Move to Basingstoke, Hampshire

We have left the west and now in Hampshire which is South/South West of London - still in limbo while we get approval for a flat in Beggarwood on the outskirts of Basingstoke.  On the way here, we dropped into Newbury to have a hot chocolate and a stretch, comforting Chloe as she is really missing her friends Grace, Tahlia & Chelsea from school.

The canal which runs through the middle of town

It was great to see how this couple manouvered their little tug through the opening of the gate - it was quite pretty with the ducks out as well..  A pretty little town - we are finding that most of the towns that we have visited so far cut the car traffic off the main street so it's all open up to predestrians only..  which is great so you're not dodging cars!

Meet our newest members of the McMillin clan..

In amongst seeing places to rent, we did a bit of window shopping at Festival Place in Basingstoke which is the main shopping centre.  Chloe & I have seen so many "Build-A-Bear" stores since we have been here, that I finally got talked into building a bear..  Meet Fugde (Fudge) in the middle who is Chloe's bear, and the other one is Jack who is my bear.  It was heaps of fun - they have all sorts of bears that you can choose from.  You can give it a beating heart, a giggle/dog bark/kiss button for it's hand, next you get to "stuff" your own bear, pick it's own clothes, register your bear online and you even get a birth certificate...  It was heaps of fun, but very expensive.  I haven't told Jeff yet how much it cost, but said that it was great mum & daughter time.
Tuesday 24th, we went and saw the Primary School that Chloe will most likely enrol in...  Good school, big school which 600 kids, but nice Headteacher and the kids were waving and saying hi even though they didn't know us.  I think it will be a nice school for her, so she could start as early as Monday.  But then the follow week is mid-term holiday, so yet another week off!  How easy is that?  Then, the day just went from bad to worse..
We drove on towards Winchester for lunch and a walk around, and we didn't realise that the street we were in was a 2 way street, went to turn right to get into a car park and BANG!  We knew it was going to be tough settling into a new country, but the bank are stuffing us around organising a bank cheque for the bond, we never seem to have any service for our phones - now we have changed from pre-paid to a contract, non of us can make calls because we are in phone limbo, the recruitment company are still stuffing Jeff around, I'm all emotional because we've had an accident and now need to get the car fixed and want to come home to Melbourne, Chloe's emotional because I'm emotional, I'm stessed about how the hell I'm going to get Chloe to school as it's half hour walk, Jeff's sick of being stuffed around and if we have one more thing that doesn't come our way, we seriously may be coming home!  Sick of getting stuffed around by everyone!!

hope it's not too expensive to fix!

But, despite our shit day with shit things happening to us, none of us were hurt in the accident and we still have each other to hug!  Let's hope things improve or stuff this country!....