Three weeks in.....

Hello everyone,
Well, its not actually three weeks in the UK. We've been here since March 2011 living with my mother-in-law up in Shrewsbury, but its now three weeks since we've all moved into our apartment here in Worcester Park. I've decided to write this blog to help any parents, especially parents of children with learning disabilities, who decide like we did to do this crazy move across the ocean to start our lives all over again. Maybe some of you will be able to give me some advice, since I am quite the fish out of water here sometimes.

Today I'm trying to yet again get my son's speech therapy report to the people at the speech and language department of the Kingston district. It was supposed to have been faxed there by the speech therapist up in Shrewsbury almost a month ago, but after finally getting a hold of them by phone and being told that they did not have his report and they would get back to me, then not hearing from them for a week and having to call again to have them say that they really don't have it, I am now going to try and call the therapist up in Shrewsbury to ask her to send it again. If she doesn't have it, then I'm going to have to find a way to get a copy of the report I have to them......difficult to do without a car and with two children. I have found that the bureaucracy in England is particularly difficult and absent-minded; especially when it comes to schools and the NHS. This blog will be full of rants in the future if what I have experienced so far is any indication. (I will relate the frustrating first meeting with older son's new school in another blog, as I am on borrowed nap time).

I'd like to end each blog with some likes and dislikes of England, so here goes:
LIKES:
-Dark Chocolate Digestive Biscuits
-The fact that the main street (high street) here has a vegetable stand (fruiterers) and a butcher shop....something you would not see in the US anymore. The people at the fruiterers already know older son's name as we are in there almost every day and he loves all fruits and veggies.....also probably because I have to watch that he doesn't just "take" something and eat it as we leave.
-there is a very good train and bus system here, and we don't feel the loss of our car as much as I thought we would. I'm getting a lot of walking done, which I like, especially since its a pleasant time to spend with the boys.
-there is wild blackberries and lavender growing everywhere around here, which is strange to have so much wilderness around when we are about a half an hour away from London by train. England seems to be much closer to the farm than the US is.