I hesitate to open with the line, “this is the most picturesque place I have ever blogged” as, at the moment, I am incapable of uploading pictures (A left-over from the Great Server Disaster) but I cannot fail to note that I am currently occupying a lovely spot on my parent’s deck in the late, warm evening and listening to the two ponds and one very noisy frog jiving in the backyard. With a glass of wine.

Jealous? You should be.

I’d forgotten that weather can sometimes have a palpable softness to it. The evenings here sit quietly on you with no rough edges, not wanting to ruffle you in the slightest. There’s not even the slightest breeze stirring tonight and yet it is neither humid nor stifling. Summer is definitely the best time to relocate.

However, I would like to recommend to anyone that it is best done with a partner. Especially if two children are involved.

I was prepared for Monday, the day we flew, to possibly be the worst day of my life thus far. Not only because I would be forced to say goodbye to my husband for the best part of a month and a half, but because it suddenly became clear that I was able to become a single parent of two for the same length of time.

Of course, I was also worried about the flight. Although the Prawn is prone to misbehavior in public, she has always been an oddly compliant air traveler, never showing any compulsion to run up and down the aisles, leaving a trail of strewn pillows, headphones and small bottles of bad wine in her wake. The Squid, however, was a totally unknown quantity. She is nowhere NEAR the placid baby that the Prawn was, so I could not help but approach an 8 hour stretch of time in which I had to hold her on my lap with some trepidation. (But not nearly, I think, the trepidation of my seat mate when she saw me plop the Squid’s bucket down on the seat next to her.)

The day started with seemingly ill omens of things to come. The first was the rather disastrous forgetting of the buggy, which I was counting on not only to transport the Squid, but mine AND the Squid’s AND the Prawn’s carry on bags. As it transpired, I ended up carrying two of the bags plus the Squid in her bucket through two separate airports, which was less than desirable. Secondly, the reservation for the Squid failed to go through and we ended up paying another 127 pounds that we weren’t counting on. However, the universe threw us a small scrap in the form of a minor upgrade to Economy Plus, which boasted slightly more legroom.

To make a long story short, a miracle occurred and neither child created any bother whatsoever aside from the Squid cutting off blood circulation to my left hand. She DID become vocally dismayed in the US customs line, but probably no more than anyone else stuck in the seemingly endless queue to be processed by approximately 3 officers.

This week has been an exercise in sleep deprivation and patience. Some notable nighttime shenanigans:

-The first night, the Squid had a 2 am wake up call and the Prawn woke up at 4. BOTH of them had had more sleep than me.

-The chances of the Squid waking up in the middle of the night to be fed at the exact same moment as the Prawn falling out of her brand new and much higher bed? Better than you’d think.

-The Prawn, after waking at 6 and then bothering me endlessly for juice, finally got what she wanted, gulped the whole lot down in one go and then promptly hurled on my bed. That was this morning and I felt rather like putting my head in the oven.

My mother has been a saintly presence, despite the lurghy she picked up in her four days with us prior to the move. The Prawn is her shadow from the moment she wakes up, accompanying her on her morning rounds of the garden, feeding the birds and the fish and begging constantly for more games, more books and more fun. This has taken a great deal of strain off of me while I deal with The Squid, who chose yesterday to cut her first tooth, which, as you might imagine, has caused her not to be the most pleasant little pink bundle in creation to be around. (Her cousin, Wubba, is also in the process of cutting teeth, so I can commiserate with Trumpet and BoyRacer transatlantically)

Although I feel as though I am about to collapse, I feet my outdoor sanity break, now that both girls are asleep, has done me some good. But for now, to bed, to await the trials of tomorrow.

It’s hard to believe that I’m actually here.

My mother in law once told me that she and my father in law were scheduled to attend what she described as a “Tea and Dick Party”. Having not long been married to my husband, I was wondering if perhaps I would have to re-evaluate what I believed that I knew about my in-laws. The British are certainly not alone in their penchant for perversion, but the quaintness with which they endow it often makes it seem all the more sordid. It turned out that it was a party being thrown by two friends called Theresa and Richard, which was vaguely disappointing.

At one of these parties, one of the male guests related the story of his first sexual encounter, which took place in a rather picturesque wood. Apparently, at the Moment of Truth, the gentleman in question suddenly experienced an excruciating pain in his feet which he took to be par for the course for The Nasty. It was not until several moments later that he realized that his legs were sticking out onto a public footpath and he had, in fact, been run over by a bicycle.

I always think of this story when I venture into the bluebell woods on the nearby Ashridge Estate. (Not only do I have this lovely anecdote to draw on, but during one of The Rock Star’s and my trips to the woods while dating, we encountered a couple who obviously had the same idea, making the sightseeing slightly awkward.) Luckily, when I stopped by to take in the sights last month with The Squidlette, our fellow wood-goers were more likely to be worried about the state of their sock-suspenders rather than whether or not anyone could see their bare ass rising above the flowers.

The arrival of the bluebells every year has always filled me with hope. Although I’ve spent many seasons trotting amongst the blooms in heavy sweaters, they’ve always heralded the start of warmer weather and long, light evenings. This year, the sea of blue filled me with a slight melancholy, knowing that it may be the last time I see them, for who knows when I may next be in England during bluebell season.

Although the Rock Star and I have always known that we’d someday be leaving the UK for a life in America, now that it is only weeks rather than years until we go, it’s brought little things into sharp focus. Like how much we’ll miss family and friends. How we’ll explain the dramatic life change to the Prawn. And how, in three years, we’ve gone from having precisely SQUAT to having an attic groaning under the weight of our belongings.

One of our tasks of the past weeks has been to cement both the Prawn and Squid’s claim to US citizenship which, of course, meant a trip to London to the US Embassy who’s security and imposing nature make it the ideal place for a fun day out with a toddler and newborn. (Not to mention the extremely child friendly appointment time of 9 am.) Squidlette got the morning off to a roaring start by staging a total meltdown in the car in some of worst London traffic I’ve seen since it took us 3 hours to go 2 miles once while taking my parents to visit the Tower. The “Bucket” (the word we use to refer to her carseat) was a magical device for the Prawn; pop her in and all was right with the world. It’s spell would lull her to sleep and keep her that way until she was unceremoniously removed upon our arrival at home. The Squid, however, merely tolerates The Bucket and a traffic jam on the M1 pretty much tested her tolerance to breaking point. Said meltdown required me to unbuckle my seatbelt, lean over into the backseat and try to stick a bottle into the orifice that was creating the noise, all the while enduring funny looks from slowly passing fellow motorists and a barrage of “WHATCHA DOIN MUMMY?” from the Prawn.

After arriving nearly 45 minutes late for our appointment, a fairly long spell in a hot waiting room that has apparently remained unchanged since the Eisenhower administration was enough for the Prawn’s patience to wear paper thin and on the way out she chose to become an immovable object on the subjects of a) wearing shoes b) holding hands and c) remaining vertical, necessitating The Rock Star to carry her, screeching, across several busy intersections while I crossed at pedestrian crossings with Squidlette and for a few brief moments was able to pretend like I had nothing to do with the wailing banshee across the street.

Our pain, however, was not all for naught and has yielded two small, blue books that now declare both Squid and Prawn to be US citizens, entitled to all of the rights, privileges and opportunities to buy cheaper products imported from China that goes along with it.

The Rock Star’s visa process has been substantially more complicated. While it has NOT, in fact involved a Hollywood style simultaneous questioning in two separate rooms to determine whether or not we are aware of the other’s favorite colors (after nearly 11 years and two children, we would have the least convenient marriage of convenience EVER.) it HAS entailed rather a lot of complicated paperwork and and a not insubstantial sum of cash. However, we are now down to the last hurdle of his interview which is booked for mid-July and we are at least marginally certain that it won’t involve any probing beyond those questions that the embassy official will put to him. We hope to be re-united Stateside in early August.

The reason for the girls and my early departure, (apart from the fact that packing everything up will be much simpler without a small person questioning why all of her toys are being sealed up inside a cardboard box) has a lot to do with an unpleasant dispute with our downstairs neighbor; a woman who is sadly afflicted with cancer of the personality. While I don’t wish to go into extreme detail, suffice to say, she has become only the second person my enormously mild-mannered husband has ever had a shouting match with in his life (the first being a stripper on BoyRacer’s stag do) and that existence in this apartment has become rather like living above a bridge with a troll underneath; a grossly overweight troll with a hatred for children and a propensity for revealing clothing, door slamming, sleeping til 4 in the afternoon and drinking heavily during the day.

Neither the Rock Star or I are fans of conflict, so despite the fact that we’re not in the wrong, we’re simply removing ourselves from the situation. I learned long ago that there is no “winning” against a thoroughly unreasonable personality and the only way to resolve the conflict is to walk away. Although it may give her pleasure to see us go, it is unequalled by the pleasure that I will gain in never having to see her face again in my life and the knowledge that just being her is punishment enough. The Rock Star is rather anxious for us to leave on that account as we’re fairly sure she is unaware of the fact that there’s a guitar amplifier up here that could put cracks in the foundation of the building.

It’s weird to think about going home after 11 years overseas. There are overtones of “leaving home” that I’ve not experienced since I was 18 and it occurs to me that repatriation is going to carry some of the initial challenges that I faced in 1999 when I relocated to the UK shortly before The Rock Star and I got married. Being American doesn’t automatically prepare you for life in America, especially after over a decade abroad. When I think of the naive and easily offended creature that appeared on these shores all those years ago it is hard  to believe that that same woman is returning to her country of origin a) with 7 more tattoos and two more children than she left with b) a far more cynical approach to everything and c) vaguely concerned that she might say something wildly offensive at any moment. It’s all going to be about re-learning how to fit in. (and trying to keep the word “wanker” out of my vocabulary)

I’ve thought for years about “going home”. While I still know that America is where we want to be, I realize more than ever that the UK has been just as much a home to me as the US ever was. My children were born here. Half of my family is here. THAT’S what makes a home, more than borders or nationalities.

And I will miss it deeply.

Okay. First let me say that I really REALLY don’t want to talk about healthcare. But MAN, some of you guys over there are making it impossible to keep my mouth shut.

Here’s what I find really, really odd about American’s hysterical fear of ANYTHING that they can slap the label “socialist” on. Americans are extremely generous people. Communities are hugely important. If your neighbor’s house burned down, chances are, that in a close community, some sort of help would be mobilized to not only temporarily house the family, but donations would be freely given to help them get back on their feet, to help their children do fun things, etc. All would give generously and without a thought.

But if the government asks you to pay a couple of extra dollars a year so that family of 4 who lives in the trailer down by the railroad tracks can afford to have basic healthcare, suddenly this is “the Great Satan”?

Excuse me America, but WTF?

For anyone acquainted with the British entertainment industry, this is a character that could not possibly have escaped your radar; the larger than life, blustering, bearded boomer, Brian Blessed. I post this simply because I spent nearly 5 minutes in fits of laughter. The man is a legend and his performance on the seminal TV quiz, Have I Got News for You proves it. All hail the Blessed!

I assure you, I did not perish of Swine Flu. However, the normal flu was bad enough, thank you very much. However, it does make one appreciate the merits of a full week in bed.

I am currently on holiday in the US, soaking up the seriously glorious weather, putting on a few pounds and preparing to go to the beach with the Rock Star SANS PRAWN for 2 nights, so as you can imagine, life is good.

Normal service to resume soon.

That sumbitch Fall is knockin on the door.

Autumn is a deeply nostalgic season for me. I talk about it every year, but it doesn’t make it any less true. A lot of people look at spring as a time of new beginnings, but for me, it’s always been fall; at least while I was still in education. A time to meet new friends and reconnect with old ones.

College reinforced this feeling still further. I was lucky enough to attend a small, liberal arts college in a tiny Indiana town where I had, bar none, the best time of my entire life. Fall was a time of returning, campfires, frosty evenings sitting down by the millrace with a group of the best people I’ve ever known, drinking green apple cider in a field with the stars winking overhead and watching the Maple trees (Goshen, Indiana is known as “The Maple City”, so, as you can imagine, there were quite a lot of them around) turn glorious shades of yellow and salmon, lining the picturesque streets with a riot of fiery color.

So, when the weather turns colder, I’m always hit by a bittersweet wave of longing for the beautiful place where I spent 5 happy Autumns.

My childhood is also a fertile ground for fall memories. Having grown up in the woods, the bane of my father’s life was to rake our approximately 1 acre property clear of leaves. This, was, of course, an utterly thankless job as not all of the buggers would fall at the same time, so I was pretty much assured of soft leaf piles to leap in from late September to late October. Of course, I was not the only one who liked leaf piles- slugs also found them well nigh irresistible. Of course, as a child, I had a much higher tolerance for wildlife than I do now (My top three most hated list- earwigs, silverfish and slugs, followed closely behind by wasps.) and didn’t mind picking the slimy little devils off of my clothing.

We had an old cider press that has since found a home with one of my older cousins who’s fixed it up. My grandfather (who passed away before I was born) used to make an evil concoction with it called Apple Jack (probably akin to English Scrumpy) that could most likely power a compact car for a short time before destroying the engine, but my parents stuck to the more sedate and non-alcoholic cider produced from apples that came from an orchard at the base of the Catoctin Mountains. Trips to the orchard were always much anticipated as they gave out free apples and cider, crisp and refreshing from their own presses.

A tradition that I’ve carried on despite the constant ribbing of my English relations is Halloween pumpkin carving. Halloween has only really become a thing over in the UK in the last 5 years, but I’ve steadfastly bought and carved my jack-o-lantern every year since arriving. This year, I hope to get The Prawn involved in the process in so far as she can mess around with the pumpkin entrails before I pick out all of the seeds to roast. (Which is by far the best part of the pumpkin lobotomy process.)

I’ve been working on fall bits in my workshop (aka- my dining room table) as well. I haven’t consciously set out to create Autumn friendly pieces, but perhaps the change in the weather has affected me on a subconscious level, because I find myself drawn to the same browns, yellows and reds that are outside my door.

Anyone else for a bit of autumn nostalgia?

WHY DID NO ONE INFORM ME THAT SHORT HAIR REALLY DOES NEED CUTTING EVERY 4 WEEKS?

Sorry, I’m just a bit on edge after realizing that my hairstyle has unfortunately become something of an investment, costing me more per month than car insurance.

When I had long hair, it was easy enough just to wash, dry and whisk it out of  the way with whatever hair-entrapment device I saw fit. However, now that I am shorn, my barnet ritual has been enlongated twenty fold and includes three, count them THREE different styling products. (As in, “Do you need any products?”. Yes, yes, I DO need products, damn you, you hair harpies.)

My hairdresser, (I refuse to call him a stylist. I have never been, and will never be appearing in OK! magazine.) who is an incredibly heterosexual man in a traditionally non-heterosexual man’s profession, is a talker. As for me, I really kind of despise idle chit chat and would rather sit and stare out the window or daydream about winning the lottery than answer forced questions about where I’m going on vacation. No only is he a talker, but he’s an incredibly FAST talker, so to answer one of his inane queries, I must first ask him to repeat himself, which lends more importance to the question than is actually necessary. I should just sit down and say,

“Hiya, just a trim please. My little one is fine, I work for a company specializing in GPS navigation, I’m not doing anything this weekend and have no holidays planned. Now make with the scissors, hair boy.”

To give him credit, I have always been pleased with his cuts, although he also neglects to provide me with one of those little rubber keep-hair-from-going-down-your-shirt jonnies, so I spend evenings after my trims squirming around and trying to scratch myself in a million different places. The trim I received last evening had me slightly worried when he produced the electric clippers, making me think that my instructions, “just a tad shorter in the back” had been grossly misinterpreted and nearly prompting the exclamation, “Don’t buzz me, bro!”

Luckily, it all turned out well in the end and I am free for another month from the tyranny of the salon.

This is the one time of year that I get to post “don’t you wish your countryside was hot like mine” pics. Our local bluebell woods was remarkably quiet this afternoon. It’s a shame that this isolated and quiet spot turns into Disney World when the flowers come out, complete with shouting children, quarreling adults and rambunctious dogs.

This is the Prawn’s second visit to the woods an the site of her first smile a little over a year ago. This time, she got to navigate the paths under her own power.

I hate to admit it, but I’ve always been the teensiest bit reluctant to talk about very personal stuff on this blog. It’s easy to forget that your little home on the internet is not a safe place with locked doors, but rather is more like that house down the street where there are always six drunk college freshman on the porch and the cops keep showing up. As some of the more squeamish will note, I’ve got no qualms about talking about some things up to and including the very personal private personal functions of my very own personal private ladyplace. It’s a little harder, however, to go into the realm of feelings without sounding like a complete tool. Other people are quite adept at talking about feelings, but given the choice, I’d probably far rather make jokes about my period or something.

At any rate, my feelings have been bothering me in an itchy rash kind of a way lately. I guess it’s no secret that depression is pretty common among women my age and I’ve kind of struggled with bouts of it on and off since late high school. (Although back then, it was probably just more about the fact that this girl I was friends with totally wasn’t talking to me and my boyfriend was sneaking around behind my back and OMG, I TOTALLY CAN’T GET MY HAIR TO DO WHAT I WANT IT TO.)

I had the obligatory health visitor questionnaire 10 weeks after the Prawn was born. Was I a) happy all the time, b) happy most of the time, c) sad most of the time, d) sad all of the time or e) so sad I’m thinking about hurting myself or my baby. The lady who administered this rather drippy test smiled apologetically at me as she asked me to answer. “I think as long as it’s not e, you’re pretty much par for the course at this point,” she admitted. Strangely enough, when the Prawn was smaller and more stressful in terms of care, I felt just fine. Apart from the first 5 weeks when I was convinced that my life was over and could go from 0 to crazy in 0.2 seconds flat, and alarmingly, that’s how I’m starting to feel all over again.

My main symptom is the low level feeling in my gut that I’ve just been given terrible news. I’m pretty sure just about everyone knows this feeling, although I imagine that it’s different for everyone- The kind of sad that just kind of seeps into everything you do, if it allows you to do anything at all. I will cry at the drop of a hat. This is especially embarrassing at the gym while on the treadmill and an NSPCC ad (for those of you in the States, a large child abuse prevention charity) will run on MTV or something and I have to yank my headphones out and look away. (By the way, what do you reckon they do to the children in those commercials to make them look as if someone has just brutally murdered a puppy in front of them?) Absolutely anything having to do with children suffering at all makes me totally nuts. That photo a couple of months back of the baby being tossed from the apartment building in Germany? I was a gibbering wreck in front of the television. Oxfam ad? NO THANK YOU. Seeing any more pictures of crying, malnourished babies will keep me under the bed for a week. I cried the other day while reading the Prawn a book. About a snail and a whale. Why? BECAUSE WHALES ARE ENDANGERED. The Prawn was all, “Pull yourself together, woman!” (Oh, and thanks awfully much to Sky News for the spectacular footage last week of baby seals being brutally clubbed to death. That was awesome.)

The worst part about it is trying to be “on” for her when all I want to do is curl up in a ball on the floor. Of course, this compounds the existing depression with the feeling that I’m being a terrible mother, which is just the cherry on top of the whole shit sundae. I suppose I can thank my lucky stars that I have never considered hurting her or myself due to whatever chemical fuckwittery is occurring in my head. I just feel bad. All the time. Pure and simple. As stressful as life with the Prawn is sometimes, she’s not the source of my problems. If anything, she’s become more of a joy to parent as she’s begun to be a sentient human being who knows where her nose is, how to say “va va voom!” and enjoys stealing things from other children. She’s hilarious.

So, a few months after the media triumphantly declared that anti-depressants were a big damp squib, I popped my first dose of Citalopram, which is a member of the SSRI family. My GP, who I really like when I actually manage to get an appointment with him, didn’t put much stock in the study that everyone was wetting their collective knickers over. “I’ve seen these drugs make a difference in too many people’s lives, far beyond what could be expected with a placebo effect,” he told me, “One study is not going to change my mind on that.”

Obviously, since I just started taking the stuff last week, there is very little to report. Anti-depressants take a good long while to build up in your system, so I imagine that it’ll be at least another 3 weeks until I can expect to notice any sort of difference. I suppose my main fear is that there’ll BE no difference.

It’s hard to write about depression intelligently when it’s already been done by so many other much more talented and, quite frankly, much more depressed people. Suffice to say that it both sucks and blows, entirely confounding the laws of physics and it’s my adamant hope that these brain-altering drugs banish it from whence it came.