After a week of blubbing, packing, repacking, goodbyes and emergency doctor’s appointments we finally left Tdot.

The last Tim’s

Oh iShuffle, how you mock me

The last fancy coffee

Remarkably, the Lord, the General and I made it to the UK relatively unscathed but the last few days certainly weren’t without their dramas.

Let’s start with the General.  Usually an easygoing, healthy little chap, he decided to projectile vomit all over the newly valeted stroller, costing me a valuable afternoon of packing to strip it down and wash by hand the entire chuffing thing again!

Cue a raging fever just before a well-timed goodbye visit to our beautiful doctor only to find out he has strep throat (tonsillitis for my Brit friends)  FFS…yet another thing to add to my stress list!

Anyhow, by Thursday evening we had hammered through an impressive amount of packing and were relatively back on track following PukeGate.

Packing with toddlers is like trying to catch a ping pong ball on a bouncy castle!

And so we come to Friday and our master packers showed up an hour early.  Hopeful for a cheeky afternoon vino, I tootled off to daycare as happy as Larry!  On my way back, Mr. British Maple calls me in a mild panic because (and I quote) “the movers are packing the shit out of everything!”

“Has anyone seen the General?!”

By lunchtime they had finished!  But they had worked a little too efficiently, having packed many things destined to remain in Tdot including tatty pillows, Canadian lamps and a bag of rubbish!  Ah well, better that way than to forget things, I guess!

Our live in a van…

Things took another turn for the worse on Friday night.  The poor Lord woke up crying, complaining of ‘monsters in the back of his mouth’.  After a sleepless night for all of us, we packed up the man cubs and spent our last morning in Tdot, sat in the children’s emergency walk-in centre only to find out that he too has strep!

Illnesses aside, I gathered my ridiculous amounts of luggage, bid a very tearful goodbye to my home for almost the last five years and arrived at the airport in good time.

Smiles through the strep, stress and suitcases

Goodbye Ron, please don’t cry until we’ve gone…

What can I say?!  I nailed it! Three checked bags, two car seats, a double stroller and five pieces of carry-on luggage, oh and two sick toddlers.  I really can’t take any credit for the success of the journey. The man cubs were exceptionally behaved, patient beyond belief and as charming as always.

Chilled out in the stroller

Blankets and trains…who needs Gravol?!

As we made the arduous walk from the plane to security, I was feeling pretty smug from all the admiring nods from my fellow passengers.  I greeted the UK border official with a relieved smile, knowing my journey was almost over.

Oh fuckity fuckballs, there was just one ‘minor’ oversight on my part…the fact that the Lord and the General are Canadian…and therefore not British…and therefore not eligible to stay in the UK without a visa.  Fuck. Fuck. Fuck! After 45 minutes, two birth certificates, one marriage certificate and a promise to obtain British passports within two months, we are finally on British soil again.

The one upside of being the last person to the baggage claim is that someone had hauled our bags off the carousel for us!  Yay! Now to work out how to wheel two baggage trolleys and a stroller out of the airport without a porter in sight!  Fortunately, we came across some airport management who kindly helped us into the welcoming arms of Granny Ev and Pop.

Almost at the end of our journey, we head to the car park  hoping above all hope that the bags will fit in the car!  Hmmm…the car, where is the car?!  Not on level two, that’s for sure (although it took us over 15 minutes to work that little nugget out!!!)

Luggage in, kidlets asleep, a bag of Hula Hoops in hand, Pop a the wheel and relax!

Things are starting to calm down now.  The boys are on the mend, the grandparents are thrilled and I have finally had a few minutes to myself (sharing those minutes with you!)

A personalised sand box made by Grandad- very happy boys

No doubt there will be lots of ups and downs over the next few days but for now, I am too jetlagged and too flumoxed to even care!

Tally-ho Blighty!