Let's Go Anywhere: New Places, New Friends

This week started off as a memorable one for the Mackintosh family. Beth had finally convinced Lisa to move Pixy the hamster into her bedroom, prepared the new cage and packed it full of toys and snacks. When Beth returned to the kitchen hysterically crying, there was only one explanation…Pixy was dead. Sure enough the decision was made one day too late and poor Pixy bit the dust and sent all three girls into a crying fit. Lisa loaded them into the car and we drove to the next town to pick out a new hamster (which Lisa was totally against). Long story short she convinced them they could all get a toy instead of the hamster, which the younger two were fine with and Beth is still coming to terms…but will take a dog instead!

We had a play date on Tuesday (so overrated!) with the Owens family. Caron and Gareth (I think) are the parents who are super nice…like really, really nice…I had a headache and my face hurt from smiling so much by the time we left. We sat and had some tea (with milk) while the girls played and then sat down for dinner, she made lasagna (with carrots in it?). But they both use to be marathon runner until a couple years ago and Caron invited me to join her running group on Monday so we’ll see if I take her up on it.

Lisa has signed up for the Moonwalk in London in May which is a 26 mile walk for breast cancer and I’m thinking about doing it with her. It starts at midnight and everyone is given a bra to decorate all crazy (http://www.walkthewalk.org/Challenges/TheMoonWalkLondon) and a huge course is set up all throughout downtown London. I guess I’ve got time to decide.

Friday night I drove over to Tring, car seats in the back and a hamster cage in the trunk (serious mom moment) and met up with two other au pair girls in the area, Coralie from France and Agne from Estonia. We went to the high street to a pub called The Bell (which Lisa later told me is a bit “dodgy”) where we ordered a juice, yes non-alcoholic juice on my first night out! We sat and talked for a while, as much as we could with the language barrier. Agne spoke English very well and Coralie I’m sure will learn quickly. We had a few good laughs while we tried to sound things out for each other and used Coralie’s French/English dictionary for extra help. Neither have been to the US so when I told them they’ll have to come visit when I move back (if/when!) they jumped at the invitation, especially Agne!

Agne is 22 I think and is a skinny little thing with white/blonde hair. She is from a tiny village in the middle of Estonia, which I had to look up on a map. She is here to work on her English and then moving back to find a job. Coralie is 21, really pretty and so sweet—I feel so bad she can hardly understand me! When we first met she got right in my face and backed off right away laughing and explained how she is use to the double kiss in France. She is from a city in the south of France by Boudreaux so I’m totally tagging along on a visit! She has a boyfriend back at home, but Agne doesn’t so we decided she could just be our wingman. There are also other au pairs Agne is bringing out next weekend from Czech and I can’t remember the other so hopefully my circle of friends will expand in number and diversity!

Saturday I tried to sleep in but was woken up by the girls playing with Beth’s new recorder for school—what a horrible invention. We went over to Hemel Hempsted which is about 20 minutes from Pitstone(our town) where we had lunch at Pizza Hut! It was pretty much the same so nothing exciting. We went to see Marmaduke at the cinema where we had assigned seats on our tickets. The movie was really cute and the girls loved it.

Today we went to watch Gordon play cricket, which I thought would be fun but really there is nothing exciting about the game. Like Lisa said it was a bunch of middle aged, overweight men chasing a ball around . I still don’t understand the rules or the objective of the game, but don’t really care to find out. It was nice to experience the game but once is definitely enough for me.

I have no idea what will be going on this week but the plan is to head to the massive shopping center (fingers crossed I make it there alive) so I’ll be updating sometime soon!