end of an era...

I feel like I'm a giant alarm clock right now.
tick tock.
If I look and act a bit crazed a lot of the time at the moment its because, well, I am a bit crazed. I have a lot going on in my head and a lot going on in my household.
So. To be blunt. We are leaving London. At some point. In the near future. Near being defined as within a few months. Possibly. Dare I say it, hopefully.
People may say:
It's been a long time coming, we knew, we knew, we could tell you'd move eventually (don't the majority of people move at some point in their lives?)
Or
Yes yes, I could tell, you were never a real Londoner (why's that, I ask nervously? because, well, you know, I mean, well, look at your clothes for starters... - yes, this has been actually said that to me - even though we all shop from the same barrow - Sainsbury's, Primark, H&M, New Look, Peacocks, Tesco...), to the countryside with you, and your strange non-London clothing!
Or (from non-Londoners)
Yes, I can imagine the schools in Harringay are pretty tough places for a child (? what? does my child give the impression of enduring a 'tough' schooling? By this do you mean, oh person from a place of homogenous race and culture, that the schools in Harringay are diverse and full of people not converging with the traditional meat and two veg Brit? In fact our schools are a wonderful cultural cauldron of fabulous children... So, no this is not why...)
Or
Has the dog shit driven you mad? (very possibly)
Or
Is it the danger of stepping out of your front door every morning with two small girls who don't know how to cross a road that has frenzied commuters rat-running down the steep hill as though Terminator himself was chasing them? (Or perhaps a desperate politician...) Yes this is a definite factor in our lives. The element of containment that is life in London. Or at least in this part of London. Or perhaps more localised to our road?
Or
Its the black snot that you get after being on the tube for a few stops isn't it? (yes, absolutely - there you have it! the key to leaving London. Black snot! Bingo!)
And actually, here's another mad idea:
To try out a new life for our family.
It means leaving so much behind and each day I wake up and look out from my loft window across the London roofs at Canary Wharf flashing away like a lighthouse, and I know that just down the road is Yassa Hallim and all his delicious baked breads and olives; and that if I throw a stone in one direction it will pass 6 houses of people I know and love, and if I throw a stone in the opposite direction, the same thing - more friends, perhaps a brother or a sister in law or an uber-granny, the fabric of this mad community which my roots, my children, my husband- are embedded in (and hopefully the stone won't smash someone elses loft window...).
So my alarm clock is counting down (date yet unknown) and my roots are feeling like they're not sure about this uprooting thing, and my heart is doing flip flops left right and centre and my mind is all over the place and frankly if you get a sane sentence out of me in the next few months then congratulations.
I think Tesco and Sainsburys will get a lot of business from me, particularly in the wine and kleenex department (I can't write kleenex without thinking of teenage boys, really sorry but its true) - in this case for my sniffly nose and drippy eyes. Nothing icky! Promise!
I shall keep you posted of family trivia but thought I should break even with the whole thing.
Adios for now cheekos. (? what ? see. nonsense)