Hello! I'm back. I've hated neglecting the blog recently, but the move, working full-time and our new Internet connection with teething problems, have conspired against me.
Life is different; life is good. We're settled and yet still living with lots of boxes. Life is easier and yet still mentally busy. I've had an enforced absence from the Internet and social networking and I've HATED it.
Now we're on line and the computer is set up in our new study, I promise to be a better blogger. I'm still passionate about it as a concept, and I really want it to go somewhere, but I realise I've got to put the effort in.
Last weekend marked the occasion of my 35th birthday, or #halfwaytoseventy as I renamed it with uncharacteristic pessimism.
I had a big girls' night out planned on Friday in Brighton - a shared event with a very close friend whose birthday is three days before mine. Dexter got tonsillitis. By about 6pm on Friday evening, he had a raging temperature spike and we carted him off to the emergency out of hours doctor. Friday night for me was cancelled.
By Sunday, my actual birthday, he was making a good recovery. It was a gloriously sunny day and all I wanted to do to celebrate was have some quality family time with my lovely boys. So we went for a walk.
We walked through our new village (despite living in a new-build development, I have somewhat grandiose ideas I am now a country bumpkin), round a local park which is home to a lovely country hotel, and ended up at a tea rooms.
It was a proper old-lady afternoon out, and I loved it! We all got a healthy glow from some exposure to actual sunshine, Dexter attempted some 'sheep whispering' and I ate the best ploughman's lunch in the South East. Perfect.
Ashdown Forest is 'the largest free public access space in the South East' - or at least it is according to its website: http://www.ashdownforest.org/home/index.php
It also features in the 'Winnie the Pooh' tales. As a die-hard Paddington fan, this holds little interest for me. I never really got the rotund little fella with the honey, and I hate Disney, so that never helped. I perhaps identify with the melancholic Eeyore, but he doesn't really compare with the duffle-coated, marmalade-guzzling chap. I admire the chutzpah of Paddington: coming all that way as a stowaway and then finding a terribly nice family to adopt as his own. I digress...
New Year's Day seemed like the perfect time for a yomp in the forest, especially as the sun was shining and the ubiquitous grey sky had been replaced by something altogether more blue and pleasing. It was glorious, bright and very, very muddy!
About half an hour's drive from home, Ashdown Forest is less 'Robin Hood' and tree-filled and more 'Wuthering Heights' and windswept heath. Families and over-excited dogs were out in force today. As a displaced Northerner, I am frequently disheartened by the aloofness of the South, but country walks seem to be the exception. We got more 'hellos' and 'happy new years' than if we'd actually gone out last night: we didn't - I sat in my pjs, marking books and sulking. The former is reassuring, as part of the motivation for the jaunt was to familiarise ourselves with the area - it's where we are hoping this year's house move will take us...
'You can't stay in your corner of the Forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes.'
(Winnie the Pooh)
