Limbo

I've been in limbo for some time, longer than this tree that has rested over the winter and is now ready to spring into life.

We moved from Surrey to Lancashire three-ish years ago, when Presley was a baby, to be near Andy's family. I had Cash very soon after so didn't get out much. I had moved away from my NCT group and was lonely.

We decided 17 long months ago to move back down South, for Andy's work mainly. At that time I agreed before he'd finished the sentence 'shall we move back...?'.

We de-cluttered ready to put our house on the market last summer. All the stuff that makes a house a home was boxed up and hidden in the garage. All the books and the ornaments and most of the photographs were put away. It was only temporary after all.

Since then I've been putting down roots - I had to - and made some friends through blogging, writing groups and courses and through toddler groups and Playgroup. All this time I've had at the back of my mind that we're not staying and that has made me a little sad.

My first thought when we finally accepted an offer on our house earlier this year was I don't want to leave. I will miss my new friends and it will be difficult to take Presley away from the Playgroup he loves. The boys won't see their grandparents as much. My in-laws won't see their grandchildren as much. That's hard.

We've just about decided where we think we want to live 'down South', where we want the boys to go to school. The more I google this area the more excited I get about moving. There will be more opportunities for us as a family and our 'old' friends are there too. I hope it is the right move for us.

In terms of timing, I'd like to move now or not at all. I want to be established in an area so that (with any luck) we can use our new local knowledge to choose a school for the boys. I hope we make the right choice and never have to move again, especially once the boys are settled at school.

So now I want to move, but we are still in limbo.

We're waiting for all the legal queries to be resolved so that we can exchange contracts. Once we've done that we can go and look at houses to rent. Oh yeah and our buyers need to move in at the beginning of April because they are coming out of a rental property. So we need to find somewhere suitable to live that is available now and go through the rental process quickly. We need to pack and arrange the move in the next month, with two small children.

As if that wasn't enough pressure, my mum and step-father arrive from Christchurch next month. They are flying into Heathrow airport, so I hope we've moved South by then. They'll be living with us until they find somewhere for themselves. They'll be happier living in a country that doesn't really get earthquakes. It's a massive upheaval for them and they will be leaving everything behind. In the meantime they are staying with relatives.

We are all in limbo, waiting, waiting, waiting.



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