And again...

...we are packing up and on the move. Although I still find it VERY tedious, I am getting better and better at it. We don't fly until Friday and I am pretty much there (how organized!), I just need to pick up a couple of things tomorrow, give the house a clean and we are good to go. I do also have a shed load of work to get done before the weekend (which I should be doing right now!) so this is a short and sweet post today mainly to say 'hi' to all of my new followers! I can not tell you how happy I am to have you onboard - welcome.

The reason I have increased my following is thanks to the very lovely, blogging genius that is Maxabella, who gave me my very first blog shout out. I had taken myself off to bed with laptop in hand to have a quick catch up in Google Reader before going to sleep and stumbled across my blog getting a mention in Maxabella Loves (I have said it before and I will say it again - check her out, she is inspiring). I was so excited I skipped, whooping like a child, into the sitting room to share the good news with Angus. I was touched that he understood why this was such a momentous moment for me and we celebrated with a quick smooch!

I started blogging for my family and friends at home. Travelling all the time means that the ones we love miss out on so much of our lives, and I realise that this is especially hard when there are children involved. They change so quickly - almost daily! I had heard of 'blogging' and set myself up with a blog having absolutely no idea that there was a whole community out there to be explored. Although I still primarily think of this site as our little online diary of our adventures, I am trying to start thinking like a blogger; what do people want to read about? I find myself making mental notes as we go about our day to day lives of things that I want to tell people or get others opinions on. Invariably, I have forgotten all of these mental notes once I sit down at the computer but I will work on rectifying this problem!

Basically, my blog brings me immense joy. I get satisfaction from writing it, I find the concept of putting our adventures out into the blogosphere fascinating, I love it that family and friends at home can keep tabs on what we are up to and how we are doing and I adore the fact that I have an expanding list of followers. So I suppose I just wanted to say thank you for dropping by! Bear with me, I am still learning and always open to suggestions. This year I hope to become a much more accomplished blogger and may even improve the design of my site so it isn't quite so... purple!

Right back to the work and then hopefully I can enjoy our last couple of days of sunshine before heading home to the chilly UK.

Here is a little clip of Coco's kitchen picnic earlier. She was at the table but decided that eating raisins on the kitchen rug was far more appealing.

What's around the corner?

Happy New Year to All!

I am absolutely buzzing with excitement today. I have read so many damning articles about the concept of 'New Year' over the past few days and I'm sorry, but I love it; I love the tradition that is New Year. Sometimes I feel that I need a defined moment in time when I can reflect, assess and adjust. I can shake myself off, dust away the cobwebs and energise. I want to be told that this is the time to take a good, hard look at myself and decide where there are changes that need to be made. I actually enjoy setting myself aims and objectives and I accept that these may need to change and I won't feel a failure if they aren't all achieved. The whole concept of new beginnings is exciting for me; not because the old was bad, far from it, but because you can keep evaluating your life and making the good even better.

We had a very sober New Year's Eve. Angus was working so Coco and I stayed on the boat (I was actually extremely excited about a night on the boat!). I haven't slept in a top bunk for years and Coco never sleeps in our bed so a top bunk and Coco cuddles all night was delicious. I am suffering a little this evening though as I was completely paranoid that she would get out of her grow-bag, crawl over my sleeping body and crash to the cabin floor from a great height. She didn't of course but although I loved our night of camping out at the boat I got very little sleep!

Once Coco was in bed, Angus and I sat and talked dreams, aspirations and goals for the coming year and our future in general. There was nothing new, it was all stuff we had discussed plenty of times before, but to have a little focus, to be able to draw on the past and plan for the future was so exciting. There is obviously so much we can't guarantee, who knows what will happen and how things will turn out but there are an awful lot of wheels in motion as we go into 2011 and if just a few of these wheels were to take us down the roads we are hoping they might then we have one massive year ahead of us!

We didn't actually make it until midnight, but that didn't matter, that really is just symbolic. We had achieved all we wanted to achieve from the ritual that is New Year's Eve; we had reminisced, we had planned and plotted and we went to bed positive, hopeful and happy (with a game of Trivial Pursuit thrown in for good measure). As I lay there and watched the reflection of the lights on the water through the porthole, the surrounding boat horns tooted to signal the coming of the New Year on the strike of twelve. Whilst listening to Angus's slow sleepy breathing coming from the bunk below, I was able to kiss Coco's soft, milky cheek and feel completely content with life and where it was heading.

Today was windy. Warm and windy. Perfect for brisk, beach walks and enough of a breeze to help really get those wheels turning!