The land of Robin Hood

Well, it's week two, my second trip over and I love it. I love the little apartment I have and I love the area I am in. The first impression is how clean the city is. Separate recycling facilities at every corner, this is amazing! And the city is very small, I'd say about the size of one of the towns in the suburbs of Dublin, so everything is very near and commuting is super easy. From where I live at the moment to the University I have 5 stops on the tram line...like 10 minutes top, and for £1.70!! And the tram line is just outside the door. Traffic is clearly a fraction of what I would call "traffic" in Dublin...here it's about as busy as it is in Dublin at weekends or school holidays.

My plan is to get a bike hopefully next week and use that one instead of the tram. And the university has secure bike storage areas one can access only with the staff card. Amazing. I will have to look for a more permanent accommodation of course and now I have a much better idea what we can get and where. Despite the fact that I'm not in the city centre, very near me there is a 24h very large convenience store I can walk to (or one tram top). It feels very very safe and friendly too. Evenings are very quiet, maybe it will be more lively as the days stretch more, not that we ever went out that much of course but still one may want to at some point.

The children don't like my travelling much and neither do I. Specially the way Oliver has acted out recently (we have an appointment with a child psychologist on the 3rd of March). We had another very bad episode last staurday, full blown violent tantrum which he just could not control. And then he was a model child the day after. Go figure. I talked to the mother of one of his school friends, mostly I wanted to see if the friend would say something about Oliver's behaviour in school, and she told me they are going through exactly the same with her son...violent tantrums he never had before, zero listening, extremely bad behaviour when they are outside etc. We can't understand what's happening, they also were thinking of getting some external advice. We now wonder if it's something in school. There is a boy who is very physical and often sits on the "thinking chair" and apparently is really disobedient to the teacher also. We will have a parents-teacher meeting next week I think so we will ask.

And that's all for now my friends, I am doing well otherwise, anxiety settled completely, with Mike things are ok, I think he understand more the situation, I love my independence and freedom but I always look forward to going back home. Let's see how it goes once we all move here.