Killing time

Hiiiiiiiiii

Its been a while since I posted, almost a whole 2 weeks!!!! I have been busy....

Did the yard sale at Laura's.  Made some money, but it was such a stinking hot day that everyone was down the beach (who can blame them!!!!).  After the yard sale we went to the Gosling's in Stamford-in-the-Vale to start depositing "stuff".  Stopped at grandads bike shop on the way, boys love a good ride, and got rid of my bike.  They will be selling it as second hand, so if you fancy a very cool Schwinn Cruiser at a reduced price, pop to Cycle King, Oxford!!!!  Was nice to catch up with the Goslings, it was very hot so we took the paddling pool.  Had a BBQ.  The boys decided after the BBQ to go in the paddling pool naked, then run round the garden with the water pistols trying to get daddy and uncle Tony.  Very humourous.....

Me and the boys went to see my dad yesterday.  We had a brief coffee and biscuits at dads, then took them to Aldershot Military Museum.  They loved it!!!  Then on for Grandad's favourite food, McDonalds!  Was nice to see him, yet hard to think there are not going to be many more times when i can drive an hour up the road to see my mum or dad....

My boys like tanks!!!!

Also had a night out with the school mums.  Was good to get some yummy food, that I didn't cook, and have a nice natter and catch up with the ladies....

Got the cat to the vets last week.  He was very helpful, scanned her microchip, and offered a bit of advice about the move.  Passed the microchip details on to Worthing Cat Welfare Trust, and they have already sorted out changing her microchip to our address.  Thanks Geoff!

Finally had the boy hepatitis B jabs done last week.  They were really good, and didn't cry.  Next one is 12th September....

My residential school assignment is done, just need to print it when I come home.  Got my results for my last psychology assignment.  I am happy to say, with one assignment to go, that I have already passed the continuous assesment part, just need to ace the exam.  That would be my first exam in the States then on the 16th October.....

We have officially booked our leaving do for the 15th September.  Dropped a bit of a clanger though, as it is the Goodwood Revival that weekend!  Realy looking forward to it, hopefully lots of people will come to say good bye and enjoy a few drinks with us.

We are off on our look and see on Saturday.  It has come around soooooo quickly.  We are nearly all packed.  Seems strange to be packing everything into closed bags, I am so used to just flinging things into the car, and unloading them at the other end.  We are pretty much done, just need to add some things tomorrow night.  We need to be up about 5am on Saturday morning, so we are going to wake up, pack the car, put the boys in the car in their pyjamas, and hope they keep sleeping most of the way to the airport!!!  It is exciting, yet slightly nerve wracking at the same time.  How are the boys going to be content on a plane for 8 hours, especially Seb!!!!

The provisional house list arrived in Pauls inbox last night at about 9.45pm.  Cue staying up late, and drinking too much whilst "researching" the list.  There are 3 that look good, one is particularly good, just need to check the garden.  I am very excited!!!!  Have 3 preschools to look at next week, Oli has a test to do, a school visit, we need to go to the bank, Paul has to have a meeting at BMW, there is so much on.  We are going out for lunch on Sunday with some of Pauls work collegues who have recently moved out there.  Really looking forward to having an insiders view BEFORE we do anything official.

Tomorrow might drag, I hope not.  We have a Netmums picnic, if the weather holds, so that will help the time pass.  I will bath the boys in the morning all ready to go, then Picnic, then dinner, then bed for boys, Zumba for me (my 3rd one this week, I love it!!!!), finish off packing, and off we go.....

Will try and post from the stated, depends on internet connection.  We have so much to learn....

Much Love xxxxx

Terms and conditions

Well, we made it back from France in one piece.  The rest of our holiday was nice and relaxing, just what we needed.  Once we have downloaded all the photos, I will add them to the blog.

Whilst we were driving back from Portsmouth, we did a list of things to ask International HR, about look and see expenditure, moving costs, visas, cat costs, flights, all sorts.  When we got home at 10.30pm, Paul had an email from IHR giving lots of details, but far too much to take in after 15'hours travelling.  We went to bed that night very tired and with heads spinning......

Paul went in to work on Wednesday morning.  He received an email from America HR, saying that they required more details on his current job for his visa application.  He went in about 10, had his phone call with international HR at 1, then stayed till usual time working on th info for the visa, despite the fact it is shut down and they are not making any cars!  Luckily he got it all done and emailed that day.

So the contents of the phone call.....Paul was on the phone for an hour and fifty minutes!!!  Not sure where to start.....  Ok, with me.  I get given a lump sum just for going plus a nice sized training allowance, which should be more that enough to finish off my OU. We know they pay for school and preschool for children over 3, so that's Isaac sorted.  Our rental allowance is more than we thought, with variance for un/furnished.  As we have a large family, we have a large container to ship our stuff, if we so choose to.  If we don't want to, we are given an allowance to furnish our new place.  Paul has chosen to have 30% of his wage paid into his UK account to enable us to pay off our credit card debt.  This can not be changed during the contract term, so if we pay off our debt, we can start saving for a deposit for a house when we come back.  We also get a cost of living allowance (COLA), so we should not notice a drop in income.  This is pretty much equivalent to the 30% being paid to the UK.  We also get a flight home for every 12 months Paul works put there, so that's a minimum of 3 flights in the contract term.  It is possible that we can have 2 named airports to fly into, so we would have Heathrow and Paris, so we can go back to France in 2014 for our summer holiday.

It is getting so close now.  This time in two weeks, I will be in bed ready to get up about 5.30am, to get to Heathrow for our flights to America for the first time.  So exciting.  The boys are looking forward to going, Isaac keeps asking when we are going, think he wants to go now!

We have so much to do before then!!  My good friend Laura is having a yard sale next Saturday, and has kindly offered me space on her yard.  We are going to spent this weekend sorting the shed, the junk room, the understair cupboard and the big cupboard in our room into piles: one for sale, one for storage at the in laws and the other for the tip.  It's free listings on eBay this weekend, so lots of stuff will be going on there, anything that doesn't sell will go for the yard sale.  We are planning on going up to the inlays next weekend on an impromptu visit to start storing things.  Need to start getting through it, we don't have much, but a lot of what we have we don't really need.

I also need to get my residential school assignment finished before the look and see, I am motoring through it, just hope it is right.....  It is due in 4 days after we get back from the look and see, so as long as it is done in a good rough format, I should be done.  I think I will get it done, and think I will pass it ok.  Also need to start doing my psychology assignment.  Again, that's not due till 6th October, but september is going to fly by.....

I called up the place we are looking at for our leaving do.  Looks like they will have space for us on our date.  So if you are local, or not, keep the 15th September free!

France - Sponsored by Desperados

Eveing all,

We are still in France, about half way through our holiday, but thought I would update anyway.... 

We had a good crossing as usual, but on a different boat.  We got into Le Havre at 8am, off the boat quicker than ever.  The drive of 389 miles was a very speedy affair, and we arrived at Bonne Anse Plage at just gone 2.15pm, the quickest we have ever done it.  We had one stop, and the boys were great and slept most of the way.  We were even able to get to the pool that Wednesday afternoon, as it was sooooo HOT!!!!! 

The first couple of days were very hot, with a visit to the pool everyday.  It then cooled a little on the friday, starting cloudy then clearing by 4pm, cue more trips to the pool.  We have been coming here at least once a year for 5 years, and the pool has been something else this year.  They haven't changed anything, but it appears Sebastian is a natural water baby.  He has no fear, is not afraid to put his head under, and even tries to swim.  It is brilliant, was a little nerve wracking at first, but once we got him some armbands he has been a little adventurer....

We did the zoo on Monday, it was fab as usual.  The boys really enjoyed it this year, even Oliver.  They loved the goats (Pat the Goat), the giraffes, the wolves, the meerkats and the elephants.  Paul has taken too many zoo pictures, as usual.  And I even got to see some black swans.....

We made it to the beach yesterday, another hot day with wall to wall sunshine.  It was so nice to go, makes it really feel like holiday.  I love the beaches here, despite the massive jelly fish.....  Oli was in the water loads, his confidence has come on leaps and bounds.  Isaac was not too keen, but Paul made a wall to ty and stop the tide coming in.   As it got nearer, Isaac got more interested in the water, and was at least paddling by the time we left.  We spent a good 4 hours on the beach,  an achievement for us with 3 children to keep entertained.  Thank goodness for Nanny, she has been a life saver, don't know how we would manage a holiday like this without her. 

It was the night market last night, so no entertainment.  Seb didn't sleep much yesterday, so he had an early night while we took the other 2 for an ice cream (have eaten loads of those.....).  Oli decided he wanted a tatoo done.  He waited really patiently while he chose.  He decided on a skull and crossbones, when the gentleman asked him which colour, he chose gold!!!!  We managed to persuade him for black and gold, I failed to mention it is all glittery.....

The weather has been quite grey and pants today, so we took the boys to Marennes for a McDonalds, a lovely holiday treat.  Its nice being able to sit outside, while the boys played afterwards.  The weather for the rest of the holiday is not looking too great, but fingers crossed we get typical weather, where it is cloudy till about 2pm, then starts to clear up.  We all (adults)  got a bit burnt at the beach, so would like hot weather, just not too intense, lol!!!

We go home on tuesday, driving all day, ferry at 5pm, should be back home by 11pm.  Paul is back in work on Wednesday, which is not usual, but he has an important phonecall with International HR to set out the terms and conditions on the America job.  In theory he starts 2 months today, thats a scary prospect..... I wanted to post from out here, cos if I waited till I got home I would have far to much to say...We go for our look and see in 24 days time, eeeekkkkkkkkk

Liver damage

Clare the chemist

I am back! York was AMAZING! Collected my fridge for my insulin. Turns out I was the only one with a personal fridge, my first thought was alcohol!!! Met up with my friend Sarah at the briefing on the first night, was also sat next to a guy called Shane. Briefing ended, the 3 of us went straight for the pub! Nice to find like minded people. We were joined by a few others, Nick, Elliot, David and Colleen. Was a great night.

The next day we were in the laboratories form 9-12.30, with a short coffee break, the 2-5.30, again with a coffee break (the OU revolves around coffee). Then back for tutorials 7.15-9pm ish. It was amazing spending time in a lab. We went in quite reserved doubting everything, and ended the week barely having to ask the tutors for any assistance. The tutors were fab, really helpful, as were the demonstrators. The food was good, which is unusual, just often there wasn't enough of it. This was the timetable for every day except wednesday when we had the night off....

What residential schools are all about

We did a pub crawl around York. We had a schedule of 6 pubs and a time to be in each. Myself, Elliot, nick, david, Shane, Tom, Marcin, DD and Kate went in about half an hour later. We met everyone else in the first pub, but they left on schedule, we decided to skip pub number 2 and go straight to 3. Everyone eventually joined us, and again most people went straight to pub number 4 but we decided to have a few more in pub number 3. During this time we gained some tutors Robert and Grahame. We started to make our way to pub number 4, when David realised we were near a cocktail bar, The Evil Eye, so we decided to go in there. It was like a shop at the front, but you walk behind the counter and it is a bar with hundreds of cocktail outlets of spirits packed on the wall behind the bar. I had a woowoo, and it was mighty good. We stood outside for a bit, then went up to the toilets(unisex of course) to discover some of our group on a very comfy four poster bed. Time was getting on by now, so we thought we best try and make it to the final pub, the cellars. We got there about 20 mins before last orders. So we managed a couple in there before getting a taxi back to the university. If the night had ended there, that would have been classed as a super night.

We kept drinking when we got back. About 8 of us had been doing this most nights after the pub, and I was quite regularly doing beer runs to the supermarket on campus every lunch time to keep us going after the pub closed. Wednesday night though will be known as pizza night, due to pizza being ordered about 2am...

Working hard...

Thursday was a very hard day..... We got through it in the end, nearly all the way to the final step in our synthesis of farnesol. I got as far as ethyl farnesoate, and am quite please with myself. Had tutorial again on Thursday night to prepare for our presentations the next morning. We weren't going to go to the pub, but realised we didn't quite have enough alcohol to see us through the whole evening, so we went. It was nice and peaceful, only about 10 of us in total which was nice and chilled. We went back at last orders, collected alcohol from my room, and went to warm Stella hill.

It was hard to say goodbye to everyone the next morning. OU residential schools have always been a complete eye opener about chemistry, laboratories, other students, alcohol, student life. It is like being a full time student for a week, and the work is so intense, but so enjoyable. I have met some great people over the 3 I have done, and not too many idiots...it is sad that this is the last year the OU is running them. I have got a lot out of them. I only pray I pass this one, as there is no way of retaking it....

On the America root, not much has happened. I have some emails to go through, but have not looked at the yet, as I have only been home a day!



Should mention before I come across a selfish cow, that I really missed paul and the boys soooooooo much. It was lovely that they all came and picked me up from the train station yesterday. I am trying to get back into the jist of having 3 kids to look after, and a house, and I am also trying to sort out for holiday on Tuesday night. This is when things get fun. This is one of the things before America to get out of the way done.... Next up is France....

Time out

I am off to York tomorrow for a weeks fun, I meant I am going on an OU residential. Lots of fun in the lab, making insect pheromones, keeping lab books, and trying to look intelligent.


Last residential I went on I met a Really nice girl called Sarah, and she is going tomorrow too! Looking forward to seeing her,and catching up over a few drinks Travels a bit of a pain, but should take no more than 4 hours each way. I have plenty of reading on my iPad, so that will keep me amused.


Paul will have fun with the boys, despite the fact that Oliver and Sebastian both have colds. I have made them loads of food today, I am all cooked out!!! They are going to eat like kings, or like normal.....


Oliver had a disco tonight, which he seemed to really enjoy, although I get the feeling him and his friend Harry might have spent most of the night chasing some year r girls!!! It is his friend from preschool, saphina, and her "crew"( his words, not mine). On the way back he was talking about discos in year 2, and I gently had to remind him that he would not be here. I explained to him that we could send her messages on the computer, or he could write her letters. He decided he wants to write her letters, which I thought was very sweet. He got a bit upset when he realised he would not see his friends, but I managed to explain to him about making new friends, and the things that will be different. He will be ok when we get there, but it is hard trying to make a 6 year old understand these things. It might get harder, but I am hoping, and I think, that Oliver will just swing into a new way of life, but doing the same things in a different place.


The chemists still do not have the boys hep b jabs in stock. They are not even sure they can get them. The lady i spoke to on the phone had tried to get some for someone else, and the suppliers are all out of stock till Thursday. They are going to call us (paul) tomorrow morning and let us know if them have them, or when they think they will have them.....this is turning out to be a bit of a pain. Told another group of friends about our move this week. Just sort of dropped it into conversation. They were a bit shocked I think. A few more people now know. It is so hard cos I see these people everyday for about 20 minutes in total, so never get a really good chance to talk to them. I hope to see some of them over the summer.


I went to see my friend Vicki and her 5 day old baby Robert. He is scrummy. Had lots of cuddles!!! As I say yummy. We are currently sat waiting for a kebab. I am starving.....

The day of the jabs.....

Today was the day the boys were supposed to get their hepatitis B vaccination. 

Phone rings at 8.05am (no one ever calls our house that early....)

Me: Hello

Unknown: Can I speak to the parent of Oliver and Isaac Gosling please?

Me: Speaking

Unknown: This is Westcourt Medical Centre, I am calling about the vaccinations your boys are supposed to be having today.  I have just received a message from the nurse to say that the vaccinations have not been ordered, so we won't be able to vaccinate them today.

Westcourt Medical Centre, named and shamed!

Me:  Ok, so when can I get them done?

Doctors receptionist:  The nurse is putting in a prescription to the doctor, which will be ready this afternoon.  You will need to pop in and pick it up, then take it to the chemist and collect it in a few days time.  I can rearrange the appointment for monday afternoon, is 3.30 and 3.40 ok?

Me: its going to have to be really.....  Oliver also has an appointment to see the doctor at 9.20am, can I rearrange this for tomorrow afternoon please?

Doctors receptionist:  No problem



This is the abridged version, and I am not afraid to name and shame my medical centre for their sheer incompetence (at times....).  The doctors are fab, but its everything else they do (or don't do) is rubbish

So neither of the boys were late this morning, and Paul has to take them for their jabs next week while I am away.  My morning did improve after that. Emailed the CLARITY lady regarding Olivers testing, giving details of our 'Look and See' trip. We had Laura and Daniel round to play this afternoon, which Isaac really enjoyed, and I ALWAYS love a good gossip with Laura, I will miss her loads....

Paul got confirmation of our first cars when we move.  We are getting an X5 and a 1 series convertible. 

I got lucky going to the doctors this afternoon.  It didn't rain (hurrah), got a parking space in the lay by, so didn't have to park on the road.  Walked in to the doctors, there was no one waiting (a rareity), got the boys prescription and also got my fit to fly letter regarding my diabetes, for no cost (its supposed to be £15).  Then went to my chemist, again, parked out front, no one waiting and still no rain.....Felt quite happy after that!

Got home to an email from the CLARITY testing people, to say they had made an appointment for Oliver for the 30th JULY!!!  Quickly emailed them back to query it, yep they got the wrong date on the email.  It is actually Thursday 30th August at 3pm.  That is going to be a fun day....

All in, the day has been good.  Feel a bit for Paul having to take the boys on his own, but he is a big boy, I am sure he can handle it.

I have my neighbour Angela, and possibly her sister Natalie coming over for a few drinks tonight, which I am looking forward to.  Mojito anyone?

Insider knowledge

I know I only posted last night, but this is how it seems to be going:  days where nothing happens, then I get loads of info at once!

I sent all the forms for Olivers school today.  They have already processed his application!  I now need to get Mr Ancell to fill in a Teacher Recommendation form, then send this along with his birth certificate.  They also asked if Oliver spoke German (no!), so he does not need to be in the German for native speakers program.  Paul then received an email from the Clarity testing people wanting to check out when we are in South Carolina, so they can arrange the test.  Have looked at their website, and it doesn't seem to be an academic test, more a test to see if his abilities match those of a 1st grader.  I have no worries about this, he read a whole page of Harry Potter tonight....

Paul had a good chat with a collegue today, who went out on the ex-pat scheme a couple of weeks ago.  So he has given some good guidance on where to live, the look and see (kids may get bored, thank god for iPods) pushy real estate agents  (stick to what WE want, not what they want us to have).  He also gave Paul his address, looks very nice!  He commented on how HOT it is, after all our rain, I am really looking forward to that.  He has a large communal pool, tennis courts, baseball field, basketball courts and a clubhouse with a gym.  But they are currently living in an apartment complex while they wait for their container to arrive/house to be ready.  Apartment pictures look nice, lots of good facilities.  The container picture looks scary though, how much of our lives are we going to be packing up???  When do we do that?  Do we live with little furniture in our house???  Another unknown....

He also warned that the HR department in Oxford need to be pushed, as they are really busy.  We also need to be prepared to pay deposits for utilities (up to $1000!!!) on our Look and See, which we knew about.  We will also have no credit rating when we go out there, apparently it is like being 16 again!  It is also going to cost us about $1000 at the embassy when we go for our visa's, and he advised to not take the kids, as it can be a LONG wait.  Will have to see about that one when we get our appointment.

They also discussed cars, typical men!  Paul's grade will enable him to get a X5 for nothing, as an ex-pat we also get a second car.  We keep the cars for 14000 miles, thats about 6000 more than Paul has his here.  When you collect your first car, you have to place the order for the second one straight away.  Paul wants to get a 6 series convertible for himself, but we are not to tell them that I will be driving the X5.

Pauls collegues child was due to start school in the UK this September, but given that they don't start till the September after they are 5 in the states, is starting next year.  He did give some details on which kindergarten she is going to, so going to look that up in a minute.

That was enlightening reading, and certainly brightened my day