Slidin' towards the New Year

We finally closed on the house on Tuesday. Just in time to move Robbie and G/S/N into it yesterday, for the arrival of my mother this morning. Talk about cutting it close!

We’ve moved Kate into G/S/N’s old room, so now she has a true little girl’s room of her own. No more sharing the ‘guest room’.

I can’t believe it is almost Christmas. Of 2005.

I really tried to get on top of the Christmas card thing this year (not sure why I thought I would, given I haven’t for the last 10 or so years) by getting a couple of those make-your-own-card packs of photo-quality paper. We did try to take a Christmas-card-worthy picture last weekend. We’ll try again this weekend and will have to apologise if cards don’t arrive prior to the date.

First attempt - me telling James and Kate to smile, through my teeth.

Second attempt - me telling James to keep looking at the camera. Kate comes up with the most gorgeous smile.

Final attempt last weekend - James and me, trying to salvage the picture....Kate has moved on.

All Mine!

Last weekend we had my little nephew stay with us overnight while his parents were at a wedding.

Kate was all ‘me, me, mine, mine’ all afternoon, taking things from him, claiming his sippy cup as his own, etc. I finally had to give her her first time out when she pitched a fit for no reason (I was so proud of how calm I stayed….”Kate, would you like to go upstairs for a minute to calm down?”).

Monday morning as soon as she got out of bed she spied William’s sock that had fallen onto the floor and said, ”Oh no!”….I responded that, yes William was still here but he wasn’t staying for good…..”Oh no oh no oh no!” – what a poor, put-upon child.

When we were in the kitchen having breakfast, James had William on his lap reading a book. Kate was invited to join in and did so for about 10 seconds. Then she made a grab for it.


Then….James and William were playing with Kate’s little keyboard and Kate of course had to try to wrench it out of James’ hand. James told her that they were using it now and she could have it in a minute….and then of course William lost interest so Kate got the keyboard. I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing – she dragged the keyboard across the kitchen floor (terra cotta tiles….clickety clack, clickety clack) and then threw it into the wall!Next thing you know, William says, “Da da”….not for any reason except that that is one of his latest sounds….and Kate’s head whipped around and she gave him such a glare! (this she gets from her Daddy).

F@cking Freezing....and other gripes

What is this country coming to? Our boiler, which we replaced less than two years ago, has broken down no less than four times this year so far. This time the heat and hot water went on Friday early morning. When we called British Gas they said they'd come out Monday, no earlier....when we said that was unacceptable as we have a 21-month-old baby, they said that unless someone was dying they wouldn't be able to come out earlier. This is what we pay for with British Gas Homecare. Like it.

So today they come out to discover the fan has broken. The same fan they fixed two weeks ago, when they were here last. And they can't fix it til tomorrow.

Do they KNOW we have been boiling big pots and pans of water so we can have baths? Or that we have had the gas fire going for three days straight and we huddle around it at all times? Or that my daughter's lips have turned a permanent shade of purple?

AND

AND AND AND!

The f*cking mortgage company (let's just shorten to 'FMC' for ease, shall we?) , who ASSURED us that the letter would go out today and also be faxed to our solicitor in order to speed things along so we could complete by Thursday so we can move everyone out on Friday in order to receive visitors on Saturday, DIDN'T DO IT. Why am I not surprised. We were supposed to complete last week but it got pushed back to this week because the FMC couldn't get their acts together last week and indeed didn't even have the professionalism and courtesy to RESPOND to our mortgage contact OR our solicitor. Now we will have to push til next week because the FMC lies to us once they do respond.

I can't believe this.

I'm going home.

To this:

At least SHE's cute as pie.

It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

I put up our Christmas decorations yesterday.

While I know that it is still only November (for a few days), as G/S/N so kindly pointed out to me this morning, but December starts on Thursday and I’m out Thursday night and probably wouldn’t feel like doing it Friday evening so wouldn’t have gotten to it til Saturday evening at the earliest and I didn’t want to miss out having Christmas decorations for the entire month of December, so I rounded up.

Kate, of course, is behaving true to form…..she saw the tree, went,”Woooow” and promptly walked up to it and started pulling ornaments off and handing them to Uncle Robbie, myself, etc. to show us. I think G/S/N will have a time of it this month – I should get her a little basket so she can collect them throughout the day and I can re-hang them every night. That should be fun fun fun! If I give her the basket tomorrow morning it should get old by, oh, say 10am?

I will, of course, be playing Christmas music in the house beginning Thursday.

All the kids’ Christmas gifts arrived last Thursday too (I ordered everything off the internet this year). So the next thing is to wrap them and put them under the tree so I can make G/S/N’s life even more exciting as she tackles Kate all day long to prevent her from ripping open all the gifts!

Comparisons

Uncle Robbie’s friend came to visit over the weekend with her daughter. James and I went off for a weekend of R&R and some good lovin’ and left Uncle Robbie in charge. His friend’s daughter is a month older than Kate, and about 3-4 inches taller (she is a tall girl!). Of course the first thing James tells me over drinks on Saturday evening is that Bella (name changed to conserve privacy!) can say, “Yes” and “Thank you” (well, “Ta”). So I said, yes, but a lot of other kids Kate’s age can count to ten and say their ABC’s, as well as say basic sentences (see Karen’s blog). He was shocked that his prodigy daughter isn’t surpassing others the same age! But I also added that she finger paints incredibly well, with an amazing knack for colour combinations, and she can draw some basic pictures while other kids her age can’t even hold a pencil. She is also haemorrhaging new words on a daily basis, like rain, plane, hair, nose, mouth, cheek, breakfast (two syllables!), outside….these are all hard words! I told him that kids develop different skills at different times but that by the time they are three years old they should all be at about the same level. Look at me, all Baby Whisperin’.

Time is A-ticking

We are cutting it really close with the house purchase. We ended up pulling out of the flat purchase because of 1) length of time it was taking, 2) lack of clear answers from the seller and her solicitors and 3) misinformation from the estate agents at the beginning of it all. Conveniently, a colleague at work was selling his house, which is about a 5 minute walk from ours....for the same price as the flat! So we are now in the process of buying his house.

BUT - we need to complete the purchase by the first week of December as we are going to have visitors at any given time from the 10th of December through the end of the year. And with 5 people currenlty living in our house, we will not be able to accommodate 7-10 people in our house! So the race against time is on.

What's holding it up is the mortgage company (hmmm, deja vu). They took two weeks to respond to us once we gave them the check to do the survey, then took another week and a half to actually do the survey. Now we are waiting for their report and the mortgage letter so we can move move move on it.

Bloody hell.

Ode to Uncle Robbie

I had a couple of great photos of Kate with her Uncle Robbie and wanted to post them up here. Those two have really bonded since Uncle Robbie moved into her room (over two months ago now! I am getting really frustrated with this (now) house purchase). When Uncle Robbie does finally move out, I think they will both be sad.

When Uncle Robbie moved into Kate's room, Kate was a little suspicious but took it in stride (as she does with everything). When he left for work in the mornings, we'd tell her to give Uncle Robbie a kiss goodbye....and she would obediently stick out her cheek and 'allow' him to kiss her (she does that for just about anyone that we spend over an hour with). After about two weeks of Uncle Robbie playing with her in the morning when she woke up, she realised what a good thing she had going! I realised what a good thing I had going at about this time as Robbie always finds her 'Baba' (bunny) for her in the middle of the night! Nowadays Robbie brings her up to our room on his way out (they have him working like a dog!) and Kate runs to give him a kiss goodbye (big, slobbery lips all pursed and everything), and then chatters down the stairs after him when he leaves.

What a change it will be when he goes, and how boring for Kate! Hopefully they will keep their close relationship as she grows up. I'm sure they will if he will only just stop dropping her on her head!

Dancin' with Uncle Robbie

Havin' a good time

Making bubbles in the bath for Uncle Robbie (and I don't mean the bubble bath!)....note the lovely hairstyle Uncle Robbie has created for Kate

Unmotivated

You know how some days you just couldn't be arsed? Today is a day like that for me.

I've got loads to do.

It's 4pm and I'm seriously thinking about leaving work right now.

Might as well, since it's not like anything is going to get done between now and 5pm. Or 6pm.

Plus I've got this waiting for me at home:

How does one sneak out of work without people noticing, in the middle of winter? How does one conceal one's coat and bag? Summer's easy - just pretend you're going to the loo. But the Safeway is closed now, so I can't use that as an excuse, and there is nowhere else to go around here with a coat. Hmmm. Think. Think. Think. Think.

What a Gal!

OK, as promised - a picture of Kate's ferocious Shark Face....

It is providing us with unending hours of comic entertainment. However, we tell Kate that it's a ferocious and scary face. I don't think she believes us as that statement usually follows about 30 seconds of loud guffaws from everyone in the vicinity. I think she finds it equally entertaining as she enjoys a laugh with all of us each time she does it. Yesterday she and I spent about five minutes in front of the mirror after her bath, making shark faces.

It's amazing how much she has turned into a proper little girl over the past few months. Her slouching on the sofa would rival any teenager's....

Picture of Kate hypnotised by Winnie-the-Pooh

.....and after I took about four pictures pretty much identical to the one above, where she didn't flinch at all, finally a reaction!

While still on the subject of Kate - remember how I mentioned she is fingerpainting? Well! Here is what she has been creating....

Turtle, shmurtle!

TurtleArt

The turtle pretty much smears paint all over a canvas.

It is clear that this is the work of an artistic genious.








I mean, really - just look at the concentration and focus that goes into one of these masterpieces!

Shark Face

This weekend is the big fireworks thing commemorating Guy Fawkes. It's the 400th anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot so everyone is putting on the show of the century. Last year we took Kate (well, I did - James was off trying to find his friend who was coming over but got caught up in all the traffic) and she was completely entranced by the whole thing ('gormless expression on her face' is actually the phrase that comes to my mind). She was actually there the year before, too - doing somersaults in my belly when the fireworks were going off. I think this year will be marked with 'Ohhh, woooow' being repeated again and again. Kate will probably be impressed again too.

We're in the middle of having most of the inside of our house painted. I have to say, Mike/Mick (he goes by either) is one of the most professional guys we have ever used. He showed up on time to give a quote, got us a quote within two days, arrived EARLY on the day he started, has shown up right on time every day, has done a wonderful job so far, and will probably finish up EARLY! I feel like the planet just shifted slightly to the left.

Poor G/S/N has had to take Kate on outings every day to avoid 1) paint fumes, 2) ladders and other assorted painting materials and tools and 3) Kate carving her initials in wet paint. Yesterday they went to the Aquarium. Apparently Kate was taken a bit off guard by a ray....it snuck up and popped up right in front of her. Watching G/S/N imitate Kate's flapping arms was probably as humourous as actually seeing Kate do it first hand. But don't tell her I said that.

Kate learned to make a new face while at the Aquarium, too. I'll post a picture later on once I've downloaded it from my camera. It is too funny. Um, scary, I mean. It's her scary shark face. Raaah.

Monkeys

I'm so excited - we are going to Monkeyworld this weekend. We've always driven past it on the way to my mother-in-law's house in Dorchester, and I've always wanted to go. This is one of the benefits of having a small child....you get to go to all the child-friendly places that you want to, without feeling uncool. I can't wait til Kate's tall enough to be able to go on the roller coasters with me. I'm sure she'll love them, and it will be a long time coming for me....I luuuurve roller coasters and similar rides, but it never seems like the best time to go to an amusement park - always something 'better' to do.

'Two Monkeys' - Kate when she was 4 1/2 months old...with her 'twin'
(and there's G/S/N on the side!)

Do the Hokey Pokey

Yesterday was a milestone for young Kate. She used the potty for the first time! And since it was also the first time she has actually sat on the potty without her nappy on, I was doubly proud!

What instigated it all was that in the morning when we were preparing breakfast, Kate suddenly looked at me in horror, grabbed her crotch and started going,"oooh! ooo!" and doing a little dance ("The Wee Dance"). By the time I had whisked her upstairs to the potty (bought in preparation for just this kind of occasion) she had already gone in her nappy. But - all signs were pointing to her being ready to start Potty Training; every time she had to go (either 1 or 2), she would say "uh oh".

So G/S/N decided to see what would happen if she sat Kate on the potty. After much cheering and encouragement, Kate managed to trickle out her first Potty Wee! And G/S/N did the Potty Dance (I imagine it is much like a rain dance; I will make sure to get a demonstration before the weekend so I can perform said same Potty Dance (for consistency's sake, of course, nothing to do with learning a new dance!)).

Frustration. And some cute photos.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about a few things that were annoying me here. Well here is an update:

1. Boiler - FINALLY got the British Gas guy over to see it last week and he fixed it. Lovely. No more banging at 1am.

2. British Gas helpline - hate it. They set up a time for the guy to come and then he didn't come. When I called them to find out why, they said they had no record of my call. After I told them that, actually, I had a record since my phone line at work is recorded, they arranged for someone to come the following day, within a two-hour window (amazing, since they always say they only have 5-hour windows).

3. Our mortgage provider - we STILL haven't seen the mortgage offer. F me.

4. Our council - we had been buying weekly visitor parking passes to tide us over until we could get Goddess/Saviour/Nanny on the electoral roll, but when we went to get more this past weekend they told us that we had "used up our annual allotment" of weekly passes. But we were free to buy unlimited daily passes. Ah, the logic that is a civic agency.

Other than that there is the flat purchase which I wrote about a month ago. Which is kind of related to the mortgage offer. But the turn of events is even worse than anticipated. It is now four months since the offer was made. In the last two weeks we have (finally) received a load of stuff from the vendor's solicitor - due to the fact that we threatened to pull out of the purchase. Well. In the pack of information was a wad of correspondence between the vendor and the management company (since it is leasehold there is a management company who (yes) manages the day-to-day running of the common areas of the building and all the financials) - apparently the 'slight' insurance dispute that the estate agent mentioned to me in passing when we made the offer has more to it than meets the eye. Apparently the vendor has been disputing all the fees for almost a year. Apparently the fees have more than doubled in the past two years since the freehold was sold and a new management company was appointed (remind me to elucidate on freehold vs. leasehold at some point; I'm not going to do that now because it's too boring for words). And this dispute has not been resolved.

Last Friday we threatened to pull out (again - we are losing credibility here) if the dispute is not satisfactorily resolved. Miraculously the estate agent called on Monday morning and said the dispute was now resolved and we were all ready to go. We said, great, let us look at the latest correspondence and we'll get a move on.

Yesterday we received a copy of the letter the vendor's solicitor sent to ours. It was pathetic - a two-sentence paragraph stating that they were writing to confirm the insurance fees allocated to the vendor had been agreed with the management company and that the vendor was hopeful it would amount to half of what had previously been charged. No mention of the other fees. But the kicker was the 'hopeful' comment. I can just see it now - we complete the purchase and then we're the 'hopeful' ones. Yeah, I'm 'hopeful' I'll win the lottery, but it ain't happening! What a bunch of wankers.

So needless to say, I wrote a very polite letter to the estate agent today saying that 'hopeful' ain't gonna cut it and we're withdrawing our offer. Back to the drawing board.

I feel for my brother-in-law...while he and Kate are building a wonderful relationship, he is almost 30 years old and sharing a room should be a thing of the past. Hopefully we can sort out the new place (well we wouldn't have pulled out without a backup!) soon and get him into his own room where he can hang posters of Pam Anderson or Jordan if he so chooses.

On the Kate side, here are a couple of cheesy photos (and a couple of cute ones!) of her. She really hams it up for the camera now. What's bizarre is that we were looking in the Argos catalogue yesterday and when she saw pictures of cameras she started grinning her grin-mace at it.





'Grin-mace 1'














'Grin-mace 2'













Daddy lovin' Kate












I couldn't resist including this one.























Guess what everyone's getting for Christmas this year? Reminds me a bit of this: http://www.turtlekiss.com/ but I don't think we can make as much money out of it.

What a Hypocrite

After all that talk about washable nappies, we (G/S/N and myself - although James is happy because he would prefer to just throw the whole poo away anyway) decided to go ahead and switch Kate over to disposable nappies. I feel so guilty because we have really kept to the washable nappy thing for the past year and a half. The only time we used disposables is when we travelled for long periods without access to a washing machine and tumble dryer. But in the interest of making sure my daughter can move as freely as possible (not to mention the fact that her poos of late have been HORRENDOUS) I have given in to modernisation. I suppose I should just be proud that we kept up the washables for so long.

Plus, she was really walking like a chimpanzee (as could be proved on the zoo trip).

The only negative (other than the extreme pangs of guilt I feel when chucking a nappy away) is that since she is so slim, her little trousers keep falling down. The washable nappies were so bulky they were what was keeping her trousers on!

Who's Zoo-ming Who(m)?

We went to the London Zoo yesterday. We meant to go to the one in Colchester on Saturday but we got sidetracked...Jame's friend Sam owns a pub near Colchester so we thought we'd stop by for lunch first and then go to the zoo, but once we got there we ended up staying until 4:30, at which point it was time to turn around and make the 1 1/2-hour drive home. Oh well, we can see the Colchester Zoo some other time; it was good to see Sam again, and we hadn't seen him since his wedding in the summer of '04.

So -

We went to the London Zoo yesterday. We didn't go until the afternoon (lazy Sunday morning, tired child before lunch who had to nap out-of-schedule, late lunch, blah blah blah...) but that wasn't a bad thing since Kate is only 19 months old and a few hours is a lot for her. So we made sure to concentrate on those things we know she likes (fish, monkeys, lions, pigs/boars, penguins - hmmmm, Nemo, Kate, Kate's stuffed lion, Peppahttp://www.peppapig.com/, Pinguhttp://www.pingu.net/us/intro.html....)

I had been wondering how Kate would take to the 'real' versions of her favourite animals....and she took to them like a fish to water (heh). So did I. I had forgotten how fun the zoo is.

Kate with Daddy at the zoo




















Kate with Mummy at the zoo
(one of few existing photos with Mummy)
















Kate after she did a stinky in the car on the way home from the zoo (I had to put this one in)

And then this morning I received some belated pictures from my friend. The story behind these pictures is that we were visiting the Greenwich Observatory with our friends who were visiting us in June, and these Japanese tourists spotted Kate and went crazy. They kept saying,"Ahhh, kaoii!" ("ahhh, so cute!") and wanted to take pictures of her. We let them take a couple, and then later we ran into them again and they asked us all to pose with them.







Note the 'cage'.....

Don't feed the animals!

...and our Group Picture

(and no, James doesn't have a pink handbag - that's Kate's change bag)

Chugga chugga chugga chugga

Oh, how everything works around here. I can say this because I'm British too now, so it doesn't sound as bad as an American going on and on about how nothing works around here (because you can then hear the retort,"well why don't you bloody well go back to America you bloody Yank"). And I have agreement from James and our Goddess/Saviour/Nanny too (in fact G/S/N wonders why she lives here every time she returns from abroad - I think it's because of us). Latest irritating developments:

1. F*cking boiler is on the blink - this is the boiler that we put in less than two years ago - whenever the heating goes on it starts going chugga chugga chugga chugga really loud so it sounds like the back of the house is going to explode. Of course when the British Gas man came it didn't make a peep so he went away. Now that it's back I can't get through to British Gas.

2. The British Gas 24-hour help line - we pay for an extended service where they will come and fix boilers, pipes, etc. That's all fine and dandy except when you need them you end up on hold for over a half hour with a very nice lady's voice saying,"We have an exceptionally high volume at this time. Either hang up and try later or hold on the line." Holding doesn't do it. Hanging up and trying later doesn't do it either - you just end up with the same little lady saying the same ol' thing. My thought is that if this is a frequent occurrence then it's not an exceptionally high volume - it's NORMAL. So put some more operators on the line.

3. Our mortgage provider. What can I say? How useless can one be? THREE WEEKS after we started chasing up after the mortgage offer (because our 'proactive' (not) solicitor finally told us she hadn't received the offer from them yet), THREE WEEKS during which our mortgage officer assured us she was chasing up with head office, we find out that head office told our mortgage officer that they needed an original copy of our bank statement....THREE WEEKS ago. We only found out because we chased (again) last Friday and she had gone off on holiday (without mentioning it to us) and someone else looked at the file. Someone sack her please.

4. Our council. We have to pay for parking in our neighbourhood....it's a token amount, £30 a year, so that residents get the benefit of not having to park four blocks from their houses. I have no problem with this, in fact I appreciate it (especially after driving for 3 hours on a Sunday afternoon and the child is sleeping when we arrive home). BUT they are on a different planet at our Parking Store (yes, it is where you go to buy parking passes). Our Goddess/Saviour/Nanny bought a car a few weeks ago and wanted to go buy a parking pass. She was told at the store that she had to get a letter from us stating that she lived at our address, since she has no tenancy agreement with us as she is our employee. She did so, and when she went back the SAME PERSON told her that wouldn't work - she needs to be on the council register as a voter. THAT PERSON told her she didn't live there because she wasn't on the register. What incredible news to us that was. So G/S/N has been using guest parking passes for the past few weeks and will continue to do so until DECEMBER, which is the next time the council will update their register.

What planet am I on?!?!

Going for the High Ground

Well, my mother and brother have made it to Austin, safely away from the hurricane's path. My brother spent Wednesday night moving all my mom's valuables away from the windows.

It's strange being so far away from it all but having so many family and friends caught up in the middle of it. I spoke to someone yesterday who was working away....she said it was sunny and clear....then others were like, I'm outta here. It's hard to say what I would do if I were there; on the one hand, you don't want to overreact but on the other, better safe than sorry. I suppose if I were single I would stay but if we were there now as a family I'd have left the moment they said it was Category 5.

I will hope for the best for all of you in Houston and all of you who have managed to get out. Hopefully this will all blow over (pun intended) with minimal damage and everything will return to normal very soon.

Saving the World

Having now given washable nappies as a baby gift to several people I feel like I have to write about it here.

This is a link to some information about 'real' vs. disposable nappies:
http://http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/1287722.stm

Kate has been in washable nappies since she was 8 weeks old (http://http://www.kushies.com/home.html). We only use disposables when we travel somewhere that doesn't have a washer and dryer. I have to say, it is sometimes a struggle using washables (when there is a really nasty 'gift' in the package) but always worth it. Every time I change her nappy I feel good about it (that's a lot of feeling good).

And if saving the environment isn't what does it for you - it actually works out cheaper over the life of nappy-time. In England we are looking at approximately £10 per week on nappies (depending on brand - Pampers is more expensive) for approximately 100+ weeks (if you go by average potty-training age). The nappies I use are on the pricier side of washable nappies (because while I am into saving the environment I want to do so with as much convenience as possible, so the ones I use are Kushies' Ultras which have built-in waterproof layers and velcro fastenings) and the total cost (15 infant- and 15 toddler-sized) comes out to about £300 including nappies, nappy soak, liners and biodegradable wipes.

As a final incentive - once you are all done with the nappies they can be donated to charities who will give them to needy families in third-world countries.

Snotty

Ah, it's definitely autumn. I know this is so because Kate has her first cold of the season.

Friday morning....Uncle Robbie (the guy now living in her room) walked her up the stairs to our bedroom, which was really cute (ahhhh)....and then I took a closer look and saw that she had green snot coming out of both nostrils (looked like snails if you ask me)....and then I took an even closer look and saw that she had been rubbing her nose all night and there was dried, crusted snot all over her cheeks. Lovely.

It continued through the weekend....I think I went through a whole box of tissues wiping her face. She wasn't too bothered though - she was a little clingier than usual, but very happy about the Calpol she got (very yummy children's aspirin-like syrup....tastes like strawberry, her favourite!). When she developed her cough she moved on to Benylin (equally strawberry-yummy).

Buying a Flat

James and I are in the process of buying a flat near our house. This is now the third property purchase we are going through and it still amazes me how inefficient the process is.

Having been through an apartment purchase in Houston, I am now extremely appreciative of the efficient process achieved in the States due to the youth of the country. What seems so efficient and logical to me is countered by years and years of history and evolution of English Law.

It starts with looking for a flat. In the States you engage a real estate agent to whom you will give your property requirements. The agent goes through all available properties in the area(s) in which you are looking and then takes you to view a select few that meet most of, if not all of, your requirements. Once you find a place you like and an offer is made and accepted, you fork over some Earnest Money. The only way you could get the Earnest Money back is if there is something materially wrong with the property that was previously undisclosed, that causes you to pull out of the purchase. You obtain a mortgage, the mortgage company does a survey, you hire a title company to handle the closing and the closing is typically 3-4 weeks later. Simple.

Here, it's all up to the you as the buyer to trawl through websites and contact any number of local estate agents to find suitable properties for viewing. The buyer then makes appointments with each agent for the properties he/she would like to view (I am seeing a market opportunity here). Assuming you find a property you would like to purchase, you then make an offer. Once the offer is accepted, both parties hire solicitors and the buyer gets the mortgage company to do a survey. So far a little more complicated but not so much to scare you. The next part is what I find so weird.

Although you have made an offer and it has been accepted, no deposit or earnest money is given. This means that either side can back out at any time, with no costs other than the solicitors' costs up to that point. The "Exchange" where a deposit is given by the buyer only happens once the buyer and his/her solicitors are happy with all the details of the purchase. "Completion" then can occur, once all the loose ends are tied up. When we bought our house, exchange and completion were on the same day, which seems to defeat the purpose of giving a deposit in the first place, but what do I know. It is also a common occurrence here for people to 'gazump' you - i.e. make a higher offer to the vendor, who then pulls out (and they can, because the exchange hasn't happened yet) - you have no recourse and you also have a load of solicitors' fees to pay (not to mention the survey and other fees already down the drain).

So far with this flat it has been over two months since we made the offer and it was accepted. There are still tons of outstanding points that need to be covered, including our solicitor's going through the annals of property history to be able to opine that the property is truly owned by the vendor and can be sold to us. What I find baffling is that it doesn't matter how many times the property is bought and sold - the buyer's solicitor has to start from scratch each time the property is sold. And let me tell you, solicitors here are so not proactive. I have had to chase up after the vendor, the estate agent, the vendor's solicitors....our own solicitors....(I am sensing another market opportunity here....)

So here we are, with no end date in sight. My brother-in-law, who will be our tenant once we complete, has now moved into our house (more specifically, into Kate's room - with Kate). While Kate loves having him there (it is really sweet - we can hear them 'chatting' in the mornings before I go downstairs to get her ready for breakfast) it isn't fair on either of them. At this point I would love to just cancel the whole thing and start again, but I know that we would only encounter the same problems so it makes more sense to just see it through, no matter how painful it is.

Still

Still with the owls.

We were shopping this weekend and walked into Zara (a clothes store for men, women and children). Kate started chanting,"Owl, owl, owl, owl...." I thought, what is wrong with my child? She's hallucinating now. But lo and behold - there, about 50 feet away on a little child mannequin tucked away on a shelf in the back corner of the children's section, was a little girl's handbag with an owl embroidered on it. Of course mummy had to buy it. Well it goes with her new French outfits! (oh yeah, when we were on holiday in France I went to E. LeClerc, which is a competitor of Auchan, and bought all her 18-24 month clothes - they were sooooo cheap and sooooo cute....all maroon and pink and purple and green....love French clothes)

And of course we had to buy the owl toy from the Disney Store. And a Pooh bear to keep him company. Kate hasn't stopped kissing them since (and she makes them kiss each other too), so it was a good investment. I was telling Nicola (our Goddess/Saviour/Nanny) that Kate had better appreciate being spoiled like this because when (if) #2 comes along it's all stopping. Fortunately Kate likes to share her stuff with everyone so it shouldn't be a problem (says the naive mum).

Speaking of kissing - Kate is really into kissing everything and everyone. This morning she kissed the button on my jacket. And the button on Nicola's shirt. And she kisses every animal on every page of her Hide-and-Seek-Jungle book. And all her stuffed animals in her cot (of which there are many - we are having trouble fitting her in her cot these days, and it's a cot bed which is bigger than normal). And apparently all the boys in Tumble Tots last Friday (we will have to have a talk with her about that....).

Owls

Kate is now eighteen months old and is learning new words every day. Her vocabulary is pretty extensive at this point, including words like star, moon, drink, sun, baby, duck, bunny, meow for cat, raah for lion, mama, da, bird (pronounced like a Brit - "buhd" - our nanny's influence!), car, ball, moo for cow, high-pitched mimi for mouse, bear, pig, please (said ever so sweetly every time she asks for something - so I find it extremely hard to refuse her!) and...................owl.

She learnt to say owl when we were finishing our holiday in France and her grandmother was reading her a Winnie-the-Pooh book. She seems to have fallen in love with Owl. So for two days in the car all we heard was,"ow-wl" over and over and over again. We've been back just over two weeks now and it hasn't stopped. She has determined where all the owls are in the house (you wouldn't believe how many you probably have yourself). She will pick a book out of a pile and turn to me and say,"Ow-wl." I initially doubted there would be an owl in the book but once I started reading it to her I'd see that she was right - an owl would be sitting in a tree, peeking in a window.....I don't doubt anymore.

I've given in. I bought her a little owl soft toy which she kisses all the time. Sometimes the first thing she says in the morning is "ow-wl". When she says owl to me I say owl back. I've never really thought much about owls, but they are growing on me. Like a wart.

Here is a series of pictures of Kate from our holiday. She keeps trying to take the camera away from me.

.....one with Daddy, lookin' cool.....

....and the only one where she looks like me....!

Welcome to My Blog!

Well I'm joining the high-tech information age and starting my own blog!

Being an Ameri-Brit who moved to London from Houston five years ago, I'm going to include comments on the interesting things I have experienced and continue to experience in this great city I now call my home.

With a British husband and an eighteen-month-old daughter, there should be plenty of interesting things to write about (well I think so anyway - would love to hear from people to see if any of these experiences hit home, whether you are a fellow Ameri-Brit or just a woman, wife or mother).