Moving on again

Since returning to the UK last spring, we've learned a lot. Some of what we've learned has to do with different types of nappies (why so many choices, Pampers?) or how best to get carrot puree into a baby's mouth. We've learned more than we ever wanted to know about visa applications and Border Agency inadequacies. TLOML has learned, sort of, how to do a half-convincing London accent and is working on his Yorkshire.

And we've learned that running a Californian-based business from the UK is not so easy. It turns out it involves some rather family-unfriendly working hours for TLOML, as well as an awful lot of travel. Which sucks for all three of us.

So we're heading back. Back to the land of year-round sunshine, palm trees on the beach, and fantastic, straight, white teeth. TLOML's plans for a European expansion of his business are to be deferred for a few years. As are our hopes of raising a brood of little Londoners, who call a knitted woollen top a 'jumper', and call their mother 'mummy' - and enjoy free healthcare.

It will be a double wrench for me. I love living in Saltburn, with my family so close by and all the charms of small town life. I admit I have occasionally entertained a fantasy about staying here for ever (till TLOML reminds me of my career at Big Corp. I suppose I thought I could just get a job in the bakery or something. Sigh). But we were never going to be here permanently: the plan was always just to enjoy a summer of coastal, low cost, low stress living before returning to London.

That's the second part of the double wrench, then. I was looking forward to going back to the city I consider my home, with old, dear friends close by (even those who've moved to the 'burbs are still in striking distance). Lovely, hilly, leafy North London, with its wonderful pubs and parks and bookshops and galleries.  I used to say they'd have to take me out of London in a coffin. I used to hate to leave even for a weekend, though these days I like the idea of being a weekend-trip-able distance from my family.

We're giving that up. To live a day's travel and several time zones away from friends and family. Lady P will learn to call me 'Mommy' or even worse, 'Mom', and call her knitten woollen tops 'sweaters', and demand cookies and candy, not biscuits and sweets. I could go on. I guess what I'm saying is she'll be an American toddler. And we will be very far from 'home'.

I sound a bit glum about it, don't I? Well, as I said, it'll be a wrench. But we do have some very good friends in LA, so I'll turn to them. And I've found some consolation in the fact that Los Angeles only has 35 days each year where there is any rain at all. I know, I know, you can't live somewhere just for the weather. But then again - little Lady P will probably never wear socks (except on trips back to the UK, natch). She can play outdoors all year round. A trip to the beach need not involve a cagoule and a windbreak.

Yes, on balance, life in LA might not be so terrible after all. And there's always Skype....

On reflection, Southern Calfornia isn't the worst place in the world to live

I mean, if you like beaches and sunshine, you'd like it