London so far away

It has been two years since we left life in London. Some days it feels like a century ago. As I watch as Izzie puts her smeary hands all over my suit jacket just as I'm walking out the door. As I admire the strength of handi towels as I wipe weetbix off the kitchen tiles. As I wash a bucket of nappies before eating breakfast and then decide breakfast isn't at all what I feel like. As I take out four bags of rubbish to the curb wadding through the thick wet grass in my high heels. As I pass a tissue back to Bax on the way to kindy and watch in my rear vision mirror as he moves the snot further up his check. As I stand in my little bathroom (similar to the one we had in London, only this is the ensuite, and we have two of them, and the real bathroom is downstairs) and watch the fantails darting in and out of the trees in the rain.

And then sometimes London is very close again. Like last night when I was reading Bax a story we hadn't had for ages, one that Becky who works in publishing, in London, gave us. And as I'm reading I keep coming across little post-it notes she has stuck inside the pages with a very adult running-commentary of the story. I laughed so hard, flashing back to long drunken nights of rambling conversation in my prechildren, pre-rural-life, pre-all-this days, poor Bax told me I was scary and he didn't want that story, he wanted Ollie the Egg instead.