A close proximity

As I made my merry way about my day just recently I turned out of our street in my new car (eeek!) to see my brother-in-law accompanying a very cute, beaming and excited-looking neph number one down the road to school.

This made me smile.

I'm absolutely over the moon (and will continue to be for some very sizeable length of time) that hubs and I live so close to our extended family that we can quite easily bump into them whilst out and about and simply give a wave. Not, you understand, that I don't like to stop and talk... it's just that we live so close and speak or see each other so often than a passing in the street can be just that (especially when done at high speed in my fab new car - did I mention I had a new car!?).

The main reason behind this declaration is that I moved away from my home town (and consequently my parents and support structure) when I left university to live in the big bad 'south'. I thought it was uncool to stay in one's own town and that I had to depart and explore foreign parts.

"Ugh, no Mum I don't want to stay at home, that's so unfair."

*Mum spouting some random sense and reason about staying at home which sounded pretty much like 'blah blah blah' to me*

"Gah, whatever. You're so embarrassing!"

For that is how I spoke in those days...

How wrong I was. I'm happy to say that I now live back in the bosom of my family and I couldn't be happier about it.

And although hubs and I live literally 100 metres from neph's little school and neph lives just another 30 metres further away than that (yes, we're close! Close enough for the nephs to build a tunnel between the two houses and eventually appear, through a hole in our lounge floor, by the time they're 14 and 16!), seeing neph #1 and daddy tottering along together brought to mind Neil Armstrong's famous quote:

"It's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."

While said school is almost literally within spitting distance (if you've got really, really good spitting skills, which I don't I'm almost proud to state), for little legs, it's probably slightly more of a trek.

I mean, their little legs, all cute, short and clad in pants that look like trousers, only they're smaller, have to work an awful lot harder than ours to get anywhere fast. Bless them! Our saunter down the road is a full on off-road adventure to them - especially if you're like me and my brother used to be, darting from this tree to that, hiding behind garden walls and fighting countless ruthless (albeit imagined) enemies who turned even the simplest of journeys into a fine line between life and death... Ah, the memories are still fresh!

So, if their day is so much more tiring, leg-work wise, than ours, how come they have so much energy? I'll have a pint of what they're having please!

Potential Mummy B

Children influence everything - even before they're conceived!

So, after almost 17 years of waiting, I finally own my own car.

I'm massively excited and feel a sometimes overwhelming sense of liberation - a feeling I'm relishing every second!

My car is a beautiful little Kia Picanto; possibly one of the cutest cars I have ever seen. Call me weird, call me sad. I don't care. I have named my car and refer to her as 'she'. Some people understand that, others don't. For me, I'm not bothered what people think, I just love her and what she represents for me.

My choice of car was massively influenced by the fact that hubs and I are trying for our first baby. A five door (or four door with a boot as my hubs insists on calling it, citing car salesmen as fibbers by nature) was essential for me in order to avoid any back breaking potential when dealing with squirming little packages in the back seat. I also checked that the car is safe for child seats. A big tick. And it has split seats in the back: another big tick for ensuring hubs and I can purchase the pram or pushchair of our choice and not have to leave the bubs at home in order to fit it in the car!

And so I'm mobile! It's an amazing feeling; one that millions of people all around the world take for granted. But believe me, when you've been reliant on borrowing other people's cars or blagging a lift in order to get around, finally having one's own mode of transport and the freedom and independence that affords one is so, so exciting!

I hope this feeling never fades!

Mobile Potential Mummy B!