Well, that’s it, the October half term holiday is over and we’re well and truly back to school counting down the days until Christmas! While I love the build up to the festive period I am also very aware, this year, that it will be our last few weeks living in our capital city. After almost a decade of London life it’s back to Norfolk we go come January!

Although the children will return to school in London after the Christmas break (I didn’t want them to miss the end of term and moving over the Christmas holidays would be too difficult), it will only be for a couple of weeks and then, as long as our precarious chain of 6 doesn’t collapse, we will be making our move.

I’m happy. And I’m sad.

Happy to be embarking upon a new style of life that I feel will suit my family better. Happy to be finally back together as a family – being apart all week as Jonny’s job is now there while we are still here is taking its toll. Happy to be near my Mum and lots of old friends. Happy to have a big house that we so desperately need.

But the sad?

A friend reminded me of this quote in a blog post she wrote here:

‘You find no man, at all intellectual, who is willing to leave London. No Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.’ – Samuel Johnson, English Writer, 1709-1784

I’m sad to be leaving what we know and love. Friends who have become family, the home I had my babies in, the style of life that is like nowhere else. And most of all? Even more than all of that, I will miss my children’s school.

There are things I’m not keen on, the Grand Highness for one, but there is more that I love about it than don’t. Florence absolutely thrives there and her teacher, the new Miss Pretty, is absolutely perfect – I think she’s brilliant. Jimmy also absolutely adores his nursery and his teachers, especially Miss Lovely who Florence also adored when she was there. The thought of them going somewhere else, somewhere which may not be as good, fills me with dread. I am scared taking them away might be the wrong thing? I don’t think it will be in the long run but what if it is?

So this is the last full half term for them there and I just hope it won’t be too much of a wrench after Christmas.

We had a lovely half term holiday half here and half in Norfolk and the half spent in our new manor filled me with hope for the future. They loved being in he countryside so I will leave you, for this post, with a favourite October half term picture.

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