Thursday 30 August 2012

Settling in & Moving forward...

It's some time since I've managed to write a blog….life has been busy and BT Broadband have been completely hopeless (latest expected install date is now 5th Sept !) so access to the internet from home is still non-existent. Oh well !

We have just-about settled into our new house. To be honest it feels a bit strange because it's not really our house (it's rented) so feels a little bit like we're in a holding pattern until we move again to something more permanent. It is a wonderful house for us though with a load of space compared to our previous place…we feel very undeserving and overwhelmed by it really, and actually having a bedroom to sleep in is simply wonderful!

We've been busy unpacking and also getting rid of things….the Duchess of Kent House Charity shop up the road think we're their best donor ever I think (even though part of me winces with memories of the hospice every time I go through the door)….we've also had a steady stream of people from Reading Freecycle coming to take things away which we can't donate to the charity shop.

The week before last we had all the children away for the best part of a week either at Newday bible camp or at Granny's so Ellie and I had some time alone…we didn't manage to get away properly this time because we still had to have the cats locked into the house due to the house move. They're out now though and haven't got lost ! Here's a photo of Tom on Removals Day! Ellie and I went out for days and even managed to order a brand new double bed (ie. One that nobody has previously died in).

Last week we went with some great friends to 'Westpoint 2012' bible camp in Devon. We all had a fabulous time even though it rained a fair amount. Highlight for me was listening to PJSmyth preaching on David/Jesus followed by communion - he was biblical, funny and inspiring all at the same time; communion at the end of the meeting was a very different style but the most God-honouring & Jesus-centred that I've ever been a part of…it was simply fantastic. Jesus is alive, one day soon I will stand in his presence… it's great to live in the reality of it day-to-day.

At the end of the camp, I gave our huge 11 birth tent away because every time I looked at it, it just reminded me of camping-days-gone-by with somebody very special, which can't ever come again. We'll buy a different tent next year.

For now though, it's back to work ….

Tuesday 7 August 2012

A spacious place...


So the house moving went logistically very well.... Removals men arrived to pack up house contents last Wednesday and delivered it straight to the new place on the same day, before coming back for the big stuff last Thursday.  Ellie's stuff then arrived out of storage yesterday….we've still got to get stuff out of the self-storage place but we can do that over the next few weeks. 

There were boxes everywhere…but due to some serious focus (on Ellie's part more than anybody else) we've cracked the back of it.  The children all did their own rooms which helped.  I'll spare you the details of the acres of dust and miscellaneous items discovered on the carpet of the house we left after everything was moved out !  Thankfully I had time to give the place a pretty good clean though.

We all returned to the old house on Thursday evening before going out to dinner to celebrate our house move….emotionally it was a strange one to be back in the empty carcus of a house which held so many memories….but I did hold it together (just about!)…we need to move forward as a family.  

Yesterday evening we had our first evening visitors in our new house…it was fabulous to be able to sit in a living room that we weren't going to convert into a bedroom the moment they had gone !

We feel totally spoiled by the whole house thing to be honest - the house is rented of course…but compared to the fairly cramped living conditions we've all been in for the last year, we have oooodles of space!!  

Two years ago when Ellie was being prayed for by a lady at a church she was visiting, the lady read a scripture over Ellie which she felt was a prompting from God - from Psalm18:19, "(The Lord) brought me out into a spacious place; he rescued me because He delighted in me"  

Prophetic words fulfilled….we're so grateful !!!