Normal service shall resume shortly....

... Honest!!

Wow, I can't believe that we've been in our new house for nearly a month now. Slowly, things are coming together, boxes are gradually unpacked, and our family starts to find its new, everyday rhythm.

We have a HUGE amount of decorating to do.

Our living area is starting to come together. We still need some coffee tables, another bookcase, curtains etc, but it's starting to feel a bit more homely.

Do you notice the sofas?...

Meanwhile, the rest of the house looks a little like this :

we're doing one room at a time while the occupants sleep in one of the 'spare' rooms. It will take a while, but we'll get there.

The children have done so well in adjusting. We have lots of phonecalls, emails and skyping to friends back in the UK, but I am so proud and amazed at how well they have coped with all the change - not least of which has been having to speak (and learn in) Dutch all day at school. It's not been easy, but they are doing so very well.

I'm too busy at the moment to take stock of things really, I'm trying to find my feet, decorate a house, remember to speak Dutch to everyone, look after the children, find my new 'place', make friends and work out the health system here to really stop and let things sink in. That will come. I miss my friends dearly and am yearning for company, but I know it will be baby steps, one at a time. Until then I have a visit of my closest friends to look forward to in September!!

I've missed blogging! Really have, but when my workroom looks like this

you can understand why there's not much 'making' going on at the moment, and it's only this past week that we've found our routine again. Hopefully things will settle down soon and I'll be updating a lot more regularly. Till then, please be patient with me!

xx

Oh My!!

What a mad few weeks it's been here!! We had our offer on our favourite house accepted (they dropped €65 000 in the end!). This means that we have only 8 weeks to go before we move to Den Haag. Eeeek!! At the moment we are swamped with trying to find reasonably priced movers, arranging the mortgage, and sorting out schools - there is only a place for the Engineer at the local school so far, despite us being promised places for all 3 - and all the local schools are full up. We are really disappointed as we were keen for them all to be together locally so they could begin to make friends in the neighbourhood. At the moment we are looking at a long car drive to place the two girls. It's all a bit mad here!

On top of that, I had my operation last Monday, which unfortunately didn't go as planned. I'm in more pain now than I was before and need to have another op. in the coming weeks. Not fun.

I have been a little busy with crafty things though. I made a pencil roll as part of a present for one of Pickle's friends

and of course, had to make one for Pickle too (though it's not finished yet...)

I have been plodding on with my 'Granny a day' project,

I even found a snippet of time to make a brooch for my new coat!

Plus, I've been working on my spring swap project, though I can't show you anything yet! Pictures will follow soon though!