An Enterprising Young Bear....

I was reading some of my recent blogs and it occurred to me that a) they are all a bit serious of late, especially when you read them one after the other like I did and b) it has been some time since we caught up with the light of my life, young Alfie Bear.

(Yes I know J is the light of my life but shhhh! We mustn't let Alfie hear...it's all about him you know!)

Anyway, Alfie has been mooching around and generally presuming that all of life revolves around him.  He still loves watching the squirrels scurrying about outside from his comfy window position but doesn't get to do this so much now that the blind is closed during the weekdays when I am at work.  He gets bored quickly and likes to keep busy and it would appear that he's been putting this time to some use.  We recently discovered a little project of his...it would appear that he's been quite an enterprising young bear and has joined the ranks of celebrity (or should that be celebratory?) brands with his very own gin & tonic - he told me that I gave him the idea as I always seemed to enjoy a Gin & Tonic with Daddy so much!  

Alfie also loves to 'participate' and he takes great joy in being the centre of attention. During the unwrapping of my 40th birthday presents, he took quite a liking to one of my sister's gifts - a pair of bedsocks with cows heads on them - and took it upon himself to demonstrate how much better they looked on him!  The photo says it all really....

Anyway, that's enough about Alfie for now...too much attention will go to his head, things will just become impossible and I might just have to have a few stern words with him...or give him THE LOOK (you know, the one ALL mother's have that manages to silence ...well...everything really)...but he has such a cute face and how could I possibly stay cross...

Sigh....

What's that you say?  He's not real?

Bite your tongue!

Definitely Not Leaving...

My Indefinite Leave To Remain in the UK has come through.  

The Royal Mail card has been sitting on the table by the door waiting until today when I could get to the Post Office to pick up the Special Delivery Parcel this morning and there was my passport, my documents and the most anticipated letter ever confirming that I am 'no longer subject to immigration restrictions'.

There were a few tears of relief...it hasn't mattered how many times I have logic-ed it all out with 'of course it won't be a problem, I more than meet the criteria and submitted absolutely everything that they have asked for', a tiny voice in my head (you know, THAT voice) kept muttering 'but you haven't been working for most of this year' and 'you don't have a stable income/job' so there has been an internal battle since submitting my application 8 weeks ago which I am so relieved as over...

It's been almost 6 years since I arrived in London and it's been challenging and imperfect and joyful and rewarding to build my life here on terms I didn't know would ever be mine and to make different choices, ones I thought I would never face or even dream I would have to make.  But I feel like I've earned this life - it's mine and being here is not in someone else's hands anymore - and I'm happier than I ever thought was possible.

So for those of you at 'home' (my first one anyway) who still miss me, this news may be a double-edged sword but please know that I'm loved and happy here...and I'm only ever a blog away....

The Last Laugh...

So we bought Halloween treats yesterday in preparation for the onslaught of trick-or-treaters willing to brave walking up the hill that is Windmill Rise - those that know 'the hill' will agree it takes not insignificant fortitude and strong mountain goat tendancies to take it on - so we wanted to be sure that those with these qualities were rewarded at the summit like last year.


But no-one turned up.


No-one.


Not one tiny knock at the door.


Complete silence.


Damn...

...although this does mean that we have a bulk bag of Haribos and 10 mini bags of Maltesers to get through...

Aha!  Who's having the last laugh (and a mild sugar headache) now? 

The Icons of Youth...

This year has been something of a transition year - my redundancy, the passing of J's Mum, 2 weddings, several 40th birthdays - including my own - and 2 births (well one is still actually pending but I figure a due date of January 17 means that the majority of 'womb-time' falls into this year).  But one thing in particular has made this feel like even more of a watershed year...when I read this week that Don Lane had died.

At this point, you might be saying to yourself 'who is this guy?' (for those who don't know, he hosted one of Australia's late-night 'chat' shows, whilst I was a young'un) or 'what about MJ and Farrah Fawcett?'.  But here's the thing.  Don Lane was like this quintessential piece of my growing up years - not that I thought he was great or anything or even that the show was on all that much in the house I grew up in.  But Don, his show and Bert 'Moonface' Newton as his sidekick, was just there in that patchwork of Australian late 70s-early 80s culture.  Not really as an idol but more an icon of my youth - something I didn't choose but perhaps chose me.

A bit like musk sticks from the tuckshop at lunchtime or the smell of Coppertone Sunscreen, the daffodil wallpaper in my childhood bedroom or the seed pods, shaped like tiny fried eggs, that descended from the tree in the back yard.  Or even the annual 'all-day-on-the-telly' 'Hardie Ferodo' live from Mt Panorama.

So now I'm off to pick up some Halloween goodies for our imminent bevy of neighbourhood 'trick or treaters' and the disappearance of one of these icons, long forgotten until this week, has brought up such a wave of nostalgia around my childhood I'm now wondering how I can recapture some of 'it'...

Do you think Sainsbury's have got musk sticks?