Moving Day - Our Life In Boxes

Today is the day that we hand over the keys of the house we've been living in for almost a year. It was Billy's first house and for that reason it's definitely bitter sweet. I went in to labour in that house for God sake. Having said that, we'll be happy to leave and take this next step and hopefully live in our next home for a number of years. Moving is stressful, but moving with a 6 month old baby is a different story altogether. I've been really lucky to have a hugely supportive and helpful family to help out this week. Without them it would have been an impossible task to pack up our entire home in just a couple of days. Babys come with a lot of THINGS. There are also logistical things like trying to work around Billy's nap, feeding and bed times. But we got there!

 So on to bigger and better things right? That is when we actually find a house. We're in a bit of a limbo land at the moment. We've almost sealed the deal on a house we would love to rent, but we're waiting for the official word, which is proving to be very slow. If that doesn't work out it'll be plan b, but hopefully it doesn't come to that. 

 I'm not going to rant away here for too long about the Irish rental market at the moment, but I have to at least vent a teeny bit if that's OK? Cheers. 

 It sucks. To put it bluntly. Because the Celtic Tiger is starting to wake up a little bit and is yawning away, property prices are on the rise again in Ireland, and sure isn't everyone getting terribly excited like we did pre-recession. Sure it'd be rude not to! So it's basically a landlord's market now. A house or apartment that would usually have cost €900 a month is likely to now be around the €1200 mark. It's madness. I have friends who have been living at a property for 5+ years and whom are now having to move elsewhere because their rent has suddenly sky-rocketed. It's sad really. People with little babies too, might I add. 

 So it's not been the funnest of experiences, this moving lark, but needs must and all that. As I said before, we have a very supportive family on both sides, and we aren't short of help and hands. This is invaluable at a time like this. Many hands make light of work, isn't that what they say? We've had Peter's Dad fetching things from our attic and changing the complicated sky lightbulbs that we hadn't a clue about, we've had my mam minding Billy and loading up her car with our many many things to put them in to storage, cousins have babysat and done more car "runs", my aunt has minded Billy so I could get substantial packing done, siblings called down after work to give us a dig out with whatever we might need. And a special thanks will always go to my aunt Arlene who at this time has been an absolute angel. She has welcomed us all in to her home while we figure things out. Two adults, a car, a baby, a cot, a nameless fish, and every single item that we possess. She's taken it all in to her home and has turned it in to a bit of a half way house for our little family. We couldn't be more grateful. It's a lovely welcoming home with lots of tea, chats, snuggling up and help with Billy which is just invaluable. It's also a beautifully decorated house full of gorgeous Christmas things and a fabulous tree. They EVEN have a Santa clock. Like come on? Does it get much more Christmassy than a Santa clock? So being here is definitely filling my Christmas void at the moment. We are very very lucky. Staying here also means that Billy gets to live with his fabulous two year old cousin Casey for a while. I feel like that will always be a special memory as they adore each other. Casey is constantly asking if Billy is "beepin' over".


                                               
  A photo of Billy as an Elf. Just Because. He was only delighted when his Nanna Aileen got it for him

So right now we're feeling pretty hopeful about this new house working out. It's just a bit up in the air on the paper-work side of things. We would really love if it worked out. It's perfect for us so please send us some good vibes folks. But if it doesn't work out we'll find somewhere that we are meant to live. What's for you won't pass you by and all that. And you know what? It doesn't really matter once we are together. Is that a sufficiently corny enough way of ending this post? Because I mean it. Your one Dorothy was on to something when she said there is no place like home. There isn't. And for me, home is where the family is. And the tea. 



Tracey x

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