Well, we’ve finally done it. After talking about moving for the last two and a half years (yes, really….. we’re very good at the talking bit, not quite so good at the actual moving) we have somehow managed to install the whole family (that is, two big people, two little people, two cats and a rabbit) in the most idyllic, picturesque chocolate box cottage in an equally quaint chocolate-boxy village in the Cotswolds. Although the relocation was for ‘practical reasons’ (can be taken as a screamed ‘I AM NOT HAVING A BABY WITH YOU WORKING 2OO MILES AWAY FOR THE 3RD TIME!’) the area we have tumbled into just happens to have been recently named as one of the most desirable places to live in the country.
Don’t know quite how we managed that – well, other than eldest daughter finally deciding that she liked the school, as far as she could possibly like a secondary school- (yes, she’s on the verge of adolescence, we really do like to pile it on ourselves.) Then finding a house to rent (wonder who can actually afford to buy these types of houses…. just what do they do? or a high-pitched how much? have they inherited) in the catchment of both secondary and primary schools before I had the baby in a service station on the motorway.(In case of future reference, we had decided on Leigh Delamere services, at least they have a Marks & Spensives, as its known in our house, so the girls and I could stash a supply of clotted cream shortbread biscuits and Percy Pig sweets to help us cope with the delivery if need be.) And, despite having now been here for the last 3 weeks, we still have the vague feeling that people like us don’t live in places like this. It’s almost like a game of ‘Let’s Pretend’ – we’ll pretend we live in that beautiful cottage opposite the posh manor house by the village church…. O.K….but then, well we actually do live there - Very Strange. We do walk down the gravelled path through the mature tree-lined garden that is more of a park than a lawn. We do have the key to the old oak door and that really is all our stuff (and there’s a lot of it) inside.
Can’t get our heads around it at all, yet. It feels like we are on a strange holiday.
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