back to blue skies in Britain

We are back! First and foremost - congratulations to Laura and Kevin on the birth of Alexander Vaughn our last night in India! WOW - we can't wait to meet him. Apologies not for calling really anyone - bear with us as we slowly speed up to normal life again.



For one of the first times in my life I landed in a UK not to be met with grey skies and gloom - but instead clear sparkling blue skies, an intense cool sun and alarmingly early snowdrops and blossom! Beautiful! I do not feel I can discuss climate change that much in this blog given my guilty recent carbon contributions.



First impressions to our tired eyes... England is so clean and ordered and less brightly coloured. And Toto is ignored! Of course it is all very familiar. We are back in my family Oxford home and it is lovely and cosy and comfortable - we can eat everything, drink the tap water, the sheets are clean, we can wash all our grimy clothes. We stare with aching eyes at the bags and boxes packed up before we left and endeavour to remember where we put socks and jeans and warm things.



Despite India being 5 hrs ahead I stay up to 11.30 with Mum and Dad and Olly and Celine bubbling over with excitement at the chance of being able to chat to family and share our stories. The next day Tobes is bubbling with excitement at being back! He wolfs down cheerios and toast with jam and is over the moon at discovering some of his old toys.



And so our first 2 days back in the UK have continued. M has spent hours downloading and sorting our 1500 photos!!!! Check out the photo link to this to see. We all have jet lag - Tobes waking at 3am not being able to get back to sleep is not great - poor thing. Although shattered Toby is relishing seeing everyone, loving cycling, loving the comfort and ease of life here - loving being given food which he recognises and wants to eat! (perhaps giving children food they really don't like/ can't eat could be a cure for a fussy eater - I fear not and that this will be short lived).



I do feel different. Family keep asking what it feels like to be back... I don't feel that we are back really yet! I still don't really know what day of the week it is... I still don't really have a great deal to do!! I don't have a house to organise, to clean, a job to do, a life to juggle ... the thought of this (I try not to think about it) bewilders me. Our home is rented out until 15th March and so our return to normality will be staggered... matty back to work next week, then Tobes starting preschool, then me back to work, then back into the house.

I will really miss our nomadic existence - I look at our boxes of stuff and wonder what we will possibly do with it all. Although knowing where my pants are each morning will be good - better still having more than 3 pairs!

We have come back full of resolutions from a determination to experiment cooking the new foods we have loved, to the whetted appetite of knowing we want to see and explore so much more (altho it will be UK based for a while). I want this feeling of calmness, of peace, of not juggling my life to stay somehow.