Always Look on the Bright Side of Life

As an interesting week draws to a close, I find myself searching out the good things in life at the moment, though they seem to be few and far between.  Let's start with the bad and not dwell too much on them - get them over and done with quickly...

- The cat's flight was cancelled and no animals are allowed to travel until further notice.

- Flights are being cancelled regularly from China.  Matt's flight is cancelled.

- Watching the news is awful. We are having to watch a happy movie every night after the news in order to cheer ourselves up.

- My last week of e-lessons in China is next week. I am very sad to be saying goodbye to my students via Skype.

Good things that are happening:

- My family and friends are all healthy

- Matt will be home in just over a week (hopefully)

- I am staying in touch with people much better than I have ever done before.

- We are getting to spend more time with our lovely animals.  Matt has Sooty and Snowball all to himself and they are very much enjoying the cuddles.  Lola is thrilled to have extra playtime and cuddles in the garden.

- I am coming off steroids FOR GOOD on Wednesday.  It's been nearly 2 years that i've been on these awful drugs, so I can't wait to be off them forever.

- I have lost 4 pounds since getting back from China.  With the lockdown I was either going to get really fat, or lose weight. I'm pleased that it seems to be the latter so far.  Coming off the steroids is largely why this is happening.

- Living in the New Forest means that we have beautiful places to walk the dog right on our doorstep.

- Plenty of time for crochet and cross stitch.  Lots of designers are bringing out free patterns to help combat boredom. #bewellandstitch

- We have been able to buy food and toilet paper.  I've never been so grateful for these simple things.

- The cats will go back to the cattery where they are very well looked after.  They will come to England eventually.

- The garden is in bloom and we have plenty of time to appreciate the beautiful flowers coming out to make us smile.

- My new job is going well.  I am grateful to be getting out of the house for a few hours every day.

- I have plenty of time to do things that I wouldn't normally do, like clearing out the garage of 31 years of junk!

- We have started doing living room yoga as a family.

So, the bad things are pretty big and it's easy to get lost in your own personal bubble, but notice how the good things outnumber the bad quite considerably.  That's what we need to focus on.  

To quote Monty Python's best movie, 

'Always look on the bright side of life.'

Here are a few photos from Hampshire and Shanghai of our lovely animals enjoying spending time with us.

This is Sooty sitting on Matt in bed in case you can't tell!

  

A 3-Job Week

Matt is settling into his quarantine now, and was able to pop out to see his friend for a couple of beers.  Life seems to be starting to get back to normal in Shanghai.  

For me, this week has been very hectic!  I was working 3 different jobs this week - very early in the morning doing Skype lessons with my students in Shanghai, then a full day at my new school doing cover teaching assistant work, then my actual UK job of after shcool club from 3-6 every day.  I was doing nearly 12 hour days and even had another e-lesson when I got home at 7pm on Friday.  My school has now closed, so I won't be doing cover next week.  The after school club will continue as normal though, so i'll just be doing my morning e-lessons and the after school club.  I think I can cope with that.  Very busy! I was too tired to do much in the evenings last week.  

England is now in a semi-lock down state, where people are being advised only to go out when necessary.  That does include walking the dog, so we are still getting exercise, going to the forest to walk and avoiding people as much as we can.  It was a beautiful, bright sunny day today, so being outside was lovely.  Mum and Dad have spent the afternoon in the garden. I've spent some time clearing out the garage of some of the stuff I left there when we moved to Germany. There is so much of it!!! I had to stop once I saw a spider though.  It was fairly satisfying throwing out a bag of stuff though, I must admit!  I've just been doing odd jobs really, clearing out the garage and sorting some paperwork out for buying the house, that sort of thing. Nothing much exciting.  I've made a timetable to keep me occupied during the semi-isolation.  I don't want to get bored!  Plenty to do currently.  Now, i'm just waiting for Matt and the kitties to come home in two weeks time.  It can't come soon enough!

Shanghai vs The Forest

It's been a very busy couple of weeks.  I've had the usual online lessons every morning with my students.  It's lovely to see their happy faces, but it's exhausting too getting up so early in the morning!  

It was Mum's 60th birthday on the 6th, so we went to a National Trust property for cake and a walk and then to a very posh seafood restaurant in the evening, where I had the most delicious crab and cod with mash potato.  It was delicious!  Matt went back to London on the Saturday for football.  On Sunday, Sam and Amy drove down to the forest for the day to surprise Mum.  They took us out for afternoon tea at the hotel where Matt and I got married, Moorhill House in Burley.  It's such a lovely hotel.  They had a wedding fair that day, so it was all decked out just like it was on our wedding day.  Lovely.

This week flew by, going into my new school (i've got a job, yay) to meet with various people.  The job is doing an after school club and the room is completely empty at the moment, so the girl running the club and I had lots of fun choosing the things we want to fill the room with.  The club itself is due to have a grand opening after the Easter holidays.  If schools are still open by that time!

Matt and I put an offer on a house near Mum and Dad's and it was accepted! yay! So, now we're going through all the legal bits to make it officially ours.

Matt flew to Bangkok, Thailand on Tuesday to spend a couple of days in the sun with his friend Adam.  They still had to teach their online lessons every day, but otherwise they were sitting in the sun and eating delicious curry.  They even saw Chris, our friend who moved their from Shanghai after our first year.  He had a great time, but is now back in Shanghai to complete his quarantine, and to pick up the rest of our belongings.  I was advised by my doctor not to return due to my epilepsy, so I am still running my lessons from England.  Matt is getting the cats back tomorrow and can't wait to see them.  Then, hopefully he can put them on a plane and I can collect them at Heathrow in a few weeks.  I really can't wait to have some cat cuddles.  

Matt arrived in China fine, but I think is finding it a bit strange being on his own, since he has never lived on his own before.  Hopefully, getting the cats back will help!  He has heard that the school is unlikely to open on the 30th March as was planned, so he probably won't be teaching for a week.  Never mind, there isn't much he can do about it.  He'll just have 3 weeks of packing and cat cuddles instead.  Hopefully he can see a few friends before he leaves too.

Forest Life

I seem to have settled into a bizarre routine that could never be compared with normal living.  I get up very early for my one-on-one Skype lessons with my students.  I'm finished by 10am every day, and then i'm left to fill my day with lesson planning, day dreaming about what the cats are up to in Shanghai and walking the dog.  I've fit in quite a lot of crochet and cross stitch too, and i'm catching up with all the TV we can't watch in China.  Matt's been at his parents for a while, so that he can go to some West Ham matches and see some of his family.  He'll be back down in the Forest for a few days next week.

It's just all a bit disjointed really.  We don't really know what to do with ourselves.  It's difficult to make any solid plans because we don't know how long we'll be here for, or if we'll ever make it back to China.  There are now only 4 weeks until we officially finish working in China.

We've just had the wettest February on record in England, but now things seem to be clearing up.  We had a lovely walk in the sunshine today.  We had to hide from an enormous heard of cows, some of whom had tiny babies and were a bit nervous of being around us.  They were so cute.

We've been to Lymington to see the market and have breakfast in the pub, and Mum made us pancakes on pancake day.  I've given up chocolate for lent and am doing well so far!