From the North

Hello friends and greetings from Edinburgh, capital of Scotland and now home to the Bunkers for an indefinite period of time. I'll start this with bullet points because I am very tired. In the last two weeks that we have been here...

1.....we have signed a lease for a property in Moray Place in the New Town area and we move in a couple of weeks. It has big windows and high ceilings and feels like a lovely place to just 'be' but more importantly

2.....I have worked out where to put a potential suit of armour, you think I'm joking, I am not even joking.

3.....Keith has established medical care through the rather conspicuously named Edinburgh Cancer Centre so he has someone to call and somewhere to go and it's ten minutes up the road.

4.....the girls have started at Stockbridge school (yes it's early but that's how it works here) and they seem sort of ok ish for now but then they're new kids and it's a small school, it will take a little time for them (and me) to settle in.

Points 1, 3 and 4 were all very, very, very hard and in particular point 4 almost broke us. BUT it is all sorted now and I won't dwell on it. One thing I will mention, however, is that in the depths of those moments when circumstances had driven me to question what the hell we were doing and wondering how the hell things were going to work out it was nice to know (as I now do, as I have learnt) that things change, stuff happens, and IT WILL PASS. Regular pain and stress remain but then we all have that sort of thing, that's called LIFE.

The kids have been tough to handle at times and I'm fairly sure I haven't been handling them properly at all. Darcey in particular has been quite angry but I don't blame her in the slightest. Their anger makes me very sad. Until we move into our new home in a couple of weeks I don't really feel we can establish a proper routine so I guess we'll have to sit it out until then. It will pass.

Keith has been and remains to be quite poorly at the moment. He sleeps a lot and finds doing things pretty hard. His new doctor has taken him off the drugs for his liver cancer which will hopefully make him feel less fatigued, but conversely he struggles mentally knowing that he is not having any direct treatment for the cancer. He is finding it all very hard and is feeling very low. He also seems to think I am joking about the suit of armour. That will cheer him up!

Don't worry: we are still having lots of fun. The girls and I practically tore up the Edinburgh Festival in the first week we were here (including Florence's first ever stand up performance in a packed Comedy Club, she went down LIKE A PALACE ON FIRE), the girls have developed a devotion to the art of puddle jumping and I have been to John Lewis three times already. I think the modern term for this is #OWNINGIT.

Standby for photos of my cupola. 

Kisses xxxxxxx