Home is where the heart is...

Ok I know, it's been radio silence here on the old blog front.

It's that I didn't want to write, it's just that I couldn't write.  It's been a stressful month or so deciding whether we should stay in the Czech Republic or return to the UK.

And finally we've decided to stay for one more school year, we weren't ready to go back yet just because school beauracy was forcing our hand.  Instead for better or worse we've made a decision and we hope it works out....one more year in Prague then starting secondary school back in Blighty.

Although we are having a great time here, and family is happy I can't quite imagine spending the rest of my life here, or certainly 8 more years of school education.  And if I'm honest too, I want my kids to have their secondary education in English.  No offense but Czech ain't exactly internationally recognised.  I also miss being back at 'home', it's not time to go back yet....but it's on the horizon.

Humans are adaptable creatures really, give us a bed, some creature comforts, give us a task like making sure the kids are settled and ok at school, and a job to go to, and there we go boom suddenly a year goes by.

But it's getting a bit of squash and a squeeze Chez Nous.  While the kids are growing every year, our home always seems to be shrinkin', we currently living in the family's small flat.  We're getting it all wrong - instead of upsizing, we keep downsizing.  When the kids have left home we'll probably be moving into a mansion.

So we've had to do some creative re thinking about how we're fitting in, and as our brood gets old and needs more privacy.  Good old Ikea to the rescue.

Before....

...and after

Whenever I think the walls are closing in on me, or start salivating over 4 bed Victorians on Rightmove, I have to remind myself that we are still lucky to be on an adventure, living life....and this is the small price we have to pay.

Schools out for summer!

Today is the last day of school.  To say it’s a bit of a shock is an understatement, to say time has flown is a cliché, but come on….have the kids really completed a whole year of school in the Czech Republic?

It feels like only yesterday when their backpacks were laden with pens and pencils, gym kits and loo roll!  We were all suffering first day nerves, it was something completely new for us, and we didn’t understand what on earth was going on  (ok that was just me).

Now I sit here typing this while my son is out the front somewhere playing with his friends, my daughter has a friend around and they are jumping on the trampoline in the sunshine.

They have settled really well and I am so proud of them.

It's also an important day for Czech kids all over the country - not only is today the last day of term and start of summer holidays, but it's also the day they receive their grades. You see children everywhere walking home from school, on the bus, in the parks clutching their precious certificates - knowing that they'll either get a treat from happy parents, or a bollocking for bad marks.   It’s a pretty big thing here.

It’s also been a big thing for us too – the kids have done really well,

 ...and now we have to make some tough choices.

Do we stay in Prague, come back to London, move somewhere else?   Secondary school pulls us back to the UK, and of course family and friends.... but at the moment we’re not ready to pack up things and go back to Blighty.

We're just starting to enjoy ourselves, life is pretty good, I have a great little job, hubby is happy.

Oh, decisions decisions....