New Year

A Happy New Year to you all!  First of all I want to apologise for the lack of posts during December.  H1 and I were victims of on line fraud and it made me feel vulnerable and as though the world was a little too close for comfort.  I needed time to just shut the doors on it all, be with my children in our new home and get back to being me.  Christmas came at the right time for us all and we finally began to relax and look forward to the holidays.  The stormy weather meant we could do little other than stay in, watch films on telly, eat chocolate and keep warm.  Now and then we braved the wind and took the dogs up the lane for a sniff and a dig about in the hedgerows.  Now it is over; the decorations packed away in the garage and presents slotted into every day life.  The chocolate has been eaten and there is only one tiny piece of Christmas cake left...and it's mine!

Yesterday saw the children going back to school for the first day of term.  Boooo!  None of us were looking forward to the 7am start and the dark morning but sure enough it arrived and we all awoke, washed and dressed, drank tea and ate breakfast to the background music of howling wind and lashing rain.  We all shivered and got ready to head out.  Thankfully Pea and H1 now get the taxi to school and the lovely driver reverses up the track to wait for them to go out.  No more standing on lonely roads in the dark waiting for the bus or long treks home after a tiring day for them.  I am soooo grateful.  H2 and I got in the car for the 15 minute drive to his school and cranked the heating up full blast.  We haven't had much in the way of frost and ice but that wind really cuts through you.  After depositing H2 safely at the school gate and saw him wend his way sadly to the yard, head down, bag dragging along behind him, I headed for home, careful to avoid flooded lanes and fallen branches.

Soon after getting in, there was an almighty thunder storm.  The second we've had since Christmas.  We didn't have any thunder during all that glorious hot weather in the summer, but here we are in winter and we get thunder and lightening.  Pretty vicious it was too.    The lights kept flickering off and on again then finally with a click, everything went off.  No phone, no Internet, no lights, no heating and no mobile phone connection either.  Fortunately the stove is gas and so is the fire in the lounge, so at least I could drink tea all day and have the fire on if I needed it.  I decided to wrap up in extra clothes instead as it's cheaper!

It was the perfect excuse to indulge in a hot chocolate with the works.  A bit later the postman knocked on the door, handed me that morning's post and asked if he could please have a glass of water.  I ushered him in and he stood dripping on the mat and we talked of the weather, our children and the ease which you can get cut off from the world living in the sticks.  It does have many advantages though!  When he'd gone, I opened the parcel he left and discovered this...

Let me explain.  The first weekend of the holiday, before Christmas, was very enjoyable indeed but very busy.  All my family came over for a family party, so I had been cleaning, baking and generally getting in a flap.  My brother and sister and their families hadn't yet seen our new home, so I wanted it to look gorgeous, which of course it did anyway without my faffing about.  The party was lovely and I was finally able to relax and enjoy their company and have lots of cuddles with my niece and baby nephew.  The following day I woke feeling absolutely wiped out.  I think it was just the reaction of three months of being overly busy and a bit stressed with the amount of things that insisted on going wrong and needed bags of energy to sort out.  I sat in the lounge hugging my mug of tea and wrapped my dressing gown around my legs.  I flicked through the television channels (after wrestling the remote control off H2 who would have spent the entire day watching Almost Naked Animals, or some other ghastly programme guaranteed to numb the mind of even the most intelligent and sparky child) and to my utter delight I discovered Northanger Abbey was on that very morning.  You may know that Jane Austen wrote NA and I love JA, so it promised to be a perfect few hours.  I told the boys I had booked those two hours during which they should not endeavour to speak to me or try to engage my attention in any way whatsoever, and that I was going to get showered and dressed ready for my film.  Why?  they enquired.  Why what?  Why are you going to get dressed? they replied.  We're not.  You always get dressed, just relax, get another cup of tea and stay in your PJs all day, like us.  I ummed and ahhed a bit then thought, actually why the heck not?  I haven't done such a thing since I was a teenager or had 'flu (which isn't any fun at all if you're ill).  So that is exactly what I did.  I opened a tin of Christmas biscuits to accompany my second cup of tea and curled up ready to enjoy the film.

Explanation of above book coming up.  In Northanger Abbey, the heroine, Catherine Morland, is slightly obsessed with Gothic romances written by the then very popular novelist, Mrs Ann Radcliffe.  Her imagination works overtime on a diet of The Mysteries of Udolpho and others and gets her into a spot of bother.  Eventually the film ended and I attended to my dress and then flipped open the laptop to search for Ann Radcliffe on Amazon.  Found. Purchased. Delivered. Happy!  I started reading A Sicilian Romance over New Year and loved it, once I had sorted all the people out and a few had met sticky ends, which whittled it down to a more manageable number.  I had just finished it during the storm when Postie brought The Mysteries of Udolpho.  That, I will be starting tonight!

Arriving at school later in the afternoon, I was told by one of the other mums that lightening had struck a house in a nearby village that morning and it had burnt to the ground.  Thank Heavens everyone had got out safely and were unharmed.  What a hideous thing to happen.  I know I only rent our house, but it is our home, our sanctuary, our everything.  This weather has a lot to answer for.  Elsewhere, a telegraph pole came down and several houses lost all their power, just as it was going dark too.  We haven't been to the beach since just before Christmas as it's better to stay as far away from the sea during a storm as possible.  Way too dangerous, so I don't know how people have suffered on the coast, but I can imagine it wasn't easy.  The British Isles have really come in for a battering these last few weeks and my heart goes out to all those who spent Christmas away from their homes or have since lost their possessions and been evacuated to safety.  I sincerely hope it ends soon.

Enough rambling for now, it's nice to be back and I hope you will join me on my adventures during 2014.  Thank you for reading. xxx