Enjoyable times with my family.

My husband took the day off yesterday - we felt we needed an extra day after a busy week and strange emotionally draining weeks before that.

We went to our local City (Ok, most of you would not recognise it as a City but it has a Cathedral and it is the only one we have in our County) where there was a Art, Craft and Food Fayre. It was small so we sampled some local cheese, looked around and our youngest was interviewed for the local radio station. Her answer to the question 'What do you know about D-Day? was 'I haven't ever heard of D-Day.' - maybe not the great news article the reporter was hoping for. She is, however, only 6 and I do not think that they cover WWII in the National Curriculum at that age.

We decided to potter around the City in the sunshine and ended up in the grounds of the Cathedral for our lunch. Every Friday this Cathedral has lunch-time concerts so we ventured inside and listened to an Organ Recital. The girls managed nearly 30 minutes of listening before they went off to look at the Boar War Memorial at the back. It was a strange sight watching 2 young girls reading the names of the Soldiers who had died in a war fought a long time ago.

Today, is my husband's regular day off and we went for the walk we had been promising ourselves for a long time. We found a large hill, walked to the top of it and found a beautiful panoramic view which allowed us to see the Sea on both sides of the land. The path took us past old disused quarries, a war memorial, a trig point and a strange place called Preaching Pit where the brave Methodist Ministers of yore preached to the 'verocious' Tin Miners. The Tin Miners are no more and the Pit is used once a year at Pentecost.

On the way home we stopped at a local Farm and bought some locally made Clotted Cream, Scones and Jam and had a home-made Cream tea. It was extremely delicious and wonderfully fitting for the glorious sunshine today.

When the sun shines in our County it is easy to be convinced that we have been truly called here. That feeling of certainty is not quite so easy in the drizzle and wet but God is the same. He has a work for us to do that is not dependant on the weather as His light is what should gladden my heart.

Still here.

I did not realise that I had not written anything since January. Life this past 2 years has been a rollercoaster ride. We have been in our new home/church/town 10 months now. Am I settled? No, I am not sure I am. The girls love their new home (larger garden and bedroom), have adapted to their new church and think living close to the beach is just amazing. The youngest is planning ways on getting us all wetsuits and body-boards and for us to become a surfing family.

Many things have changed since moving and I think the jolt of leaving my comfort zone has helped those along. I am now a working mum; this is something I never thought I would be. The decision was made after a few crazy depressed months of kicking around the house wondering what on earth I would do. I am not good at self-structuring my time and my spiral downwards was going somewhere very destructive fast. I now work 16 hours a week in a Nursery and can still be at home during the school holidays. Time will tell if that is the right thing for me long term but for the moment it is helping sanity regain a place in my mind.

I am still doing all the other household management things, seeing people from church, having the children's friends around to play, snail sitting etc etc. We were challenged as a family about the lack of openness to our home and by God's grace are trying to do that more here. I need strength and courage to ask my neighbours around and I am hoping that the BBQ we purchased will help with that.

Lessons have been learnt and one of those is to rely on God and not my ability to do things. But I think it is early days and have a feeling that there are many more things that I will learn. I also have the feeling it isn't all going to be easy.