Dear Alex, The right thing...

Dear Alex,

Well, we are here. After arriving at Gatwick with 2 hours to spare I am pleased we are at the airport with plenty of time. I glance at the tickets...Stansted is in bold, I look, look again and we speed off to Stansted, knowing we would never arrive, never get the flight, and I am in full on panic mode...we arrive, the desk lady tells me there is no way we will catch our flight, the gates are already closed. The airport is huge and having to sprint downstairs, upstairs, around the airport, down more stairs, up more, 4 kids sprinting for all they are worth, suitcases free rolling, panting, red, sweating, a few crying, me yelling 'come one guys, we can do this! Run, run for your lives!!!' Hat on, black suitcases with white polkadots, flip flops flip flopping, four kids in tow, and anyone watching beheld a sight to be seen!

We made it though! 12.15 we sit on the plane, 12.25 the flight took off! Phew...great start!

My welcome committe is there, all the kids our kids grew up with and my very best friends to welcome me with open arms. Wow. 

France.

My little corner of the world where they love us still, and we love them back.

Lola grew up with, and was always in the same class as my best french friend's child. They have been glued side-by-side and at now, 8-years-old, they have been inseparable since they were 2 and a half. 

Even if I am just here for their smiles, the fact that at the beach today Monty sprints off to the sea, and does not return for 3 hours, that Esmie and her friend speak, one in english, one in french, but non stop and play endlessly in the water that has gathered to make an island on the beach...Even if I am just here for this, it is worth it.

I am full of nerves, cannot relax, think of you all the time. Whenever I ring, you cry, asking me to come and take you home. I don't know where to put myself. 

But I am trying to 'relache' 'let go' for the days we are here.

I sit out, in the garden dark, nighttime, kids sleeping after a day of expending every ounce of energy outside till 10pm at night. They sleep dreaming, no doubt, of sun and sea and fresh air and a chance to forget the fact they grow up visiting their dad in a nursing home. Not much makes sense for them in their lives in England, and being here just reaffirms the reasons I want to move everyone back to the sea. Here, their world makes sense. They are kids, care free, back where they know, where they feel they belong.

And I  just know moving is the right thing.

..

It's the right thing, it's the thing that will unify our family once more, in an environment we will all benefit from in myriad ways inexplicable to those who can't see why I am doing it...

For now, with oil lamps burning around me in the otherwise black sky, I sip a beer with my friend who saw me through the worst time of my life, who tells me drink up, get myself to bed because we have another day full of activity and ice creams and waves and sun and sea to wake up for in the morning.

I breathe, try to rest my racing heart as flashbacks of you, the little town where we were once all together, living our dream, and it's no surprise I feel the stress in my body, as it struggles to let go...I just wish it would calm for a while.

To bed, to sleep profoundly, to wake to hot chocolate and warm baguettes and black sugary coffee in the morning...

Night my angel, it's not long now, not long at all till I come and get you and bring you home, for always ...

Me xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx