Officially a desperate housewife!

I had a lovely last week in Manhattan and the big move came around rather too quickly. I was just starting to get into the city way of life, helped immensely by the invites of my 'new best friends' (that's for you Elaine if you're reading!!!) Boy Wonder and his new little friend Beckett had a fab time pretending to be fireman at the Children's Museum and we also went for a lovely afternoon with the paddling pool to take the sting out of the heat. My mission is to go back into town each week and that should be easy enough as the train station is only 15 mins walk away and should be painless as long I don't attract the attention of the NYPD...

Garden City. What can I say? Well, it makes Wooburn Green look quite a 'happening' place to live. I will post some photos of the house but can't bear to take any until I've finally finished unpacking, which is taking a tad longer than I expected due to an extra pair of 'helping hands'!!!

The area is very 'Wisteria Lane', all very neat and tidy with trimmed lawns and very straight pavements. The houses are all different but seem to co-ordinate in an odd house type of way. We have one of those mailboxes with the little red flag and the postman will even collect post from inside it that you want him to post!!! How exciting is that?? Now feel the urge to post lots of stuff in my mailbox so don't be too surprise if you receive a card from across the pond. I've also had a long chat with a lovely man called Kevin who was 'Sanitation Supervisor' who very patiently explained to me the difference between garbage and rubbish and who didn't laugh at my whoops of joy at being told the household waste gets collected twice a week. We have spent most of our time in our 'yard' which we seem to share with a rather large collection of birds and a large group of squirrels who spend all day chasing each other all over the trees.

We went to the park this morning which I thought was rather lovely but got talking to people there (all very friendly) and apparently out of the five parks in Garden City it is the worst one and is having a makeover soon. One of the women referred me to the 'Garden City Welcoming Club' which I looked at online when I got back. I'm not too sure about whether to make contact as I might turn into a Stepford wife. I had a good chat with Sara about it who gave her usual good advice, which this time was to encourage me to sign up, that I should tell them I could start a book club and she would write me a reference, but most importantly I would need to have 'big hair' at all times in order to fit in. I need to give this a bit more thought. Also I have already somehow agreed to hosting an 'English' gathering for the local neighbours (they do a different country each month) so any ideas for that would be appreciated. Sara has already got in with, "Well, knowing your limitations you'll struggle without Marks and Spencer!" so anything more constructive than that please. Sad thing is, Sara knows me so well she is spot on.

Boy Wonder actually started calling me 'Mummy' yesterday which is rather cute. He has been saying 'Daddy' for a couple of weeks now so I'd been having a bit of name envy. I obviously spent too much time watching 'Deal or No Deal' over the winter as Boy Wonder now shoots, scores and then raises both arms in the air and shouts ,"Noel!!!!!" which is still funny even though he has done it about 100 times now.

Can't wait for this weekend as my lovely Joe is coming out for a visit with her mum.

And I'd like to finish by saying well done to my bro, who has got himself a job at last. Brilliant news!!