At a first thought, picking the title for this post is going to be a difficult one. There have been so many things happening lately, not knowing where to start. There are stories about Xi Ning (In my world, there are always exciting things to talk about her), us moving into new house, the Scotland referendum (though we probably shouldn’t be too bothered by it), a dear relatives of mine passed away and me being away from Xi Ning for the first time ever. While I was struggling to find a name to fit all the mixed emotional feeling, I thought sticking a date to it will just do the job. There it is – 21st September 2014 marked our first full year of residency in Scotland. And I am amazed how quickly time flies.
Looking at how sparingly each post occur, one follows another by such a big time gap in between, I know I haven’t do my job at keeping records of all the very precious moments that I should be doing. Hubby has always been complaining that I am not a very effective person; I guess he could be right to some extents. For many times, I am trying to justify myself for the high demanding work delivery, tight deadline of projects milestones, the never-ever ending house chores, the unavoidable time required for taking care a toddler, therefore postponing the least important things, i.e. writing, reading, and running. I thought I can do them some other times, until eventually I realise that every times is another time and I will never get them back. I am always in a state of catching up. Catching up to complete all the work but soon realising the work is growing as the more that I completed. Catching up to clean the house but soon realising the area that I have just cleaned got dirtied in minutes. I concluded that I need to learn to be a little hand off. Besides that, I can only constantly reminding myself to prioritize things and be more effective.
During our first year in Scotland, the most frequent question we got was “How do you like Scotland?” Or frankly one probably get the same question whenever one moves to a new location. I always wonder if I can ever answer a straight no. But of course, I don’t. I do quite like it a bit, for the exception of its weather. I know plenty of people enjoy cold weather, but not me. Ironically, I fall ill easily when it is cold. Scotland has its own unique attractions, knowingly the highlands cultures, piping, dance, castles and many more Scot’s specialities. Not forget to mention their long-standing culture of men in skirt. Locally brew whisky and ales have also made their names into the world famous spectrum. For the next few years ahead, I believe we still have many things to explore in this country.
One of the achievements we have been in Scotland for one year is that we finally bought a house. Whoever living in UK will know that renting in UK is expensive. For this reason, buying a house is the first logical goal if one plans to stay for some periods of time. So, that is exactly what we did. Though we should have expected that buying a house in UK is horribly expensive too. In short, properties are real expensive thing to even think about.
The first house we rented was the beautiful well-known granite stone house. They are really beautiful from outside but they are not cosy to live in. We moved to Scotland when winter was just around the corner. We were all happily moving in until winter hit us and we were squeezing in a small corner in front of the fire place as that is the only warm place in the whole house. I blamed it on the relocation agent who didn’t warn us about the bone-piercing coldness living in a granite house. To make matter worse, she didn’t even told us that it is colder to live in the ground floor. And bearing in mind, we have a 6-months old baby at that point in time. Well, we survived the winter full of flu, cold and cough. Now, I should be glad that I build up some sort of resistance to cold.
Hubby being him is always on the moves (or rather runs). So, we did travel quite a lot particularly in the early half of the year. With the budget tied down for house latter half of the year, we trim down a lot on travelling. Travelling has always been a joyful thing to do. But if there is too much of it, it becomes a duty of packing, unpacking, and hassle of getting from one point of destination to another. There is minimal enjoyment especially with crying baby who doesn’t want to stay in the car seat for long journey. Having said that, the many travels that we embarked on, for example the Iceland trip was thoroughly a great experience. Reminding myself again hopefully I will be able to complete the Iceland post in no time.
On exactly one year anniversary of us residing in Scotland, I flew to Den Haag for a company training course, living behind my one and a half year old Xi Ning with hubby. I hope that she will miss me. But obviously I am wrong. I was teary when leaving her and full of emotional waves beating in my heart but she was absolutely fine. I rang her every night but she was too busy watching her Peppa Pig to be bothered entertaining me. She was far more independent compare to what I thought and hubby can handle her just as well. I guess I am the one who has the separation anxiety and been worrying too much.
This week is going to be a tough week for hubby. As we just moved in to our new house and then off I went for training. He would have some cleaning, unpacking to be done and at the same time handle Xi Ning all by himself. While on a second thought, it probably is a good thing for hubby to have some quality bonding time with Xi Ning. I do have much confidence in hubby that he will do a great job taking care of her. I should just sit back and relax.
Life of ME 