A new house, a birthday, broadband, and Brexit
It’s been a busy two weeks. I was hoping to post sooner but, you might guess, when we moved we were without broadband. That looked to be a total catastrophe for a short while because the woman who owns the house had her knickers in a twist about who pays for it (we agreed she would but it turns out we are) so while we’re still trying to resolve the payment issue at least we’re connected again – and we’re now in a much bigger house with room for our boxes, our beds, etc. We have a bedroom again! There’s even a room for the cats. Okay, it would more formally be known as the “spare room” but that cats have taken it over and they’re happy with the arrangement.
Another milestone that passed was that DS was one! Yes, on Sunday he celebrated his first birthday. Okay, “celebrated” may be overstating it: we were still busy moving in, sorting out the Internet, and cleaning – which I’ll come to. Really we just sang happy birthday to him and unpacked about four boxes that contained all DD’s toys, which came from our old house in the UK. She has been without them for the last six months and very definitely has a mental inventory of every item that was packed away. She was delighted to be reunited with some of her old favourites. DS on the other hand now has more toys than he can imagine as we kept a good number of DD’s early toys, which are now just right for him. We are aware that some sort of party is needed, if only to enable him to feel complete when he’s older and contemplating therapy, so this coming weekend we’ll bake a cake and throw a very low-key birthday party for him, just the four of us and a couple of small things for him to unwrap. I can’t believe he’s one already. It’s gone so fast! As busy as we’ve been it’s been wonderful to spend the whole of his first year together, all thanks to losing my job, and I’m grateful now that I don’t have to rush back to work and can enjoy more of these early years with both of them.
Then there’s Brexit. I mean what the actual fuck happened on Wednesday!? I’m on a self-imposed news ban after spending a good few hours moping after reading the news that our unelected prime minister went and invoked Article 50. As if that wasn’t bad enough, her comments about how we should all unite as good as rubbed salt into the wound. No, Theresa, this does not happen in my name. One minute I has happily living my life and the next I was hit by the same feelings of sadness and grief that I experienced last year when the referendum results were announced. Why, oh why!?!
Living over here, as we are, one of the issues that bothers me a lot is freedom of movement and how that’s going to work when this is all done with and the sh1t is being scraped off what’s left of what was once a UK-shaped fan. How is that going to work exactly? If the UK gets all tough on immigration and stops pretty much everyone coming in, where are we brits going to be able to go? Post-Brexit we will have the freedom to move where? She’s forgetting that not everyone wants to spend the whole of their lives staring dismally into the grey waters of the Thames. The freedom to move to Scotland looks unlikely, if they casts us adrift too, so that leaves… Cornwall? Jersey? Unless there’s some plan afoot within commonwealth countries, but doesn’t that just put us back where we started? And are places like Australia and Canada, with fairly stringent immigration policies, going to just nod such a dramatic policy shift along because it’s the UK? I doubt it! And how does that help families? Forcing those who have had enough of Britain to move 5, 6, 7 hours and more further away when once – in those heady days when we were in the EU – could move just a short drive away? It’s insulting that anyone thinks any of this is a good idea.
Silver linings though: it was 24 degrees here today. In March. Yes, that’s pretty much as good as it gets in the UK in the height of summer. Did I mention it’s only March? Here’s a picture of some daisies to cheer us all up.
