One Month Ago Today .......
...... we'd moved in!
After spending four weeks here, I now feel I can state all the things I have noticed which are significantly different about living in the south east as a mother of six than the north east of England. Here is the list in no particular order :
a) Loads more things on offer for the kids to take part in, there is literally something official laid on every evening so you can pretty much take your pick from a long list of interests including sports, drama, the arts, scouts, cadets, other uniformed activities, dance, music, you name it, there is a group for it with ages ranging from 3 to 25 years old. In the north east it was only for offenders, if your child broke the law they channelled the child or young person into a programme which included some sort of training like car mechanics or brick laying, younger children did larger art work scheme groups, you could pay for swimming, dance, drama, gymnastics and of course football is everywhere.
b) Safety, everything feels completely different in terms of safeness, it feels much calmer, people so far appear non threatening ultra polite, living next to the town center the police seem to have most things pretty much covered and there is an element of security within the usual nosy neighbours who dont seem to miss a thing. I know I dont need to go into detail about drawing the short straw as far as a few neighbours are concerned in the north east, with the exception of three or four people on our small old street, at times it was a very strange place to be.
c) Multi-cultural, there is every type of culture covered here within the local community, its fantastic for our children who've blended in instantly in all ways including colour and accent, being originally from the south we retained our London accents despite living in Geordie Land for over eleven years and North Yorkshire for two years before that.
d) Weather, without a doubt it is warmer in the south than the north, we have been absolutely boiling, no one has got a jumper or coat out yet and its only rained three times since we arrived. There is no cutting bitingly cold wind ripping right through your clothes and its been lovely being able to sit outside on our balcony roof terrace instead of just inside the kitchen doorway like I used to have to do.
e) Money, OMG! I cant begin to describe the feeling knowing that all our money is not being eaten up in diesel for the car and electric for the electric key meter each week. Its been brilliant. In our old place we were spending so much of our money on just those two things, here we are spending only an eighth of the money on diesel than we used to and only a third of the electric plus we can use our hot water system, something which we couldnt seldom do at our old place. If anyone wanted to have a shower I used to shudder if I didn't have much change left in my purse, here everyone is just having them when ever they want one and not worrying about the money is such an enormous weight off all our shoulders its so liberating. The diesel cost used to be so high because all the types of grocery shops we needed to access for our Indian food were miles and miles away, here everything is a two minute walk for the kids or my husband so no need to use the car, he's used the car to take unpacking rubbish to the tip, boxes have been snapped up on Freegle and basically that's it apart from the couple of times he's taken me for a night time drive because I am yet to venture out myself still.
f) Food, there is all types of local food shops catering for all types of world wide cuisine, Angelica can walk up the road and come home with ingredients to cook food from any country from around the world that takes her fancy. In the north east we had Tesco. I am sure I dont need to write any more about that choice do I.
g) The kids have been so happy here like different young people, making choices, new friends and are generally getting settled. It is such a proud and privileged thing to be a part of and so so so fantastic to feel after all the crap they had to put up with in the past.
All of them keep commenting about how this is the best thing we've ever done together, I have to say I agree completely with them, its just brilliant here.
h) House is of course the biggest change, this house is so big we are still finding our way walking into cupboards in the hallway instead of the rooms, choosing which bathroom to use is so funny as before we only had a tiny toilet and separate bathroom which was just the size of the bath with sink to the side. The bedrooms are nicely spread out too, the kids love having their own room each and Joseph is well settled in the bedsit type space we've made him at the back of the house downstairs which means that no one can hear his speakers no matter how loud he has his games or movies, result!
Tomorrow our beautiful daughter Angelica turns 15 years old, she is so happy and growing all the time in every sense, its fantastic. I am sure this is going to be the best birthday ever just because we are not there we are here instead and that makes me feel very complete I have to say. There are loads more differences to note but that's it for now because Angelica went out and bought everyone crumpets and cheese for breakfast which is all now nearly ready so I'm going to enjoy my food lovingly prepared and smile in the knowledge that we can afford such luxuries now as we never ever could before whilst in the north east.
After spending four weeks here, I now feel I can state all the things I have noticed which are significantly different about living in the south east as a mother of six than the north east of England. Here is the list in no particular order :
a) Loads more things on offer for the kids to take part in, there is literally something official laid on every evening so you can pretty much take your pick from a long list of interests including sports, drama, the arts, scouts, cadets, other uniformed activities, dance, music, you name it, there is a group for it with ages ranging from 3 to 25 years old. In the north east it was only for offenders, if your child broke the law they channelled the child or young person into a programme which included some sort of training like car mechanics or brick laying, younger children did larger art work scheme groups, you could pay for swimming, dance, drama, gymnastics and of course football is everywhere.
b) Safety, everything feels completely different in terms of safeness, it feels much calmer, people so far appear non threatening ultra polite, living next to the town center the police seem to have most things pretty much covered and there is an element of security within the usual nosy neighbours who dont seem to miss a thing. I know I dont need to go into detail about drawing the short straw as far as a few neighbours are concerned in the north east, with the exception of three or four people on our small old street, at times it was a very strange place to be.
c) Multi-cultural, there is every type of culture covered here within the local community, its fantastic for our children who've blended in instantly in all ways including colour and accent, being originally from the south we retained our London accents despite living in Geordie Land for over eleven years and North Yorkshire for two years before that.
d) Weather, without a doubt it is warmer in the south than the north, we have been absolutely boiling, no one has got a jumper or coat out yet and its only rained three times since we arrived. There is no cutting bitingly cold wind ripping right through your clothes and its been lovely being able to sit outside on our balcony roof terrace instead of just inside the kitchen doorway like I used to have to do.
e) Money, OMG! I cant begin to describe the feeling knowing that all our money is not being eaten up in diesel for the car and electric for the electric key meter each week. Its been brilliant. In our old place we were spending so much of our money on just those two things, here we are spending only an eighth of the money on diesel than we used to and only a third of the electric plus we can use our hot water system, something which we couldnt seldom do at our old place. If anyone wanted to have a shower I used to shudder if I didn't have much change left in my purse, here everyone is just having them when ever they want one and not worrying about the money is such an enormous weight off all our shoulders its so liberating. The diesel cost used to be so high because all the types of grocery shops we needed to access for our Indian food were miles and miles away, here everything is a two minute walk for the kids or my husband so no need to use the car, he's used the car to take unpacking rubbish to the tip, boxes have been snapped up on Freegle and basically that's it apart from the couple of times he's taken me for a night time drive because I am yet to venture out myself still.
f) Food, there is all types of local food shops catering for all types of world wide cuisine, Angelica can walk up the road and come home with ingredients to cook food from any country from around the world that takes her fancy. In the north east we had Tesco. I am sure I dont need to write any more about that choice do I.
g) The kids have been so happy here like different young people, making choices, new friends and are generally getting settled. It is such a proud and privileged thing to be a part of and so so so fantastic to feel after all the crap they had to put up with in the past.
All of them keep commenting about how this is the best thing we've ever done together, I have to say I agree completely with them, its just brilliant here.
h) House is of course the biggest change, this house is so big we are still finding our way walking into cupboards in the hallway instead of the rooms, choosing which bathroom to use is so funny as before we only had a tiny toilet and separate bathroom which was just the size of the bath with sink to the side. The bedrooms are nicely spread out too, the kids love having their own room each and Joseph is well settled in the bedsit type space we've made him at the back of the house downstairs which means that no one can hear his speakers no matter how loud he has his games or movies, result!
Tomorrow our beautiful daughter Angelica turns 15 years old, she is so happy and growing all the time in every sense, its fantastic. I am sure this is going to be the best birthday ever just because we are not there we are here instead and that makes me feel very complete I have to say. There are loads more differences to note but that's it for now because Angelica went out and bought everyone crumpets and cheese for breakfast which is all now nearly ready so I'm going to enjoy my food lovingly prepared and smile in the knowledge that we can afford such luxuries now as we never ever could before whilst in the north east.