Written on new years day… published more than a week later, true to form.
We’ve been enjoying the kind hospitality of some extremely tolerant friends for what was supposed to be a couple of weeks. At first we were going to be residing in the “fungeon”, a self contained mini unit type thing under our friends house, until the 14th… which became the 21st… then boxing day… and now finally we are getting out of their hair on new years day, quite fitting really. (Side note: we may have left… but our multitudes of stuff still lurk about downstairs… being all ominous and messy and shit)

During our extended stay we discovered a few things about suddenly living with another family, mainly to do with having 4 very different children living under one roof.

1. Diseases: About a week into our stay our littlest brought home chickenpox from daycare. A generous a thoughtful gift that led to myself and her royal highness being quarantined in the lower deck so to speak for a week. Luckily our friend’s kids had already had chickenpox but we thought we would be extra cautious. And it was a very good thing we did because the chicken pox developed into school sores.

   2. Mornings and floorboards:
   It is entirely possible to differentiate between the footsteps of individual children, particularly at 7am, particularly when one of the 8 year olds has footsteps not unlike a herd of elephants.

   3. Mornings and instructions:
   “Don’t go upstairs and wake everyone up” translates as “march upstairs and gradually become louder until somebody yells at you… repeat”

   4. Fear:
   When your friends children no longer fear you, its time to go…

More moving updates to come…