When I was a child, The Faraway Tree books by Enid Blyton were my absolute favourites. I’ve recently started reading them to The Boy after a chance find of the collection in our local charity shop. (where I had gone to hand in 2 bags of books - why do I always fail to come away empty handed?) This is our first adventure into non picture-book storytelling, and I’m quite surprised at how taken he is with it all.  I love how he has to pull his ideas from the words and his own head rather than being guided by the pictures on a page.  It makes for interesting discussions.  We’ve not even made it up the Faraway Tree yet, and he’s already full of ideas of what magical creatures Jo, Bessie and Fanny might meet next.  I think he might actually puke with excitement when they eventually meet MoonFace, as I’ve been telling him about some of the characters and he is just fascinated by the strange man with a moon for a face on the back of the book.  He was none too pleased when we finished our first chapter and there had been no mention of him.

My favourite of the collection was The Enchanted Wood.  I had a beautiful illustrated version when I was younger which I am desperate to try and find again.  It may actually still be in my mum’s loft, so if I can get over my fear of heights I might take a torch up there and have a hunt for it one day.  I was searching for some illustrations to add to this post and came across a photo of the cover of the edition I had (1979 Dean reprint)  and it instantly brought a load of lovely childhood memories flooding back to me.

I used to read this every single night in my bed, sometimes by torchlight after my light had been turned out, and as soon as I finished I’d go back and re-read my favourite parts before starting all over again.  The illustrations are just beautiful and really add to the magic, so I would love to find for The Boy to experience too.

Oh, and in tonight’s chapter we met the brownies for the first time.  He jumped in with “Oh, I love brownies, sure I do mummy?” and so I had to explain they weren’t the chocolate kind you ate.  I do still wonder if in his head he pictures lots of  little baked chocolate sponges running around their toadstools in a magical forest.

January, courtesy of my mother and Edward Monkton

Soooo… it’s been a while.  I’ve been reading alot of blogs recently. Some old favourites, some new favourites, and most of them seem to have been given a new lease of life for the new year so I thought I’d give it a go and see if I can ride on the inspiration wave too for a while.

Everyone seems to be talking about resolutions at this time of year. New year, new start and all that jazz, but I feel more in limbo than ever.  My life, or my future life, more accurately, is still pretty much on hold and will be for the majority of this year. But it’s not all about me, there’s someone much more important who’s got a very exciting time ahead.

At the end of 2009 I moved house to somewhere we will hopefully be for a long time to come.  The main reason for the move was to be in the right place for The Boy to attend the perfect school (for him!) come August when he’ll be starting primary one.  (*gulp* primary school, my baby, can you believe that?) . So we certainly ended 2009 and started 2010 on a positive note, and it’s a huge relief to know that schooling is sorted.  He enrolls next week.  He’ll be going to the same school that his nursery is attached to, with lot of his friends moving up with him. He’s had some separation issues over the last 6 months which we’ve worked on with the nursery, and we finally seem to be coming out the other end of that.  I’m very grateful to the nursery and expecially Callum’s keyworker for all the work they’ve put in and concern they’ve shown him, and I’m just very glad he’ll be staying there for the next few years.  It’s such a lovely school, very friendly, and they really seem to genuinely care for the children’s wellbeing.  There’s a really nice sense of belonging there.  Ofsted results are all cool, and it has a lovely reputation, so everything’s pretty much hunky dory there.

Our new flat is lovely, it felt like home from the moment we moved in, even when all we had was a sofa in the living room before the removal men came with our furniture.  It just seems cosy, homely, safe and just “us”.  The Boy loves his new room, and has been sleeping brilliantly since his first night here. He hasn’t woken in the night once, that in itself is a good enough reason to never move again.  His new room is teeeeeny though, and is full to the gunnels with toys, especially since Christmas, so tomorrow’s job is shopping for some toy storage.  We moved very close to Christmas and all the hustle and bustle that goes with it, so I still have alot of little things to do to bring everything together and put my stamp on it, so expect some design inspiration posts from me  soon.

As for me, well I’m doing good, for someone in limboland.  Am desperate to get back to work, but can’t realistically do that until The Boy is in full time school which won’t be until mid-October, so I feel a bit like a greyhound waiting for the barrier to down so I can fly round the track.  Only problem is, I’m not sure what rabbit to chase.  I have no idea what I want to do with my life, workwise at least.  I think the first step is getting back into the swing of working, and having something to put on a CV while I decide what direction to take, but even that is something I can’t realistically pursue until the end of the year.  In the last 6 months of looking, I have not found even one job with hours that would suit us.  By us I mean fit in with nursery and my childcarer, which would be my mum. It’s just not feasable yet.  So still I wait….

Anyway, enough waffling from me.  Oh, I can’t go without mentioning the weather which is the hot (or not, har har) topic of the moment.  The UK at the moment is in the throws of a mini ice-age.  Heavy snow and Siberian temperatures have hit the whole of the country, which predictably has come to a standstill.  Councils are under fire for not having a small country put aside to store all the grit that would be needed to keep us from slipping and falling over, transport companies are under fire for failing to have buses equipped with ski attachments to take the children to school.  Oh and working parents with no childcare are up in arms at schools closing, non-working parents who fancy a lie in are up in arms about schools not closing. Ahhh, good old Britain eh?  And on that note I shall leave you with a phone snap from this afternoon of the boy on his way to nursery (the temp was -5 at 1pm!).  Look at his wee red cheeks <3

Brrrrrrrrr