Where have I been?

Dear everyone, I am back. Thank you for your emails and messages wondering when I am going to be back in Motherland. I am so sorry for long quiet absence. Our three week backpacking trip to Vietnam was a total adventure and despite all my intentions to blog from time to time I did not go on-line once. How liberating that was!

I love email, not to mention my blog and all the fruits of communicating to other mothers, but spending three weeks focusing entirely on my family was incredible. Especially when the reality of living my life in Cambodia while maintaining contact with all my friends and family in the UK means that I have basically doubled the number of people who I care about, want to write to, and hear how they are doing. It's brilliant but overwhelming at times.

Phew, life is so busy now we are back, it is hard to hold onto all that time we have just had to just breathe! The most amazing thing about travelling is that it is a complete escape from everything. You have nothing to do each day except enjoy and get from a to b. We were told countless times that a nine month baby was too young to travel. Ask Bella what she thinks of that.

She spent three weeks in the sling on me or James, breastfeeding whenever she wanted, playing with everyone she met and of course, had her sister and father around at all times. Since we arrived home on Sunday she has been put down a hundred times, made to wait for her feeds and generally had to adapt to the inevitable competition for my time. I reckon travelling with small babies is the best thing for both parent and child. The former never gets bored of being stuck at home playing peekaboo and the latter never has to be put down while dinner gets cooked, siblings get dealt with or washing gets done. Of course it is expensive but it can be done on a budget if you have the energy. Our trip was way cheaper than many one or two week's holidays in the sun.

Actually since we returned all I have wanted to do was sit down and write about the whole amazing experience but I have been busy interviewing prospective teachers for Jemima's class next year. I am not complaining. What a privilege to be able to choose my own child's teacher - the wonders of belonging to a parent run school. I am just explaining away the last month's silence at Motherland. We now have two days of classroom observation so it may be next week that I come back to tell you all about our adventures in Vietnam and just why I think travelling with kids is not only absolutely possible, but also totally brilliant and recommended!

I look forward to resuming my usual two to three blog posts a week soon - well, actually I ought to add that I am starting to train as a Kundilini Yoga teacher on Sunday and this will take up weekends and evenings for a good long while. So my posts may be a little less frequent (this could be a good thing) or a little shorter (this will surely be a good thing.)

Jemima is telling me that I am missing her dance performance and Bella is heading for the computer wires so will sign off now. I am off to take the girls to a story reading afternoon at a cafe near here. How lovely. I'll try to come back this week, otherwise next week for sure!