Moose on the Move!

The pilot announced over the PA system that it was raining in London as we descended into Heathrow Airport. Ah England! Despite the gray skies it felt wonderful to be coming ‘home’ – we were looking forward to getting back to Exeter, to our house, our city and our priory garden with the purple wisteria.

In the next few weeks the sun shone beautifully and we made the most of the weekends by walking down the river to double locks and going to visit Cheddar Gorge. The gorge is most of the way to Bristol from Exeter and was spectacular, in a smallish way. There are caves in the gorge but if you’ve been to any of the caves south of Perth you’ve been spoiled – the ones in Cheddar are not as spectacular although the story behind them and the local history is interesting. And of course we had to try some Cheddar cheese from Cheddar - it was good!

Once we were back in England we took steps to register with a local midwife and book in for an ultrasound. By the time we’d seen everyone we needed to see I was 16 ½ weeks pregnant before we finally got in for an ultrasound scan on the 22nd May. It was really amazing to see the little guy in there. The last time we’d seen him he was a centimeter-long peanut with a heartbeat. This time he had a head and face and arms and legs and heart and kidneys and stomach and everything! It was quite emotional for both of us and we left clutching two little pictures of the baby moose and the knowledge that he was doing fine. We both felt so incredibly in love with our unborn child and couldn’t help but grin at each other almost constantly in the following days.

There is a long weekend at the end of May and we decided that it would be a good time to head up to Wales. Unfortunately the weather was going to be a bit too wet for camping and, in typical Moose style, we left the booking of a B&B a bit late and were severely limited for choice. We ended up finding one and headed up there on Friday afternoon. We had spoken to them on the phone and booked in for three nights but on arrival we were disappointed with the place as a whole and when they told us that they’d knowingly double-booked our room and intended to move us into their own bedroom for Saturday night we decided not to stay!

We checked out the following morning and went to the Hay-on-Wye literary festival, a huge annual festival of books, authors, talks and so on. We got in to see a discussion between Monty Don and Rosie Boycott about her experiences on a small farm and then drove back to Exeter. It wasn’t a bad decision – Sunday it absolutely poured with rain.

On Monday when the sun came out again we went down to the quay to hire canoes and go for a paddle but the river was so swollen and rushing we had to settle for bikes instead. It was a gorgeous day for a ride and we went all the way down to Turf Locks (a first for us) for some lunch. It’s been a couple of years since either of us was on a bike and our bottoms and legs were sure to remind us of this in the following days.

Some months ago some friends of ours, Dale and Paul, move up to Bristol so we went up to visit them about a week into June, on the 9th. We spent a night up there and it was nice to see the place through the eyes of ‘locals’. We went to see the Clifton Suspension bridge - a feat of engineering and one of the much celebrated accomplishments of Isambard Kingdom Brunel. We wondered briefly if that might be a good name for Squidgy but quickly dismissed the idea. It is a great city with a lot to offer. Even if the accent is a little funny!

Later that same week we had visitors from home! It’s always exciting when people we know really well from elsewhere, come and we get to show them all the special places we have discovered in the area. Mary and Spencer are some of our oldest family friends – they’ve ‘just always been there’. They came to see us for several days as part of a long tour to visit family in England and Ireland and to see a few places in Europe.

Unfortunately the weather had been really miserable – again or still. We took them out to Dartmoor but could initially not see anything because the fog was just so thick! I had to keep saying "there really is a wonderful view out there – honest!". We stopped by the clapper bridge and in the space of ten minutes the fog cleared completely and view was again magnificent. So Mary and Spencer were able to see the ponies, foals and sheep and the fabulous scene from the top of a Bone Hill Rocks.

The Exeter Summer Festival began about this time and a wonderful part of this annual event is the huge craft market held in the Cathedral Green. The variety and quality of the work is always amazing and we all enjoyed checking it out. Later we took Mary and Spencer out to Branscombe for Cream Tea and visited the old bakery and a rose garden that we must've driven past a dozen times and had never seen before. It was in need of a little TLC but was still a beautiful tranquil place with lots of different ducks and flowers.

On the 20th June we went to the new Women’s Health Centre at the RD&E for our 20 week anatomical scan. Poor Squidgy was looking a bit more cramped in there this time but was still gorgeous. He was moving around in there and looking spectacular! The sonographer was a bit of a grumpy-bum and got quite aggressive when Chris asked if he could take a photo of me having the scan done. So sorry guys, you’ll just have to use your imagination. It's incredible how clear the images are on these scans - they can show you the four cambers of the heart beating merrily away!

A week and a half later our next visitors (and probably our last over here) arrived. Michelle and Tarah were just beginning their European adventure when they came to stay with us for a couple of nights. The river was again swollen from all the rain we'd had and flowed really quickly when we went for a walk around the bridges.

Dartmoor was on the itinerary for these guys, as well as a visit to Paignton where we chuckled about the beach huts and the old locals enjoying the not-so-sunny summer weather! A ghostly red-coat tour around Exeter city centre was informative and amusing! Our guide took great pleasure in reminding us that neither she nor the city council could be held responsible for anything that might happen to us on the tour - or afterwards if we didn’t have rosemary in our pockets or if we should mention the name (E-T-H-E-L) of the local poltergeist!

I dropped Michelle and Tarah off in Bath to carry on their amazing tour and was more than just a little jealous as I thought about all the amazing places they were off to see in the coming weeks.

The end of June arrived bringing with it the knowledge that we had just two months until we leave for Australia. So much to do and so little time. Only two months to go! We'll be back in Australia on the 31st August, when we arrive in Darwin at 2:30 am. The plan is to stay in Darwin for the birth of Baby Moose and then move back into our house in Perth for some months. After that the plan gets a bit loose - we'll see how we're coping with the little man!