the adlards

We were eating seafood last night and Josie was trying everything on my plate. One thing MGW and I never expected to have was a pair of seafood-loving toddlers. Perhaps we’d just never given it enough thought.
“Jo, do you know what those are that you’re eating?”
Looks closely: “Wow! They’re octopus tentacles!”
“That’s right my girl.”
“Yum!” she said, shoving another four down her neck. I guess the crunchiness was a good counterpoint to the prawns and calamari.

We’ve had a busy time. I’ve been off work for a full two months now and it’s not been a holiday … well, not in the lying-on-a-beach-without-a-care-in-the-world sense at any rate. Lots of planning and dreaming and arranging and managing – not to mention eating and sleeping – to be done. We’ve had a lot of fun along the way (and seen some beautiful things and eaten some excellent dinners) but most importantly have sorted out the purchase of a beautiful new house (which we’ll move into in February in good time for the Coxes to visit and test our new guest rooms), a couple of very pleasing motorised vehicular transporters, and what currently looks to be a choice of jobs to start in January.

The last six weeks would have been far more straightforward but for the banks to whom, it would seem, 48 hours is as a week, if not quite a thousand years. Banking is the racket to be in here (well, probably everywhere, but extra-especially more so here). Current accounts on the whole pay no interest at all, but charges are levied for every transaction on the account anyway. I had a great conversation with a banker on one of my very frequent visits during which I tried to explain the concept of a branchless, internet-only bank that levies no direct charges for their services. I was attempting to instill a healthy fear of the future in said banker, but she couldn’t get past the absence of transaction charges:
“But Mr Adlard, tell me, does the bank make money in some other way then?”
Which, had I been listening to her advice, would have been exactly when I stopped.

We would love to post pictures of the new house, but it seems a little presumptuous while the current owners are still living in it. We have great plans for it – some new doors and floors and walls as well as an extension at some stage down the track. We’ve been collecting furniture for it, which some of you will know is not unlike us, but this is good stuff and shouldn’t have to live in the garage. So we’re having fun; never a dull moment after 8.30am is what I say. You should understand that Sophie wakes at about 5.30am every day, leaving me with a 3 hour deficit.

We hope to have house plans and final interviews squared away in time to have a full month’s proper lying-on-a-beach-without-a-care-in-the-world holiday, only with a pair of toddlers – even a pair of seafood-loving toddlers – I’m pretty sure it’s impossible to have a lying-on-a-beach-without-a-care-in-the-world holiday. I think we’ll go for the manically-active-no-time-to-give-a-stuff package with the dog-herding option for Sophie and the sofa-climbing option for Jo.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 30th, 2006 at 3:29 pm by james and is filed under Family, Food, Friends, House, Josie, Ramblings, Sophie. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.