Breaking news

I have been absent for a few days because my head has been in something of a whirl. On Monday we got some news which we have been waiting for all summer. J has a new job which means a lot of changes for us all.

We will be moving abroad for two years, and not just anywhere abroad... to St Helena, which for those of you who don't know (and I didn't three months ago) is a tiny island in the middle of the South Atlantic, 1000 miles from anywhere else. It is a British Protectorate so the language is English and the schools follow the English curriculum. It takes a week to get there, travelling by plane to Cape Town then by Royal Mail ship. The ships go every three weeks. It is 10 miles by 5 and has a population of 4500 - less than half the town we currently live in.

We will probably be leaving in a couple of months, but the paperwork required is astounding in its enormity before we can even get to a firm date. The Smalls think it is a very exciting adventure but we'll see what happens when the reality of change hits them. I am extremely excited, scared, apprehensive, proud and delighted all at the same time and have begun The List.

The List currently runs to 35 pages of an exercise book. It is everything we have to do, buy, pack, organise and think about before we go. Some items on The List are actually just sub-lists that are still to be made. Now, don't get me wrong, I like a list, I am happier with a list than without, I would go as far as saying that I am a list-maker of the more obsessive kind, but The List is starting to worry me. I caught it staring at me earlier, daring me to do something that wasn't on it.

In the midst of all this my camera has broken (another reason why I have not posted) so I have been forced to write a snotty letter to the manufacturer who want more to repair it than it cost in the first place or than it would cost to replace. I could rant about this for a very long while, but I won't because it is boring and grumpy making.

Instead I shall tell you about today's photos (taken with J's camera which I have been forced to work out how to use). They are all things in my sitting room which make me smile.

The first is a bunch of flowers from my garden in a vase I made a few years when I went to pottery classes.

The second is my new shoes which are both practical and bright blue - a very fine combination.

The third is a painting my Grandma did of Porthcothan Bay in Cornwall where she lived for most of her life and where we used to go for holidays every year when I was little.

The forth is J's old school trunk which has been commandeered to hold the few toys that are now allowed in the sitting room. The Smalls have big bedrooms and the run of the room I grandly call the dining room which is in fact a play room so I have decreed that the sitting room shall be a largely toy free zone.

Time for the school run - literally if I don't get a move on.

xx