In England...

Lots of apologies for the length of time between this post and the last. It has been a bit of a rollercoaster ride! We were very busy finishing of school and work in Kenya, and preparing ourselves, house and belongings to return to the UK for four months. We flew back on the 5th April (courtesy of Virgin Atlantic - Libby even got a marginal upgrade and a bottle of champagne, as her TV screen wasn't working!) and have been trying to settle in since then.

 We were shocked by how cold it is! I don't know how people live here all the time! I guess we have got used to being warm most of the time, but we were also expecting it to be reasonably warm - as it is Spring after all! However, we were sorely disappointed in that regard. I guess we should have expected the rain - April showers and all that.

I have almost got my 'remote office' up and running. It was all going reasonably well until I got virused this week :( I had to run various anti-malware and had to do a system restore. I got everything back, but for some reason Skype will not longer run on my computer :( When trying to operate remotely to Kenya, this is a bit of a problem :( So I am running all my other work stuff on my work computer, with our personal laptop on one side for Skype...if anyone has any clever ideas as to how to mend Skype after being attacked by the S.M.A.R.T. HDD virus, please let me know...

Libby and her mum have been hard at work trying to educate the kids - we have decided to home school them, as we felt that 'new school' trauma on top of 'new country, new house, new baby' trauma would probably be a bit too much. This has mostly been going OK, although Caleb has differing views to his mother about how much work per day is appropriate. Caleb seems to be struggling most with all of the transitions, and is coping by being more difficult than usual. Please pray for us in this regard, as it is difficult to know how hard to be on him when has so much change to cope with.

Libby has managed to get herself back into the UK health system. She celebrated yesterday by spending 4 hours in the Royal Berks Hospital waiting for a prescription...She has been diagnosed with obstetric cholestasis (the condition she suffered from during pregnancy with both Bethany and Caleb) which means she will need to be on drugs to control her liver function, and probably at least weekly blood tests. However, it seems the policy on early delivery for sufferers has now changed, so the likelihood is that she will have to hang on until 39 weeks, rather than a couple of weeks earlier - which is what we were expecting.

We have managed to purchase a Vauxhall Zafira for our time in the UK - this seemed to be the easiest and cheapest option (it is not so easy to transport what will be 6 people around any other way!) Unfortunately the vehicle had certain repairs that needed doing - and still do...After a week of waiting for the parts to arrive I just went and collected the car, with a promise from the dealer that he will ring me when the parts come in. I hope they do!

Because of Libby's condition we are not planning to do a lot of travelling, but if anyone wants to visit please do get in touch! It would nice to see as many people as possible while we are around for such a long time!

Until the baby comes, it is unlikely that we will have much interesting news. Please don't be too disappointed if the blog continues to be a bit quiet for the next couple of months...