Not life as I know it

It started with the snow.

It was really quite bizarre to wake up on Sunday morning and see thick, fluffy snow everywhere. Nothing has seemed quite right this week, ever since that snowfall.

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C and O haven't been at home this week. They have gone to stay with my parents for the first half of the school spring break. When G and I have spoken to them on the phone each evening we've heard tales about shopping trips, playing in the park with their cousins, nutella for breakfast and adventures on skateboards.

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They're clearly having a wonderful time with their grandparents (and I just loved going to stay with my grandparents when I was small - didn't you?) but G and I feel completely bereft here in our empty, tidy, quiet house.

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The fridge is full of un-drunk milk, the shoes are still in the shoe basket, the washing mountain is a much more modest washing mole-hill and bread goes stale before we finish a loaf.

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Even O's drawing table is tidy. Its all wrong.

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Last night G and I decided we'd had enough of moping and went out after work for a rare treat of dinner and cocktails at Browns, just next to my office. The apple mojitos seemed to do the trick of cheering us up.

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And now I'm off back to Oxford to collect C and O, and I can't wait for the house to come alive again. There'll be fewer apple mojitos but more stewed apple for breakfast when they get back. And that's definitely a good thing. In so many ways!