Julie's Boggle

Here goes… Tomorrow is our last day in London and it promises to be a mad one with the packers and movers and children all in one chaotic mix.  I’m feeling quite excited at the prospect – and a bit nervous about how tomorrow’s going to work out but hey-ho, it’s only one day and then there’s all the excitement of Durham to look forward to.

We will of course have an unavoidable interruption of service for the blog while our server travels north and subsequently gets re-connected but it should be short-lived!

As I write this, we are freshly back from our holiday in S.A. and bracing ourselves for the next upheaval in our familiar routines.  The form that this particular episode will take, is the uprooting of our little family – from the cosy basement flat in London that we have occupied for 9 years – to a whole new environment and lifestyle in Durham, 500km to the north.

One imagines that there can’t still be many people for whom this is news, but if you haven’t had the latest updates: Tom has been accepted by the Church of England to train for ordination, which involves going back to university to study for two years.

This has been in the pipeline for slightly more than two years but it couldn’t really be made public until Tom had been officially accepted and let his current employers know of his plans to move on.  So I didn’t get to blog the interesting road trip we had in January visiting Durham, Bristol and Cuddeston (near Oxford) with me 5 months pregnant, and Jon in tow.  But we got through it (and Tom went off to see Cambridge by himself), and having weighed up the various options, Durham definitely seemed the best choice.

What all this means is that as of the 3rd of September, we will no longer be residents of the UK’s heaving capital, but will be inhabitants of the frozen north (as it is semi-affectionately known in our household).

Our flat in Shepherds Bush will be rented out while we move into the college’s “married student” accommodation, the bulk of which is located in a small cul-de-sac about 15 minutes walk from the college.

So all very exciting and daunting at the moment, but we are looking forward to exploring Durham, and setting up a new life there as part of the college family.  It’s wall-to-wall busy for the next two weeks but I’ll do my best to keep the updates coming once we move.

This from 13 December.

I’d been thinking recently that it would be good to get Jon started at a nursery group sometime soon – especially before life starts to get exciting around Easter next year.  With that in mind, I called up the only nursery I had a real interest in (by virtue of its reputation and location) to see if they had any vacancies.

Before I go on, I should briefly explain the term “nursery” in its UK context.  It’s got quite a broad definition as people use it to refer to any formal organisation which looks after groups of pre-school aged children, i.e. from baby to 5.  Nurseries vary widely in the ages (from this range) that they will take, and the hours that they provide each day.  They also tend to vary in how much they charge and in details like whether they provide meals and whether they are open in school holidays.  To give a feel for the costs involved, a full day’s care in a typical London nursery, which includes three meals + snacks, will set you back between £60 and £70.

I tend to think of the nurseries that provide the full day service as having more of a childcare role.  To be sure, they will also offer all sorts of child development, but they exist primarily for parents who work and don’t have someone to look after their child during the day.

Contrasting with this are the nurseries that operate limited sessions, sometimes only in the morning, or with a shorter afternoon session thrown in as well.  (Sometimes called “nursery schools”.)   They don’t tend to provide meals and they don’t fit in very well at all with the typical working day.  These nurseries, in my book, are purely there for child development opportunities.

The nursery I was keen on for Jon falls firmly into the second category.  It runs 3-hour morning-sessions, 5 days a week, and 2-hour afternoon-sessions 3 days a week.  Term-time only.  The afternoon sessions are aimed at the youngest children (2 to 2.5yo generally), with perhaps 2 or 3 of the older children from the morning session staying on (with their packed lunches) to give them the experience of a longer day in preparation for starting “big” school.

I knew when we went for our first visit, that they were quite booked up until January.  But Jon fitted in so well, and made such a good impression, that we were offered a place that same day!  (After the head teacher made a plan to juggle staff around to fit him in.)  I was very impressed myself with the little class that we stayed for, and happily accepted.

Thus began Jon’s formal interactions outside the home.  The sessions he attends run from 12h30 to 14h30 on Mondays and typically involve between 8 and 11 other toddlers with either 2 or 3 adults.

There is not much that is convenient time-wise about those hours , but we are managing.  At the moment, the routine has shuffled around so Jon has an early lunch at 12h00 (so we can leave at 12h25 at the absolute latest), and after I pick him up, with the mandatory homeward dawdle, he gets a nap from 3-ish to 4pm.  (Which can be a bit of a challenge.)

I’m still fine-tuning my time-management and have yet to experience a Monday that doesn’t involve jogging, with the pushchair, to make it by starting time, but we’re getting there!

It is rather nice to have that little chunk of time to myself (will become even more precious next year I’m sure), and Jon seems to love it.  Particularly today, which followed a week’s “half-term” break, he was tripping over his feet and other little people to race inside.  From next term (January), he’ll start going 2 afternoons a week, and then we’ll see how Jon and our finances go from there.

Checking my recent blog entries, I’m all too aware that they have been scant of late.  And of course I’m going to put the bulk of the responsibility for that firmly on the aforementioned pregnancy.

I will admit that it’s definitely been easier being pregnant (so far) the second time around.  If you don’t count the occasional requirements for lugging heavy toddlers around, the advantages of being a stay-at-home mum for this stage are huge.

For starters, when the periods of complete and utter exhaustion began – round about week 8 – I was able to collapse for a half-hour power-nap while Jon had his lunchtime sleep.  This was a massive tonic for my afternoon / evening alertness and I felt immensely grateful not to be reliving the endless first trimester afternoons at work back in 2006 which ground on and on under a blanket of weariness.

Now that I’m onto week 16, things are feeling a lot better in general.  The tiredness is still there, but these days it’s more down to my blood-pressure meds than the pregnancy.  And the all-day queasiness has passed too, thank goodness, so I can get rid of my food obsession.  (Of course while I was feeling queasy and tired, it was a big perk not to need to be applying my weary brain to anything more intellectual than management of domestic chores and finding a quick and easy supper recipe!)

Blogging, in the meantime, has had significant time-resource issues as the blessed afternoon nap jumps to the front of the queue, followed closely by its cousin, the early night.  And for the moments when I’m feeling quite alert and inspired to write, there is young Jon whose demands for attention (particularly when I’m engaged in a solo-task like tapping away at the keyboard) are becoming ever more insistent as the months go by.

I must say that things at the moment feel about as normal as they ever have.  Naturally nothing is static with a toddler in the house, but our routine is comfortable and familiar, and overall, the effect of the additional bump in our lives has not been significant to date.

Most noticeably, things are happening at a more relaxed pace as I learn to cram less into a day, and in the spaces that open up I’m gaining extra appreciation of time spent alone with my amusing, enthusiastic, energetic little guy.

Jonathan in the bath, where he will happily play for ages, at 26 months.

Despite the fact that the bottle in Jon’s outstretched arm makes him look like a Johnson’s poster child, this is still my favourite photo from last month — there’s just something about the look on his face…

(Apologies to anyone who has been checking lately and wondering where the blog updates have gone.  It’s not for want of things to write and there will definitely be more coming through in due course!)

…that today, 18 September 2009, I made the almost-perfect latte.  The art was excellent, dark auburn browns and bright whites, fine features and base leaves that curled pleasingly up around the cup.  As for flavour and texture, as good as the best I’ve had from Taylor St, or even prepared by my barista friend Neil.

The only criticism one could level is that the pattern was not quite centred in the cup and didn’t have quite the fineness on the leaves that Neil or Taylor St manage.  But I’m getting there!

I wish I could show you a picture, but it was too good to muck about with so I drank it.  I tell you what, here’s one I did the other day:

This is probably something that isn’t particularly relevant to anyone else, but it seems a big deal to us, and it’s a uniquely UK phenomenon so I thought I’d pop in a note about it.

(Note: that the descriptions below cover my slightly flawed understanding of how it all works and, let’s just say, it’s not how Tom would have written it. )

For the people who don’t live in the UK, the freeholder of a property is the person(s) who, in theory, owns the building.  In practice, they control the external maintenance of the building and its insurance.

When a house has been sub-divided (like ours), the owners can get themselves a share-of-freehold (which is what we’ve just done); and while we still pay into the building maintenance and insurance funds, we do at least have a say in what gets done and when.  [South Africans might see this as a bit like a mini body corporate.]

For completeness, it’s necessary to mention that if you don’t buy your property as a “share-of-freehold” (we didn’t back in 2003), you become a leaseholder instead.  And it’s usually a bit cheaper.  In this case, you get issued with a lease (usually a long one) on the property, and — this is the scary bit — if it runs down to nothing, your flat goes back to the freeholder!

As a rule, people inevitably either extend their leases or buy the freehold before this happens.  And these days, the law tries to be fair to both sides, so the freeholder can’t refuse to sell or extend, but only if you come up with a price churned out by some-or-other special formula.

This formula is made up of number of factors and is quite tricky to calculate.  (Tom’s been figuring it out based on various things he’s found on the internet.)  One of the BIG factors though, is how much the property is worth, which is why we’ve been pushing to get it done now while property values are still quite low.

Something that stung us quite badly though, was the fact that we’d left it a few years too long.  In the interim, our lease had dropped below 80 years, which basically made our flat unsellable because no bank would give anyone a mortgage to buy it.   Coincidentally, the formula also nails you at this point by tacking on a big chunk of cash to compensate for the fact that the property isn’t worth very much without the freehold or a lease extension (funnily enough, the costs involved are not dissimilar!).

It was one of those “if only” moments, but we had to just shrug and move on.

Over the last six months we had a whole lot of to-ing and fro-ing with the other flat owner, and the previous freeholder (who owns the third flat), and our solicitor and his solicitor, just  in order to reach the point where we could conclude the deal — it took far longer than it should have!  But I can now report that the last, and most underwhelming step, in our flat purchase (of 2003) is finally complete — we are freeholders at last.

We’re really lucky here in London to have a number of parks and open spaces available.  One of the more unusual ones that happens to be just a short bus-ride away from us is the Barnes Wetland Centre. (Formerly the site of the Barn Elms Reservoirs before they decided they didn’t need them any more.)

Jon and I visited it with some friends for the first time last month, and had a thoroughly good day out.

Barnes Wetland Centre as seen by satellite on Google Maps

Jon (21m) striding along in his reins and red wellies

As it happened, Jon was just getting the hang of proper “long-distance” walking when we went on this excursion, so it was his first Big walk outside. In reins, which proved very handy when he tottered straight over to the nearest pond for a closer look!

The bit that I most appreciated was after our picnic lunch when we headed over to the 3-storey octagonal hide they call the Peacock Tower.  This is sited on the southern edge of the expanse of grazing marsh and lagoon to the north.

We went up to the top floor viewing area where half a dozen people were quietly bird-spotting from the many windows, and stayed for maybe half an hour.

During that time, Jon lay peacefully in his pushchair (the idea was that he would fall asleep) watching the watchers, while I leaned on a window-ledge and drank in the extraordinarily tranquil view.

A slice of green and pleasant land to soothe the soul…

Marshland to the west and three of the Highland coos that provide natural grass maintenance

Since recovering from the financial pain of paying the deposit and stamp duty for our present flat, we’ve been steadily ploughing through a list of rooms that need to be overhauled, in order of importance.

First came the shower room (2005) which was so ghastly beforehand that I didn’t even think to take any pictures until they’d ripped the whole thing out.  Then later that year came the conservatory — the fact that it was falling down around us forced our hand on that one.

The next logical step, in 2007, was the kitchen, being such a key area, and we definitely pushed the boat out for that project, turning it into an amazing space (combined with the little conservatory) that we love to spend time in.  That left only the bathroom which I’d more or less resigned myself to living with until we moved on.

Here’s how that changed.

The first in the series of (unfortunate?) events was that Tom lost his job, leaving us with a chunk of cash, but one that we might have to live off in the event of Tom remaining unemployed.

The second was the whole long and frustrating episode (happy ending fortunately) with the upstairs neighbour’s dodgy pipework which was dripping through our ceiling.  Since that was fixed we’ve been living with some significant holes in our bathroom.

L to R: Hole(s) around the bathroom light-fitting, and missing wall panel

We agreed that in theory, Tom could fix these himself if the jobless situation persisted.  But they’d be left as they were until he had finished his mandatory leave, so that if he had a job to go to by the end of it, we’d have the funds available to get someone in.  (And why stop at fixing a few holes when there are so many other things we want to change?)

Happily, Tom went on to find another job, and we pressed ahead with getting our favourite builder over to see what could be done with our space.

This being London, flats are not the largest, and our bathroom in particular is on the compact side.  It didn’t take long for our builder to veto our original plan of putting in a corner bath across the end and moving the toilet.

(According to the plumber, the major stumbling block is fitting the bath and a 3″ sewer pipe into the available width, which is a little over 1.3m. Hmph. :zipit: )

After some head scratching, we came up with Plan B which still ticks all the boxes in terms of fixing (F) things we dislike (D) about the bathroom, while not requiring us to move any actual walls around :

D: Overly narrow bath that moves slightly when you get into it.
F: Slightly wider, double-ended bath, fitted properly.

D: Uncooperative bath taps and leaky shower head.
F: New bath mixer taps and shower.

D: Grotty linoleum floor covering.
F: Tiles on the floor.

D: Peeling wallpaper on solid walls on the right.
F: Tiles all round, floor-to-ceiling.

D: Heated towel rail (on left) not connected to the central heating.
F: New radiator plumbed into the central heating and with an extra “summer heating element” wired in.

D: Non-functional mirror light.
F: Replacement light.

D: No plug point for our electric toothbrush.
F: New shaver socket.

D: Typically English hard-to-access toilet cistern (we had to lever out a grouted-in panel to get to it the first time we needed to! ).
F: Push back the wall and have a regular cistern.

D: Aforementioned holes in ceiling and wall.
F: New ceiling and wall panel.

D: Cupboards that stick and are hard to open.
F: New cupboards.

To fit in a wider bath, we’ve asked the builders to pull the bath forward a bit and flatten off the back wall.  This leaves a cavity on the right-hand-side, and that’s going to become a cupboard.

The fun starts this Friday – whee! – when the builders are coming in to strip out everything except the toilet.  From there, they are going to do their utmost to finish it in a month!  Promises to be absolute mayhem, especially with Jon around, so I’m hanging onto the “long-term gain” idea (yes, I really DO want a new bathroom!) and trying not to think about it.