We arrived in Swindon after our summer holiday in New Zealand and it was quite a shock at first - cold, drizzly, and dark just after 4pm. But we didn't have time to get depressed. We started looking for a place to live immediately and after only a week, we moved into a four bedroom house with a little backyard in a new residential area in the North of Swindon. We were lucky and we were able to negotiate for all whiteware to be included and the rent to be reduced.
We moved in before the fridge, so we had to create a fridge in our backyard, which wasn't hard considering the low temperatures. We took everything of use out of the campervan, including kitchenware, fold-up table and chairs, matress and cushions. Unfortunately these items have been our only pieces of furniture since then and because of our container from Germany being delayed, they will remain so until after christmas. The only thing we have bought is a bed and after we made the order, we realised how silly our bedroom is designed. It is too narrow for the kingsize bed with bedside tables next to it and it only has one short wall with no window or door on it. Oh well, we still managed to fit the bed in. The bedroom (aside form the kitchen) is now the most homely place in our house. Our lounge is a bit dull with cushions on the floor, no TV and just Yana's toys as entertainment.
Lindsay started work on December 1st. He is back at Allied Telesis working in a pre-Sales-Support role now. He enjoys being able to speak to colleagues and customers in English again and he has been getting fit on his 6km bike-rides to and from work every day.
Kerstin has been trying to organise the house and find mother-toddler groups in the area to get to know other people. There is a German mother-toddler group in Swindon, which Kerstin and Yana have been to twice now. The mothers are mostly Germans, some come from other countries and have lived in Germany for a while. The children range in age from about 3 weeks to about 2 1/2 and Yana fits in really well.
Yana is almost 17 months now and turning into a cute little girl. She can walk all the way to the playground and back (with lots of little detours ;-)), she can say "Mama", "da" and "dog" and she can understand a lot. She does lots of cute (and weird) little things like: makes bromm bromm noises when she sees a car, walks around with her doll in her jersey top(!?), sit in pots, climbs into cupboards (yesterday she even got completely onto the top shelf somehow), stand in or on pots (depending on which way they are turned), sit down with a blanket on her knees and read a book, etc. Eating is also fun, but not so much for her Mama, who has to have a lot of patience and do a lot of cleaning afterwards.
Since our house is so unhomely, we are not really in a christmas mood this year. However, we had a nice pre-Christmas lunch last Sunday and we are going to spend christmas with friends in Bath, which should be great. After christmas we will have our first visitors - Kerstin's family. Hopefully they won't have to sit on the floor for too long...
