Leaving Home

This is a strange and impersonal way in which to let you know I am leaving home.   

I am not running away with George Clooney, unfortunately (although after watching that boring pack of tripe Argo, I am not sure about his judgement as a producer anymore) or off to save some critters trapped in a well, like Lassie.  Instead our little quartet is leaving the shores of my beloved Kingdom for sunnier climes, two and a half continents away in the glass sweat fest of Singapore.
 
I have to inform you dear blog followers in this manner, as even though I have a mean spirited personality and a big cynical mouth, my heart is all emotional jelly.  I don't contain enough salt water to contend with discussions regarding our move in person.
 
How we got to this point is too long, boring and frustrating a tale and in retelling it, I will end up with a burst capillary in my eyeball caused by stress.
 
My better half has got himself a transfer to work in Asia Pacific and being a refined, culturally well rounded modern day colonial style gentleman he will no doubt excel at his job and fit in spectacularly like Mr Dean in Black Narcissus. 
 
The job in question is an opportunity of a lifetime for his career and our family and as we grow more long in the tooth, it is not an opportunity that will appear again, so therefore, should be grabbed at hungrily,  like the over fifties at a Marks and Spencer's clothes sale.
 
It will be another adventure for the children.  The ten days spent in Antigua were an eye opener to the huge advantages there are for children growing up in a warm climate with access to the wilds and the sea and in somewhere like Singapore, the great food, cosmopolitan culture and access to the rest of South East Asia and the South Pacific.
 
As for me, although always supportive of my other half's career endeavours, as he funds my weekly unnecessary interiors purchases, I have had reservations about this move.  On paper, no question, it is a must do and hugely exciting, but emotionally it is a choker.
 
Giving up work when I had the children left me with no real identity other than wife, mother and social irritant.  It took a few years, but with the kids at school and feeling so wonderfully ensconced in a nice neighbourhood, a warm school community and lovely local friends, I embraced my unworthy existence and began to enjoy my three pronged roles in life.
 
Being lonely in a foreign country, in unfamiliar surroundings, with children at school and a husband who will be travelling frequently makes me fearful.  More fearful, as I have heard being a predominantly ex pat community, people might try to befriend me and that is frankly, intolerable.
 
However, I think of my dear Mum who on losing my Pa still managed to pick herself up at a ripe old age (that I am not allowed to share) and move to a new town, live on her own and manage to make friends and form a weekly routine of socialising and activities.  All on her own.  I take inspiration from her and will remember her bravery at starting life anew without my Dad, when I begin a lame ass panic about leaving my home, my friends and my happy life in Guildford.
 
Yet, my Mum will be the main thing that I miss about home, along with TK Maxx and Boots, but I know she will be okay and her life is settled.  I can worry about her a little less.  I will miss her terribly, but only until she starts phoning me every day because her wireless connection has gone down and she has hammered on all the buttons on the keyboard like a monkey trying to break a nut, attempting to get it working again.
 
I will miss home. I will miss my friends.  I will miss what would have been for my little one on starting proper school this year and the fun he would have had. I will miss our life here.  Thank goodness for the wonders of communication as at least in this day and age I won't have to rely on a carrier pigeon to let those dearest to me know that they are in my thoughts, though we are oceans apart.

Yet, adventure awaits.
 
I apologise to you all dear friends for the manner of our goodbye but like Nanny McPhee, I don't like goodbyes. 
 
So, all there is left to say, to quote The Two Ronnies & Vera Lynn during their little known and fruitless collaboration, is it's Goodbye from him and it's Goodbye from me, until we meet again, some sunny day.
 
But if we do meet in the UK, until we meet again, some day.
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Note
The Midgets Grumbler Blog will take a ten to fifteen week hiatus while we get our lives and the kids packed into shipping containers for the two month journey across the seas.  We will ensure a tiger is in the container with them to keep things interesting.  The Blog will return when we are all sunny side up in South East Asia, unless that attention seeking lumpty Kim Jong Un hasn't blown it out of the water before then.  Farewell.