I'm a survivor

Hi everyone, miss me? :)
I was feeling under the weather for the last couple of weeks, with a few different things that all amounts to the same thing - I wasn't here writing, I wasn't at the gym exercising, I wasn't at my computer working, I wasn't with the kids...
I was, however, feeling sorry for myself.
So I did what any sane person would do. I wallowed.
It wasn't fun. Well, it wasn't fun for everyone else.
So while I was busy wallowing, we still had some time to try and do other things to take my mind off of it and so other people in this family will have some fun also.
We decided to tour Upper St. which is kind of our new Main St. It has almost everything you can want, including around 6 Starbucks, which is a necessity with the Chocolate Brownie crazed children around, restaurants that we never eat in, bakeries that we almost never buy at, and clothes stores that explain our reluctance to frequent all those lovely restaurants :).
There is also an Oasis store. Oasis is one of my favourite shops in the UK (despite their outrageous pricing system), and after a long search I recently bought a new bag there. It is a very long and hard search process (don't even get me started about how long it took me to find a watch), so I was extremely happy with the bag I found. First of all it's red. Second of all, it has so much space inside, with a lot of different compartments, but without appearing too big. And I got it on a 15% off. BUT after a week or so, while we were in Starbucks, it broke (okay so it was just a little thing - one of the metal things holding the straps popped out). So I went back into the store all unhappy and the most amazing thing happened - they exchanged my bag, they didn't want a receipt, they didn't care when or where I bought it, they even gave me a new receipt for the new one. I was so amazed and dazed I think I stared at the saleswoman open mouthed... My new bag is holding just fine, and now more than ever I totally recommend Oasis.

my bag! (and me of course)

We also toured Westfield mall, since the weather was under the weather :), and it was the first place in 2 months that we heard Hebrew in (well, except for our place). Other than that, not a lot to say - it is big. No. It is huge. And it has everything you can want in a place like that. Except maybe a soul (but why would you look for a soul in a mall?). I don't know when I got so used to the English (and Gibraltarian) way of  shopping streets instead of shopping malls, but now I find it really hard to be in one... And in the end, it took us around 40 minutes and 2 tubes, to be able to go into the Disney Store (Yons favourite store), the Build a Bear store, the Lego store, a book store, and another toy store (and of course a Starbucks and a Boots). All in all, not an experience I am waiting to repeat (at least until it rains again).
After that we stayed at home.
Well, we stayed home because we were having Uri & Ev over for coffee, cake and football, and before they came over we just had to reorganize the house. Don't get me wrong, the house is great, the complex is great, but it is tiny. So so tiny. And it's not that we went from 3 bedrooms to 2, because all the kids things fit perfectly inside their room, it's the living area and the fact that I just never understand how works the mind of an architect. And that of British people in general. Don't they cook? bake? live inside a house? It might be a London thing. Or it might be a young people thing. Anyway we spent Sunday morning trying to find a space to fit another cupboard in the living area (later decided to be a sideboard, which is a completely new term I learned this past few days) since I wanted to start baking again (more on that later) and discovered what I chose to ignore when we unpacked. Baking supplies take up space. Which we don't have. Also since the fridge is the size of a small ice-cream box (seriously, it's around the size fridge we had when it was just the 2 of us and we were living on take away), we needed to find a place for an extra freezer (ideally I would replace the whole thing with a decent size fridge, but I can't first because there is no room, and second because it's not mine ant I have a feeling the landlord won't like it very much). Thank god Uri & Ev brought cookies from Gail's, a very good bakery I also discovered 2 days before while trying to find Israeli / Jewish food outside the Jewish areas. The bakery isn't really Jewish, but they do have rude service people, Challa and very good chocolate cookies (and apparently an award winning carrot cake). We felt right at home, and ate half the Challa on the bus.
The last week of August finally arrived and with it Late Summer Holiday, our first London Holiday, which we celebrated with not going to the Notting Hill Festival. Hidai did take the kids to Clissold Park, which he prefers because it has a petting area and a very good size playing area for Yon, and I don't like much because it's further away from home (did someone said lazy?) they ran into Aunty Jo's family (without the Aunty Jo part), and had a great morning including petting animals, playing in the sand and getting wet in the inevitable rain shower.

 We also ended up with a Jewish New Year celebration with Uri & Ev and Aunty Jo & family. I am so excited. I know, it doesn't go with my oh-so-cool image, but I really hate sitting alone in the holidays. When you live in Israel it's kind of tradition and expected of you to either have a big family holiday meal, or be abroad. But since the kids don't really care about any holiday except Christmas, and are not very good at eating celebratory dinners, we usually found ourselves sitting at the table alone while a "holiday songs cd" is playing in the background. Fun as that sounds ( I know, i know, you all wish you were in my shoes right now), after last year's Rosh H'ashana Debacle (also known as Jewish New Year disaster) I swore that never again will that happen, and true to that we had had such a lovely time with all our holidays up until now with friends and family, and even the kids enjoyed themselves and showed some intrest. So I was really worried that in the move to London, together with losing so many other things, we will also lose our holidays again. I honestly don't know how we will fit 6 adults and 4 kids into the house, but I am so happy that everyone's coming, even though it won't be a proper holiday dinner, it will center around sweet food (for a sweet year) and the menu (for now) is - 3 kind of cookies (2 honey ones, 1 chocolate), 2 cakes, sweet pasta pie, sweet Challa, bureks and mini-pancakes. Hopefully it's enough food, and I already started perfecting all my receipts...
This week, after surviving the hardest August EVER, we decided to treat the kids. They deserve it. So instead of going to the Islington end of summer boat fair (original plan) we took them to buy some new underpants and socks. I take full responsibility for all that happened from here on. I decided on Primark. Even though I don't like Primark. And it's always too full of people and not so good clothes. But we just moved to a new country, so we have no more money. And so Primark seemed like a good option. And even worse, I decided to not go to Oxford st., but to a closer one. The Primark in Hackney. It's about 20 minutes drive (or 45 on the slowest bus ever) from here, and it is... I have no other words to describe it other than... different... We will not be going back there any time soon. It wasn't even the Primark itself, though it did have a very small selection of boys clothes, it was the vibe of the neighbourhood. I know it's definitely not the worst neighbourhood in London, but it made feel a bit unsure of myself and out of place. I guess we are not ready for hard-core London yet. Next time I have the urge to buy cheap underpants, I'm going to Oxford st. with all the tourists.
We did go to an Ice Cream Festival this weekend, which was amazing. We've never been to King-Cross area, so we got a bit lost on the way, but it was totally worth it. They had plenty of ice cream trucks, with organic ice cream, sheep milk ice cream and also, you know, good ice cream :), an ice cream ice sculpture, some fake cows, how to make ice cream thing, and for us the 2 best things - a small petting area with cows, sheep and goats, and a cow milking station, where you got to pretend milk a pretend cow. All my boys took turns, Yon found it funny, Ron found it wet, and Hidai found it very nostalgic. We also ate ice cream from Gelatorino, which was so good that even Yon ate (he is not a big fan). We chose that particular ice cream stand because it had a long queue, and it is a known fact that a) it you see a queue you have to join in, and b) the longer the queue the better the quality. Ron took one glance at the guy's card and immediately knew that Russel St. is near the Transport Museum, after all, we've gone past it like 3 weeks before. How can you NOT know that?!

milking a cow

Petting a goat

And eating the ice cream

So that is it. Today is the 4th of September. It is Ron's last day of Summer, and to celebrate we took everyone to the dentist. I don't get dentists. They are the only kind of doctors that you go to feeling just fine and go out of feeling like the worst person alive with rotten teeth that are about to fall off any minute now. It's a miracle you got to this point in life with all your teeth. Ah and also, they all have different reasons and diagnostics to everything. The doctor in Gib told me - only use Sensodyne (really sensitive teeth here). The doctor here says - Colgate. The doctor in Gib blamed my sensitivity on my Coke habit (it was called for. You know it was. Drinking Diet Coke for the sense of humourless among us), this one, on grinding my teeth. Anyway NOT a fun visit, but at least it's done and the kids are fine.
I survived another summer.
I am crazy with worry about tomorrow.
I can't wait to be after. After Ron settles in. After Yon goes to nursery. After they have friends. After.
I don't want tomorrow to arrive. I can't bear the thought of my baby going to a new school, without knowing anyone. I almost cried today when he said he's a bit nervous.
I am, as usual in these situations, a train wreck.