Hermit mumbles

I had a completely lazy day today. It rained. Welcome to summer! I made a discovery with my aunty on the phone that the average max temp for summer in London is quite similar to the numbers that Brisbane is having... right now. Funny old world.

I was going to go to Camden Markets or go and see Westminster Abbey or something. But I am wretchedly tired and needed one of those nothing days to regain my composure after a long week. London sights aren't going anywhere. Besides, the air show for the Queen's birthday flew right over our house so I could see it from my window. (I didn't realise what it was at first, because the planes were flying so low and they didn't look like passenger planes. I'm not one to freak out about stuff even if it's possible, and the sky was too blue for an invasion, but it certainly came into my head.)

Sorry there's no interesting news, and I know I go on about being tired a lot but if you saw the skin around my eyes you wouldn't wonder. Oh actually I rode in a convertible car yesterday, my host mum has one. The roof was down. That's a first for me. The dad has a porsche, and I guess when I got a lift home from the airport that was my first time in one of those too. I'm such a country kid... Little Man asks me what kind of car I have, and I say "Toyota Camry." One time he said "Oh yeah I've ridden in one of those." "Uh-huh, do you know what they look like?" "Yeah, um, sports car." Mmmhmm. It's a pretty wealthy neighbourhood. There's a stretch limo parked outside the school every afternoon, I have no idea why. Maybe I don't want to know.

My day

Well let's just say that getting off to school this morning was a bit of a drama, so after that I decided to go for a walk along the river. It's so pretty, I love it; and I wanted to find that echoey train tunnel... I wandered along further than before, then sought out the path through the paddock of shoulder-high grass. I came to a gate but it was to the main road which I don't think has a footpath, so I turned around and found my way through nettles (was safely clad in warm jeans, boots and coat despite it supposedly being summer) to what opened into a small flattened nest-like area with... a purple balloon? Ugh that's not a balloon. Yuck yuck yuck. I came away feeling disgusted and very disappointed, and on the path back to the river I saw slugs. Seems it was destined to be a bad day.

But then I found a place to cross the river, and on the other side there's a proper path made of gravel leading through a much nicer open mowed grass area. Passed some friendly dog walkers and eventually found the tunnel!

The path divided and led to the main road again (I saw a notice that I think said path closed - oops), or through a golf course. Not sure how to get to those fields mentioned but I'll keep exploring. By then I was sneezing constantly and my eyes were weeping from hay fever, so I went home and had ice cream and watched some drop dead diva before pick-up time at the nursery. Now I'm sitting in the swing while Little Miss makes new friends at the park. She's good at that.

Spot the pidgeons!

Yesterday was my one-month-in-England day, and I didn't even commemorate it with a post. Oh well.

I met the kid's grandparents and they're lovely. I feel at home already with them which is great. There are some
things about being a nanny which I find draining and often disheartening. It's hard work. I need strategies but mostly just love and patience. And a good walking path like the second one I discovered today. Not the first. The second one of which I saved some for another day...

I'm sleeping better now. I still wake up at 5, but I go back to sleep again and wake up around 6:30 or 7. I think I just needed it so badly and told myself to change the pattern. If you expect to wake at 3 - you will. If you think you're so tired you'll sleep through - well you've a better chance. I realised I'm doing that eat-when-bored/stressed thing. And there's so much snacky sugary salty stuff in these cupboards it cannot go well. Actually it goes really well. Which is not well at all. Deary me.

Anyway, happy birthday Sarah & James! It's yesterday's jam for you now, but I'm still on the 12th. Hope you had a great day.

Little world

Well yesterday I topped up on things that I should have bought when first I arrived - nail clippers, cotton tips, extra writing paper and more toothpaste - that sort of thing. The nearby shopping centre is in the same place as my new church, only 3 pounds away. Poundland - oh wow. Three crunchie bars for the equivalent of $1.50. It's awkward that my keyboard has a dollar sign but not a pound sign. And that I still have Australian chargers so I have to use my power point adaptor.

I had a rotten sleep - it was 3am this morning and at 5am I gave up and ate a crunchie (terrible, I know). I think I went to sleep for a bit around 6 but it was that rotten sleep that makes you feel like your head and limbs are stuffed with really heavy chicken fat. How is that a feeling? I don't know but I really should be trying to sleep now.
Anyway after church - which was lovely and they sang familiar songs and the sermon was really, really good - I went back for Little Man's birthday barbecue! It was great fun, a terrific afternoon. Lots of ten year olds being fun and loud, and I had a good chat to a few of them and some of the parents. The cake said "Keep calm and eat cake" in that propaganda poster style. Cute. Then I watched more IT Crowd and my host mum recommended Drop Dead Diva. Oh yes, Legally Blonde as a TV series but the girl, her soul has been put into the body of a less-than-skinny brunette... I don't really like court room dramas, or rom coms, or American TV shows, but for some reason I want to stay up for many more hours watching it. Perhaps it's the guardian angel character... Oh gee I really am tired.

Oh man, I'm so tired I'm not even going to brush my teeth. Don't worry grandparents! I am a responsible and hygienic adult and I "hoovered" my room yesterday and changed my sheets too but I just have to sleep.

But about bigger things: I've got holidays in July and am wanting to travel around the UK and maybe some of Europe... where do I even begin??

What a great achieeevement

Tomorrow will be four weeks!

My debit card arrived in the mail today, which makes me feel like half a legitimate person. I only set up the account on Monday because I only got around to it then... but it will be nice to have a bit of plastic to pay with instead of notes and coins that I'm still not totally familiar with, and an online presence in pounds. I'm also getting registered with the health thingo - an NHS number it is. That's a good thing, I reckon. I bought me some air mail envelopes to save the post office folk some stickers, and also because I think they are doubly (if not triply) exciting with blue and red parallelograms along the edges. I tried a Daim bar thanks to my cousin Emma's recommendation and they are terrific!

We're going to Brighton for a weekend in July which should be smashing, what. I am rather excited. I always think of Pride & Prejudice when I see the name. Also, I won't be home for Christmas unfortunately. I am genuinely sad to be away from family for the first time ever on that day but I'll be in Spain watching the sun set over the ocean. Ahhh sorry I should have thought of a nicer way of putting it... No white Christmas for me, nope! Spain. How marvelous!

Well after almost a month I think I am wearing out a little. Or a lot. I may not have anything interesting to write about this weekend because I might just do a whole lot of relaxing. We're having a barbecue on Sunday and since I come from the land down under where they supposedly invented the thing, I'm to be overseeing it all to make sure they're doing it right. Pshaw, like I've ever barbecued a sausage in my life. It's a man's job! Anyway it's nice to feel important. Have I mentioned that my English family has a hills hoist (clothes line)? It's one of those silly green and yellow ones, and when I first looked at it I couldn't quite figure out what was wrong. It took two weeks for me to decide that yes, the top bit is upside down like a blown out umbrella. Not sure if I'll ever let on, but it still amuses me a little.

Time to bring down the snooze mask and zzz. I can almost lie on my right ear again! If ever you want to get your forward helix pierced, expect at least 5 months of sleeping with air between your ear and the mattress - using the pillow or your arm as a prop. Second nature now.

Righto then, goodnight!

Fluff

I am so tired I think I'm beyond feeling it. I have accumulated tiredness which is the worst type because it takes so much longer to get rid of than to gather. I wasn't kidding when I said I wake up at ridiculous hours. The last few days have been 4am, and before that it was 5am and before that since the day I arrived it was 5:30am. Trying not to think about the summer solstice. Eek.
Also my job is pretty exhausting. An afternoon in the park on a beautiful sunny day is absolutely lovely, but also quite tiring and then there's still several hours of duties including cooking, bath routine and washing. At home mums are champions - CHAMPIONS. Don't ever underestimate what they do, because I have a portion of the workload and I'm going to bed at 8 tonight. Sheesh.

I feel like such a dag because I'm wearing a sleep mask. That's how desperate I am for sleep. (Why am I blogging? Don't know. I felt like it. Bedtime is a process.) I tried it for the first time last night and though I got to sleep OK, I woke up and it wasn't on my head anymore. Sneaky me. At least it did half the job. Oh and it's not over my eyes at the moment...

I'm sorry, this is not material that is world wide web worthy. I come from a family of over-sharers. (Can't wait to Skype you guys tomorrow morning! Which is tonight for you but anyway.)

Good
night.

Daisies!

My new host family picked me up from the airport (it was about 9pm local time) and drove me to my new home. I have felt so welcomed from the very start by everyone - the kids are fantastic and we're buddies already, and I feel comfortable and, well, 'at home' in the house too. I managed to sleep most of that night, but I guess that's not surprising since I'd only had 4 hours or so in the last two days. Literally. (Thanks to those people who texted late Friday night, but I really did wish I'd put my phone on silent... still love ya!)

The next day, Sunday, I woke up quite early but I lay in bed and had that long-anticipated leaving-home cry. I read an unopened letter from my mum and a handbook from my au pair agency on how to deal with homesickness and I just sobbed. It surfaced a bit throughout the day but I'm good now. I was feeling bad before I left that I wasn't crying when saying my goodbyes - so now you can happily know that mine just came late. I finished unpacking which was really helpful psychologically, and had tea and toast. After some chatting and being shown around the house properly we went "into the village." This doesn't really make sense to an Aussie, you're thinking 'huh? I thought you were in London?' But I think it's like your suburb is your community, with a row of shops like a nicer Uralla and pretty much all you'd need week by week, and "town" is London-London: the city bit. Or the next suburb might have department stores and such if you need a new phone or clothes.

Anyway the "village" is just lovely. I'll take some pictures of the streets tomorrow and post them but they're not going to do it justice - it is so much prettier than I ever imagined and street viewed. There's a little river that runs behind our house... yes! A river! Think really really green grass with daisies (daisies everywhere! on the roadside! made a daisy chain today with real daisies not clover..!) and big green trees overhanging with blossoms blowing everywhere and a little wooden bridge.

There's a nice park too and a lake down the road surrounded by woodland with a fake beach. We went there for a festival type thing, which was a bit like a market and a fete but less commercial and more... folky. There was Morris Dancing - see photo - and if I had have known it was called that before, I would have got the joke "Which one's Morris?" Haha. There was a barbeque, which I called a sausage sizzle, and found that that's not a widely used phrase here... It was kinda surreal to hear accents everywhere, and people just look English. Not in the way they dress but their faces. I dunno. Saw a bunch (I think there were five) of teenage fellas walk out of a store and one of them had a granny cardigan and I nearly laughed out loud. You can see in the photo the grey sky - it rained as we were leaving - but we've actually had some nice sun and we played on the trampoline today. People have said it's unusually cold for May, probably a good thing for me though or I'd think too highly of England too soon...!
I love this area, though; and my house and room are so nice.

It's 9:09pm but still not pitch black - kind of that grey where you've got your headlights on and decided to leave the clothes on the line overnight and you can't really tell who it is walking down the street but the window's still blue not black. I'm going to wrap up here because I just want to show some pretty pictures of the place next.

I was listening to the BBC radio and heard an ad for the finale of Doctor Who this week, but I forgot to keep watching after episode 2 - I feel like a bit of a wally!