moving on and moving out...

We're in the midst of packing and sorting and clearing and causing our own brand of chaos...we move in 10 days to Billericay. Having had the boxes delivered on Monday evening, we've now had 2 very full days of packing, both here and at my office and we're a bit fed up and hot and bothered so I've retreated upstairs while Andy catches up on Smallville.
Although I say we move to Billericay, we'll actually be living in Hutton, in a rented property because our house purchase fell through in mid July. It was an incredibly frustrating time, considering we had got so far down the road and were almost at the point of exchanging contracts. But our vendors were not very honest with us and chose to only 'fess up that they hadn't anywhere to go on 11th July...by which time our hopes of finding another house to buy were pretty remote. It did feel as though things were all falling apart very quickly; we'd sold our house in April and everything had been progressing without a hitch since then. So we chose to still sell as our buyer was secure and ready to move and take a risk on finding a rental property...which initially meant we were going to be homeless as we couldn't afford anything!! But we've ended up with more space and a long term rental through my job which is a great blessing and we hope to be able to buy an investment flat or something similar (camper van?!) in due time.
It's been a pretty stressful time all in all - with some amazing glimpses of the hope that is before us. It's been challenging to focus all the time on WHY we are doing this and not just the stupidity, cost and sheer exhaustion of it!
The next few months hold some massive milestones - moving being the first one and one which will take a while to recover from probably! Next Andy and Matilda head to Greenbelt for a long weekend, just the two of them before they both start in education on 12th September and Matilda becomes our eldest child sometime in September/October!
Andy and Matilda will both 'go to school' on 12th - Matilda to infant school which she is VERY excited about. Andy on the other hand will be on a train to London, (South Kensington to be precise) to start at Vicar Factory at St Paul's Theological Centre - he'll be there every Monday in University terms, plus 7 weekends and 2 residential weeks each year. Another 3 days will be in placement at the church in Billericay where we will worship as a family and he'll have a day of private study too.
My maternity leave starts on 15th September and with all the busyness of Falcon Afloat last week, alongside a very busy July generally, I shall certainly be ready for it! At the moment I'm planning to be back at work in April 2012 but am going to be flexible with that and just enjoying being at home, doing the school run and being a Mummy 5 years after this all began with Matilda!

So hopefully, I might have more time for blogging but for August, you'll certainly have to bear with us and maybe we'll get back to more reflective and regular service in September. But then again, I may have my hands full!