Schools, shops and miles

There are definite downsides to living where we do. The small irritating one is having to literally drive the rubbish down to the road on a Wednesday morning. It's not particularly fun when it's peeing down with ran and the cats have ripped open the bags! Grrr. But, of course, the biggest problem at the moment is the petrol prices, everything is so far away!! We moved from a town where the pub and shop were a minutes walk away, and the centre of town was ten. It takes a bit of getting used to. We now live about a mile and a half from the pub and tiny shop which has pretty short opening hours. The nearest small town is about three miles away and the next biggest town is about nine.

School is in the next village which is also where my sister lives. School was a big factor when we moved and i decided not to send them to the one in our village. The kids came from a school of 340 pupils, the little village school has only 40! They would have been in the same class which wouldn't have gone down well, their characters are far too different. My eldest is also very bright and i needed a school that will challenege her. So i drive them four and a half miles to school. That's fine, i would have had to drive them to school anyway, and actually it doesn't take as long as it did to their old school which was a hell of a lot nearer. There are no queues, no traffic lights, just a quiet road, straight through as long as the train isn't late!

But this morning, just as we get to school, youngest states she's forgotten her homework, and the eldest has forgotten her P.E. kit. So having driven 9 miles already this morning I have to go and do it again. Ok so 18 miles isn't THAT far, but my PETROL Frontera that i bought for 'country living' seems to be very thirsty at the moment.

We really must get this country living figured out, i've already borrowed tinned tomatos and cat food from my neighbour, becasue popping to the shop at 6 when you realise you haven't got something has taken on a whole new meaning, and is now a full scale expedition rather than a 2 minute chore. God help us when we get snowed in! At least we have eggs.