The promised land

We are here. In our new white-picket-fence haven. Well, not literally white picket fence, but you get the idea - a street full of houses with families, Father Christmas and carol singers doing the rounds. The local community is to be awash with people volunteering to help other people, either locally or far away. It's very nice.

There's an excellent second hand bookshop, all manner of nice food shops, and some tasteful knick knacky gifty shops you only get in more affluent places. As opposed to less well off areas, where you get tasteless knick knack shops, like the one where we used to live that sold garish ornaments and lighters with naked ladies on.

It all feels a bit strange. But in a good way.

On the plus side, we've moved to an area with better housing. W People seem very friendly.

On the other hand, I'm sure next door will be wondering why we haven't returned their Christmas card (I so need to!). I think there will be more "keeping up with the Jonses" style competitiveness here, both materialistically and socially.

Other observations - the weather matters more here than it does in the inner city; there sees to be more outside. Not the great outdoors, exactly, but more than the minimal encounters with the elements you face when you live two minutes away from a train station and bus stop.

More people drive, but there are fewer fat people. I am really hoping some of this rubs off and I start to lose weight. Although part of this is that access to healthy food is easier; even the takeaways do low fat food (low fat here apparently meaning more than not putting batter on your deep fried pizza).

The Boy and the Cat are both fine. Both of them have different ways of approaching the novelty of having stairs. The Boy loves the stairs and will merrily spend his time crawling or walking up and down them - his upward crawling efforts are particularly rewarding, as he gives a hearty grunt when he pulls himself up onto each tread.

The Cat, having spent most of her life in one-level apartments, with occasional holidays to houses where she wasn't allowed downstairs on account of there being a resident dog, isn't coping as well. She sits at the top and peers down at us, and the Boy usually spots her and chases her. Sometimes she comes down to make emergency visits to her food dish and litter tray - but she seems to think that downstairs isn't for her.  We had planned to introduce her to Outside, but this might take a while.

Me, I wait until everyone goes to bed and then bum shuffle up and down between the landing and living room, cackling wildly.