Life in the country

Thursday afternoon was one of the reasons we moved here. The girls and I had a picnic of strawberries and raspberries and chocolate chip cookies half an hour's drive from home. It looked like this:




We planned the move for years. I knew I wanted to move to a small town, have a garden, fresh air and hills. Tom wanted a town with a cinema. I thought of Scotland. He suggested Wales. We compromised. A small town in Wales, half way between my mother and his parents, and close to two of my cousins. No cinema but then that was wishful thinking - as if we'd ever go anyway...

We also had to work out how we were going to live. Or more accurately how Tom was going to support us as I haven't worked (for money) since I had the children. The country wife/husband in London for the week life just wasn't us. I know people who do it and I am full of admiration. Instead, we've really fallen on our feet, which I put entirely down to the fact that Tom is rather good at what he does, and can now do it from the study over the kitchen.

And so our life changed. In London Tom left at 8 a.m and arrived home at 6 p.m. Now we are both at home - which makes me a bit self-conscious sometimes as he knows how much time I waste pottering about all day. Tom does the morning school run. When he has time and wants a break, we can take a day off and head up Table Mountain together. I do the company admin, financial forecasting and I'm learning much more than I ever thought possible about cloud computing and hadoop (just don't ask for an explanation).

And when it's the summer holidays and a beautiful afternoon, and the children are driving us both nuts, I can whisk them away and out of Tom's hair to one of the most beautiful places in Britain. And back again in time for supper.