Woah, it's back to normal at last & getting ready for Junior

Wow, there's a lot to catch up on, and no way will I try and do it in one long post - I'll be up half the night writing it. I'll write a few posts over the next few days to bring everyone up to speed.

What's been happening this week? Well, today we had only the second viewing of the house since September (we had one just before Christmas). These viewings are very handy because it forces us to clean the house and have a big tidy up. The main focus this week has been to clear out our box room, which has been used as Olga's walk-in wardrobe since we moved here, and get it ready to be Junior's nursery. That room was finally cleared this morning, and once the viewing was over, we took a car load of stuff to our storage unit, and brought back a car load of things we'll need for him. The changing table, crib, car seat, bath and boxes of baby clothes and breastfeeding equipment has come back, and his new pram was delivered from Mothercare today too, which Lara is testing here:

This is a present from Olga's grandma in Russia, it's the next model up from the Maclaren that we've used for Lara, and that has been a brilliant pram. This one is a little larger and heavier, so we'll be keeping her old one for holidays. We'll be getting one of those "boogie board" ride-on things to fix to it for Lara to stand on.
Olga had an appointment with her midwife today, Junior is fine, he's head down at the moment, and the position of his feet accounts for the kick he gave her the other night which actually made her cry out "Ow!".
Tomorrow we're going to visit one of the three schools that we'll be putting on the application form for Lara's school...
Phew, that's enough for today, more about Christmas and New Year in the next few days.

Christmas Dinner is being prepared

My team of professional Sous Chefs prepare the vegetables

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Merry Christmas

Here we are, all set for later this morning...

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Happy Anniversary, House

Just a quick post to mark the 5th anniversary of us moving into this house. Ironically, this evening had been spent tidying up, as we have the first viewing of the house since August tomorrow.

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Suited and booted for a change

I've been working away from home this week for the first time since joining Flare, helping with a training course in Windsor. It's meant wearing a suit, which has actually made a nice change, and getting up very early. Earlier than Lara, no less.
Yesterday was the first day in a long time - since she was last on holiday with Olga I think, early in 2010 - that I didn't see her at all. I was away out of the house at 7am, before she'd woken up, and I didn't get home until 9pm, well after she'd gone to bed.
Today our trainee and I popped out from where we were working to see the Changing of the Guard at Windsor Castle, here is a snippet for anyone who's not seen it before:

Yesterday was a bit of a marathon trip to get to Windsor - so that Olga could have the car to take Lara to her last gymnastics class of the year at lunchtime, I took a bus to Marlow, a train to Bourne End, another train to Maidenhead, a third train to Slough and a fourth train to Windsor. Dad would have been proud! Door-to-door that journey took 2 hours (the boss gave me a lift home!) On Monday I drove there by the back routes and it took one hour. I drove there today by dual carriageways and A-roads and it took 37 minutes, despite the traffic looking heavier than on the B-roads on Monday. There's a lesson in there somewhere.
Olga and I are working together with our trainee tomorrow - she's a Kazakh lady Olga knows from her visits over there - so I think we'll take the A-roads again!