Hello!! I'm still alive! We survived the move! The sun is shining and I have a gin to hand. All good things.
Apologies for the radio silence, so much for my two-week break from blogging... Thing is, everyone was right: moving house with a baby is just soooo hard. The problem is not the moving so much as the fact that you don't have any time in the day once you have moved to Get. Shit. Done. It's impossible - Daph sleeps for a maximum of two hours per day at the moment and the first nap is in the morning so I spend it washing my hair and stuff like that (OK, OK, and wasting precious time on the sidebar of shame, but I MISS being able to waste time like that SOOO much), and the second one is just 45 minutes after lunch which I mostly spend checking emails and whinging on the phone to my mum about how busy I am. Hmm.
But when you move, you have to do things like unpack boxes, order furniture, sort out curtains, hang pictures, CLEAN (a lot), find lightbulbs that fit, redirect mail, work out how to use your stupidly expensive new washing machine etc etc. Oh and break up tons of cardboard boxes and try to squeeze them into your fortnightly (!! bloody suburbs) collected recycling bin. So yes, it's all been a bit of a blur.
Meanwhile we've also been going back and forwards to my old flat to try to clear it. I thought I was quite a minimalist person but then I went up into my loft for the first time in about two years and apparently I'm actually the sort of person who hides stuff in my loft and pretends to be minimalist. Why I felt the need to keep every single box for every single thing I ever bought (knackered old kettle, a £20 iron etc) is a bit of a mystery - somewhere in the back of my mind a stupid little voice kept saying 'if you keep the box you'll get more for it on eBay one day' but when on earth am I going to get around to selling an old iron on eBay anyway? Time is money Charlotte, and ain't nobody got time for that. Thank god for London's street freecycle system (leave things outside your flat, the next day they've magically disappeared - it's brilliant).
The good news is that we're starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel, and we're finally getting there with the new house too. It's been an exciting and incredibly expensive two weeks buying new things for the house - we have loads of furniture but of course none of it fits or looks right in the new place. It's like when you get a new job, suddenly you need a whole new wardrobe because all your old clothes aren't quite right. Or maybe that's just me. Either way, we're having to decide what furniture to get rid of, and what to keep, while ordering exciting new things like massive extendable dining tables for all the Christmases we'll probably never host and sideboards (oh so middle-aged) to store Scrabble and Monopoly in. COS WE HAVE A BABY NOW AND IT'S TRADITION TO HAVE BOARDGAMES IN THE SIDEBOARD EVEN IF YOU LITERALLY NEVER PLAY THEM.
I'd love to blog a bit about the new house, if people are at all interested. I'm not sure who reads my blog these days - I get lots of emails from PRs talking about interiors stuff but as all the posts have been baby-related lately I suspect most of my readers are interested in babies. And of course next week we have the momentous occasion of Daphne turning one so lots to talk about in that regard too. If only there were more hours in the day!
Oh god, what a tired old cliche. Yes Charlotte, you're SO busy and important, we get the message...
*shoots self by way of apology*
What I wanted to say in this long rambling and really slightly pointless post is that I will be back, whether you want me or not, and I'm hoping my new mix of topics won't put you off. So there. More soon!