Monday 1 December 2008

Worry of the weekend for a five year old boy: will there be enough time on Monday morning to open the Advent calendar AND go to school. Thankfully, we managed to do both. My worry of the weekend: same five year old who moved from London to Cornwall 16 months ago told me his brother was being nah-stee to him. You have to read that with a slow Cornish drawl to appreciate it.

As well as attempting to be a maturing student bringing up 4 kids on a tight budget, we are, all of us, adjusting to our new life in Cornwall. Despite almost the entire Cornish population's dim view of our former home, we had a good time there. Admittedly we lived in leafy part of town; we were minutes by train to Victoria or London Bridge yet lived in an area surrounded by playing fields. We had no complaints about our life, the children had a healthy mix of friends from different backgrounds and cultures. We walked to the local school, enjoyed being part of the community local to us and relished the variety that London offered. We could be in town within minutes and spent many happy Sundays on the South Bank. The boys loved the trains and the girls liked to watch the people, and go to Wagamamas. We would often go to the Tate Modern - the boys spent many happy half hours rolling down the entrance to the turbine room. We would walk along the wobbly bridge to St Pauls and either do the circuit back across Tower Bridge or catch a train from Blackfriars.

Leaving our friends was the hardest part. I had my babies there and we went through a lot together. We are making new friends but in the early months I would see people and think for a second they were old friends, until I realised they just looked like them. Now I see people and recognise them as friends, which makes me feel more at home here. We've all found that - we miss people, but we  have found people. The children are so much more resilient than their parents and have slipped into Cornish life easily, worryingly so! I'm not sure I am ready to embrace the accent quite yet.




1 comment:

homemade said...

Leafy south London misses you.
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