First Day

The car temperature gauge read -3.5 degrees as I drove Dylan to the doctors this morning. Jason had scraped the ice off the windscreen with his frequent flyers card – good to know it still comes in useful! It was such a pretty morning, as the sun illuminated the frost on the ground and the holly hedges.

Poor Dylan has been up half the night throwing up – the doctor diagnosed a nasty tummy bug which is spreading through all the schools at the moment, and it should clear within 24 hours. Not a good end to his first full day at school!

He was so excited yesterday when I dropped him off, knowing that an end-of-year Christmas party (with a surprise visit from Santa) would make it a very special first day. The teachers have all be wonderful, and the children have taken a special interest in “the new Dylan” as he is now known – as there is already a Dylan in his new class. He starts officially in Reception (yellow class, appropriately) next term, which is equivalent to our Kindy, 5 days a week, 9am-3.15pm.

He was very proud in his new school uniform – a red sweatshirt and white polo t-shirt. I still have to buy the grey trousers. I must admit I got a bit teary – quite a milestone for both of us!

We went to the school Christmas Carols the night before, and met a few of the teachers and families. One little girl, Lara, has apparently been counting down the days until “the new Dylan” started. It is a small, community school focused on this younger age group, so I hope it will be a good choice for Dylan.

Jason is off on another Ikea/Costco/Currys run – we still haven’t been unable to unpack anything as we have no drawers or storage. He was ecstatic with our Costco trip yesterday – a huge warehouse style store with just about everything (in bulk) you could ever need, including groceries. We bought a Dyson vacuum cleaner and a huge Brabantia bin, as well as alcohol, bulk drinks and nappies yesterday – we could barely fit it all in the car.

On our second day here, as I struggled to adapt to new road rules, roundabouts and traffic cones, I asked Jason what the round road sign with the black diagonal line on it meant. “I think it means you can go as fast as you want.” he said. It appears whenever you leave a built up area (which is usually 30mph) and as most cars around me seem to speed up to 70mph, I have been following their lead – except on the tiny single lane country roads in mist and fog, which really can be frightening. Yesterday Jason was reading our new road atlas, and found a section on speed limits. “Oh,” he said, “it means you can go 60mph maximum.”

Not as fast as you want, then!