. A good friend has been diagnosed with breast cancer and will be undergoing treatment in early January. She is my age and has a young son. Whatever else happens in 2012 we've already agreed to go shopping for wigs together and discussed how to wear scarves at a jaunty angle to cover hair loss.

I hope 2012 brings you happiness, good health an abundance of love and just enough wealth to not spoil you.

Stressed is desserts backwards - like that helps !

I managed to get the baby to sleep and thought I'd blog a little, then I found a post I hadn't finished and thought that might be fun to share. I must have started writing this in mid-late Sept when the prospect of moving house seemed a distant dream. Now I'm sitting on the sofa in the new house and am in the slightly less stressful process of ignoring Christmas. Oh well it's nice to know that all things (even the stressful ones) pass, so here goes...

--- I'm not sure why it happens, but it just does. All the most stressful things that can happen in life converge at once. The last time I bought a house - as I recall - I managed to get divorced, change jobs, and buy a home in the space of about two months.

As usual my brother drove the hired van, as usual I lost my temper and burst into tears and as usual there was far too much stuff for the space. At the end of it all there was a bed that had travelled with me for many years and a lot of books, but nothing to sit on or to watch or listen to. I surveyed the surroundings and looked at the view of Battersea Power Station out of the window and breathed a sigh of relief. Then I got in my car and drove to my Mother's house.She was preparing dinner and I took a plate out and sat and the table and barely looking round she said "What are you doing here ? Aren't you staying in your own place tonight ?"

Now don't get me wrong. I'm not one of those boomerang children who keep going back home and never want to leave, believe me. I'd gone to university in the Midlands and had even taken a job in Wiltshire to get away from home, however, I had agreed with my folks an arrangement where I'd stay with them to save money and help pay for my home. It had taken so long for it all to work out and happen that I had forgotten that the point of all the hassle was to actually live in the place.

And now seven years later it's all flooding back to me, except this time I have a chain and estate agents to deal with as well as a husband, a baby and a cat.  My first home was a new build and as a first time buyer I had no chain, so I had no appreciation of how mind numbingly tedious and petty the process can be. One evening our estate agent called to ask if we were taking the trees and satellite dish with us. To be honest I felt like saying, "yes, I am planning on digging up the entire garden to take with us - including the new fence - and I will be taking the dish and all the guttering that my husband replaced last summer."Apparently some people take the light bulbs, switches and even plants from the ground when the move. Heaven forbid I add to my already burgeoning loft full of belongings. ---

…that reminds me, now that it's getting colder I need to clear the garage of all our belongings so that the car can go in the garage instead of boxes of things we really don't need. Of course the reason I'm sitting on the sofa now is avoidance. When I could be sorting and finding a place for all the things we moved here with I've decided that blogging is a far better use of my time. The garage and spare room will just have to wait.

Oh and I've now iced the Christmas cake - let the festivities begin !!