Life changes - Part 2

I had drafted a post to tell you about our good news but as if our lifes had not been eventful enough recently, fate threw us another surprise today.

This is how the post started:

On the 1st of April, I was offered my boss’s job, as his dad had finally retired and he was going to become our new managing director, leaving his current position vacant. This had been on the cards for quite a while and I was obviously delighted that it was finally confirmed. But I was also a bit worried and feeling rather deceitful accepting their offer, for that very same morning I had found out I was pregnant…

I was still trying to decide if that stick I had been peeing on, half awake and bleary-eyed, was playing an April’s Fool on me! I waited a couple of days and took two other tests; the results were all the same – undoubtedly, absolutely positive. Then, as a lot of first time parents-to-be will know, a wave of mixed feelings took over, surprise (we’d only been trying for a couple of months and were told it could take up to a year!), complete delight and excitement of course, but also sheer panic, fear, and worry…

We started counting the weeks that separated us from our first and only scan, each week the likelihood of suffering a miscarriage reducing, each week closer to finally believing this was happening. It is hard to take it in until you have ‘proof’; no blood tests here, if the stick says yes, the stick is right!

Today we finally had the scan. And this is what it looked like:

I agree, it looks more like a hurricane forecast than anything else and it is really hard to make anything out - but what is certain is that there are two of them !

Nothing prepares you for the shock of finding out you are expecting twins. As I'm writing these words, nine hours after the biggest shock of my life, my hands are still shaking and I am struggling to find the words to describe what I am feeling.
I guess it will take us several weeks to fully come to term with the news. But we are overwhelmingly happy!

So now you know, what kept me away from my laptop those past few weeks… We are now a single income family with two babies on the way. Bring it on!

Life changes - Part 1

As I was telling you a few days ago, our life has been a rollercoaster of emotions those past few weeks. I won’t go into all the details with the exception of two major events that will change the shape of things to come… So let’s start with the bad news.

At the beginning of the month, le Petit Chimiste became le Petit Chômeur – the Wee Jobseeker – after all the chemists in his company were made redundant. To all the people who praise the British employment system and its wonderful ‘flexibility’, I will only say that I don’t think that a system in which you can be told you might be made redundant one week and escorted out of the premises the very next week like a thief without even a thank you or a handshake is that wonderful. And don’t get me started on the cheap redundancy pay check or the Jobseeker’s (non) Allowance. Let’s just say, le Petit Chômeur will not be joining the queue at the nearest Job Centre à la Full Monty! Oh dear old Maggie must be so proud …

So for the time being, I have a househusband. And it is fantastic: he cooks and does the dishes, he cleans the flat and drives me to work... I could really get used to that! And so could he, he’s loving all this free time and is turning into one of those retired people who are always ever so busy! So if it wasn’t for the small matter of us needing the second income, we would happily make this a permanent arrangement.

So the search is on for a new job. And inevitably this prompted some pretty major questioning and a bit of soul searching. Is it finally time to move to France? Are we ready to sell up, uproot ourselves once again and leave Scotland? Am I prepared to turn my back on a job I really enjoy, where I am valued and where I can grow and learn so much? The answers were a resounding and unanimous triple no. As much as I love my home country, I am happy here and our love story with Scotland is far from over. Of course, there is a lot we would be happy to leave behind: the depressing winter weather and constant darkness, some of the pretty unhealthy eating and drinking habits, and more recently, the employment laws… But we still have so much to see, so much to learn about this wonderful country that never ceases to surprise and delight us. We feel like we’ve only just scratched the surface. And we finally start to feel settled, to feel as if we belong: we’ve made some good friends here, we’re getting involved in our local community. We don’t want to have to do it all over again. Not yet anyway. So for the time being we are staying put. It will be hard for le Petit Chômeur to find a new job that he enjoys and that matches his qualifications and we might have to tighten our belts for a while.

But I‘m sure we won’t regret it.

PS: please, don't feel sorry for us - we are not. And he hated the job anyway!

Pas de nouvelles, bonnes nouvelles ...

C'est ce qu'on dit non ?

Et voilà plus d'un mois qui vient de s'écouler sans un seul billet posté ici ... Pas l'envie qui manque pourtant, ni l'inspiration, juste le temps qui défile à tout allure, des journées trop remplies, des soirées où je m'endors épuisée sur le canapé et des weekends qui passent trop vite, où l'on essaie de rattraper le temps sans jamais y arriver. J'ai même du mal à rester à jour de mes blogs favoris et je m'excuse d'ailleurs de ne pas avoir laissé de commentaires chez les unes et les autres depuis quelques temps.

Mais tout va bien.

Il s'est passé pas mal de choses chez Pépette et le Petit Chimiste ces dernières semaines, une montagne russe d'émotions comme ils disent de ce coté ci de la Manche ... Ca veut dire du bon, du moins bon et du qui va potentiellement changer nos vies ... Désolé pour le mystère, je vous promets de vous raconter tout ça bientôt!

En attendant, l'anticyclone qui traine sur l'Europe du Nord depuis bientot 2 semaines nous permet enfin de profiter du printemps que nous avons attendu si longtemps. Je vous laisse donc avec quelques clichés fleuris et ensoleillés...