Otherside...

I am aware that everyting I write at the moment has quite a positive spin mainly because I think that if you emigrate you have to be as positive as possible about everything in your new country, for example this evening we are watching the Emmy's, American Bafta's, a backslapping celebration of US TV - obviously we are cheering for Hugh Laurie, Ali G, Ricky Gervais etc. I also decided to make do with whatever is here, I am not going to import peculiar food stuffs (Coleman's mustard springs to mind for me). Tea here isn't the best - I drink coffee instead, that is very good. Missing inconsequential stuff like that is only going to make thing unnecessarily difficult.

Anyway, gone off track a bit there, I'm going to dump all the negative stuff so far in one message.

It must be said, emigrating is not for the faint-hearted - the plane had barely taken off when I forgot the reasons I was leaving, they go grey very quickly and you need those memories to stay the course! Since arriving, we have all, to some degree, been ill. MC suffering the worst followed by Thomas who is making another quite feeble attempt to cut a tooth. In a hotel room, this is not nice!
Naturally it's all relative to your circumstances, when you think of the people of New Orleans with no idea of when or if they will be able to go home this will seem a bit petty.
However, living out of a suitcase for two weeks sharing a hotel room with the kids has proven horrendous. Noticeably for the children, dragging them firstly from car show room to DVLA equivalent to insurance firm. After two days of that Ellie was unrecognisable from her usual self, naughty, petulant... Thomas missed so much sleep he became a screaming machine. They had three days in Quebec when they recovered somewhat only to be packed into the car for two days and drive a further 1000km.
As soon as that was done we carted them arould ten house, some of which made my skin creep, Thomas is oblivious to pretty much everything, but Ellie sort of understands and often describes herself as "Having no home".
The stress of actually finding a house was immense, by Friday night I was ready to offer a kidney to have more than 4 walls surrounding me! We move in without a single item of furniture, we have two inflatable matresses, 4 plates, 4 forks, 3 knives and 4 spoons - the next schlepping the kids around town will be for a week of shopping I think. At least Toys 'r' Us will be on the agenda tomorrow if we can fit it in!
And if any of us see a restaurant in the next month, I'm sure we'll vomit.
Fortunately apart from the actually stress of emigrating, nothing has hindered us at all, 10 minutes to setup the TV, phone, internet connection. 10 minutes to get bank cards, 10 minutes to get bankers drafts, things seem so simple here. There is so little red tape here (or so it seems) that our troubles have been minimized.
Tomorrow is another day and we'll be outside 133 Beech Tree Run at noon to take possesion with huge smiles on our faces, then I can start my FutureShop shopping list...