Goodbye London, Hello America

We got it! We got the Green Card! I aced the test. Fully prepared for a full Mr and Mrs-style quiz, I was disappointed only to be asked a couple of questions about TLOML’s family – where they live, how many siblings he has, that kind of thing. Easy.

Perhaps TLOML didn’t share my confidence, as he actually stepped forward to answer the first question himself.

‘Where in the States is your husband from?’ asked the officer.

‘Well, I’m originally from –’ TLOML began, until I interrupted him with a sharp dig in the ribs.

‘I think the question is for me, darling’, I said.

The officer chuckled and I think pretty much got his big ‘DEFINITELY MARRIED’ stamp out there and then. It didn’t even matter if I got the answer right, there was something in the way I cut my husband down that demonstrated beautifully the strength of our relationship. (Also I suspect having your baby with you helps. Plenty of people get married just for a visa, but I don’t think anyone goes through pregnancy, childbirth and parenthood to secure a Green Card.)

We celebrated with an expensive Mayfair hotel bar lunch. Lady P especially enjoyed depositing mashed up banana and semi-masticated breadsticks on their leather chairs and clean carpet. And then we hit the road north, before they could issue us a bill for carpet cleaning, leaving London for the last time until we fly out to LA.

Fittingly our last weekend in London was spent staying in my old manor, in Lady P’s godfather’s NW5 flat. So TLOML reignited his relationship with Chicken Shop and E.Mono, and we had a good afternoon with old friends at a quality NW5 boozer. I also managed to squeeze in a little drinkin’ and dancin’ with my Wondertwin at an old friend’s 40^th, in a brilliant old pub in Kensal Rise. On the way home she wrangled with the taxi driver to put Magic on, which reminded me, hazily, of many nights out in our misspent youth. All in all it was a very good reminiscipackage of a weekend.

Good job we got the Green Card. It would have been a bit embarrassing to have to tell everyone we said goodbye to that ‘we’re still here’. As it is we can fly out to LA in a couple of weeks feeling like we gave London a decent farewell.

Our first steps towards independence

There are lots of milestones around at the moment. Lady P is now an advanced crawler and she cruises from coffee table to footstool with ease, so we're sure first proper steps can't be far away. And she already has her first words, at least if 'dadadadada' and 'mamamama' count.

But there's another milestone, which we anticipate with a mix of eagerness and trepidation. It's a first for me and TLOML: a night away without Lady P. We have booked a mini-mini-break, a night away in Edinburgh.

Our plan for the day time is to leave Lady P at my mum's place. She'll have six other grandchildren there, as my three sisters and their families are all in town, so we can pretty much just pop Lady P in and go, safe in the knowledge she'll be a drop in the ocean of chaos. We've spent quite a bit of time there already this Christmas and the babysitting is basically built in because of the sheer number of people in the house. Lady P roams the long carpeted hallway (ours at home is short and wooden-floored, so this is a corridor of luxury) mthrilled by the fact that there are people in every room - cousins, aunts and uncles and grandparents everywhere.

It's great for me. Lady P crawls towards the door, her little bottom wiggling as she gathers pace, and when she leaves my line of sight I just call out 'Can any one see the baby?' So long as I get an affirmative - even if it is from a three year old - I can relax.

Lady P attempts to get in on some gift opening action

And at night, she'll stay at my sister's house, which is just down the street from our place, so we spend a lot of time there as a rule. She'll fall in step with her rufty-tufty twin cousins who are extremely patient as she trails a Godzilla-like path of destruction across their train tracks and Lego cities. She's eaten plenty of meals with them and will be quite happy to join them for bathtime and a bedtime story.

I sincerely hope she then sleeps for twelve solid hours, as she does at home. But I rather suspect being in a travel cot in a different room will mean any periods of light sleep or vague wakefulness could rapidly deteriorate into angry, 'where the hell am I?' crying. I hope not, or at least I hope that my sister calms her down with her usual ease. To offset my anxiety I've spent hours printing out schedules, laying out bathtime, bedtime and morning stuff at my sister's house, and prepping little dishes of food, so my sister doesn't have to do too much. Lady P is pretty easy, but nonetheless, she does require a bit of looking after.

Three years ago, when the twins were just a few weeks old, my sister and her husband were both getting up every three hours to feed them through the night. One night I stayed over and took a shift with each of them, so they could sleep for a full six hour stretch. She still talks about it with misty eyes, as an incredible gift I gave that she could never repay. Well, now its payback time. And it is a coin I can only spend once.

So I will keep my fingers tightly crossed that Lady P is easy, happy and calm, like she is with us. I'll keep then crossed till that first cocktail. After that, we'll toast to the night I did twin-duty, back in 2010, and determine to forget all about Lady P for the evening.

Christmas 2013 in numbers and pictures. Oh, and some words.

0: the number of mince pies consumed so far. Zero. I know. Weird, right? I just haven't had one yet. As this is my last British Christmas for the foreseeable, I need to put this right, and fast. I aim to rectify this by eating at least four tomorrow.

1 turkey leg smuggled out of my mother's house and presented to a gleeful TLOML. He missed out on cold turkey today as he spent the day working, bearing witness to the fact that in the US there is no Boxing Day. Boooo to that.

2: the number of Christmas cakes baked by my mum. One is for her house, the other is quartered and given to her four grateful daughters who still haven't had to master the art of baking a Christmas cake.

2 turkey dinners. One, hot, on Christmas Day, with my parents and my sister and her family. The second, cold with hot sides on Boxing Day, with an additional sister and her family thrown into the mix. Fun!

2 runs, so far. One full of pace and a decent distance on Christmas Eve. One slightly jaded jog on Boxing Day - I used the fact there was a little ice on the ground and dozens of dog walkers out to excuse my slow pace.

Lovely condition for a dog walk. Treacherous for running. Honest.

2 carol services. One in church, where Lady P rampaged about being distractingly cute during all the serious bits. One by the Saltburn tree, which involved a brass band and a carol sheet full of typos. Loved it.

3 walls of the gingerbread house still standing. Three reindeer, one and a half person, seven trees, a chimney and most of the roof have already gone. And we've only been eating it since yesterday morning.

4 cousins who have played with Lady P so far. Two more arriving tomorrow. There's a lot to be said for a big family, with plenty of volunteers to read stories or play with building blocks.

10: the number of minutes, on average, I go between bites of the gingerbread house during waking hours. Given the rate at which it's disappearing, I wouldn't be surprised if I'm also sleepwalking and taking nibbles at night too. Not long before the next wall crumbles, I'll warrant.

14 photos of Lady P in her Christmas pyjamas. At the last count, anyway.

I hope your Christmas was as abundant with goodness. Happy Christmas one and all. And happy Boxing Day, Brits.

American teeth for an American life

My festive frenzy - I do so love 'the holidays' - is heightened this year by a fever pitch of excitement. Our time in limbo is almost over. I have a job offer confirmed from Big Corp, to start on 1st Feb. And we have our Green Card interview on 6th Jan - which will hopefully be a Depardieu/McDowell style 'Mr and Mrs' quiz. I'll ace it. I know everything about how he likes his coffee and what colour his toothbrush is. Easy.

So this move is no longer hypothetical. In between wrapping presents and taking Lady P to the crib service, and gazing longingly at the gingerbread house (one more day till we can break in!) we are booking flights, and cancelling Virgin Media, and scheduling movers.

We started talking about this move almost six months ago, so I've had plenty of time to reach an accommodation with the idea of our new (or revisited) life in California. It now feels like it's been a long time coming. And I'm ready. I'm ready to stop living in limbo. I'm very ready to live in the same timezone in which TLOML works. I'm ready to be reunited with the blue skies and palm trees of Los Angeles. And I'm ready to become a good American wife.

I know I'm ready because I've got the teeth to prove it. My invisalign treatment is complete. The last step was a whitening treatment through which my dentist promised to make my teeth shiny and brightly white. 'How white?' I asked. 'European white,' he answered. 'Don't worry, I won't make you look like Simon Cowell'.

In the cold grey light of Yorkshire I think this was the right choice. They look like the nice, straight, white teeth an American wife should have. I only hope my Californian friends, colleagues and neighbours will agree. I'm ready to go native. Bring on 2014 - a new year, a new life, with my new teeth.

Gingerbread House 2013 - the best yet?

Long standing followers will I'm sure be dying to know if I attempted a gingerbread house this year. And if so, whether TLOML had to get his Dremel out to sand down the sides.

Yes. And no.

Yes, of course I attempted a gingerbread house. We're parents now, and have 2 nephews who are always popping in. At last the gingerbread enterprise doesn't just look like the time-filling crafting of a bored woman who accidentally fell onto a pile of Martha Stewart Livings. That said, Lady P has no interest in the house at all. But my nephews were pretty into the idea, so that was licence enough for me.

And no, remedial sanding was not required. This time I didn't leave the gingerbread cooling (and spreading) while we swanned off to Argentina for a week. I used the same pattern as last year, but made way more dough. This meant I could roll it out thicker - no need for the marzipan bolstering that was a feature of last year's attempt. It also meant I had tonnes left over for Christmas tree decorations - despite having a pretty full tree already - and a veritable forest around the house.

Half way through and there's enough dough left to make a small town

It also meant my nephews could have fun with icing and sweets without me worrying they were wasting gingerbread trees. Yes, there is such a thing as 'wasting gingerbread trees': I have a vision here, people. It involves several tidy trees clustered in little groups, decorated strictly with green and red sweets only. My nephews were a bit more creative with their use of colour, taking a 'layered' approach - or 'cram as many sweets on as we can'.

I let the boys sneak a couple of their vibrant trees in, but for the most part the forest - and the family of 3 gingerbread people - are pleasingly uniform. I made a snowman, a bit wobbly but definitely a snowman. And Rudolf on the roof has a nice red nose. Other improvements include TLOML's almond-tiled roof, and the use of mint matchmakers for door and window frames.

I think this is our best yet.