Sea shipment

We got our sea shipment on Friday! It took exactly 5 weeks, which is much better than the 8 weeks we were told to prepare ourselves for. In retrospect, I have to say that this move was really well organized and worked out in the best possible way. We had what we needed in our suitcases, we got our air freight within a few days of arriving here and our sea shipment came right when we were starting to get antsy for our things and were settled in. All in all, I am so happy with the way it all worked out. We were all very excited to see our things. But we miss our big old American size house. This place we are living in does not have any closets. Yep, NO CLOSETS. This is typical in England and I think it is to save space- because again, everything is small here. This house has built in wardrobes in place of closets. That is fine for 5 pieces of clothing and two pairs of shoes, but not fine for the remaining pieces of clothing, shoes, boxes or anything bigger. So while we are happy to see our things, we are finding that we are having an extremely hard time finding places for everything. The beautiful conservatory that I loved so much has become a playroom. There is just no other place for the toys because the girl's bedrooms are tiny. Gerbie's room has a built in desk that we cannot remove, so her dresser has been relocated to our bedroom. The guest room has a lot of built in wardrobes which are going to be filled with our clothes that are off season. And the garage --thank goodness they don't actually use garages over here for cars, because that is going to be our storage for anything we don't need right this minute or that is too big for our wardrobes. But we need to be careful with that too, because we have had a visitor in the garage -- a mouse. We don't really want to invite his whole family to join him. The mouse really does not shock or surprise me --this is an older house, nothing a little mouse trap won't take care of. As long as he stays in the garage in the meantime and does not enter the house, then we will be just fine- and as long as he stays hidden when I do laundry, as the washer and dryer are in the garage. We have also planned a trip to Ikea for some storage options. A big toy box in the conservatory might go a long way in reclaiming some of the peace and tranquility that the room offered, before it looked like we robbed a Toys R Us store. And since there are no bathroom cupboards at all, some storage options for in those rooms might be nice too. We will make do and in a few weeks I am sure all of our things will have found homes in our new place. But seriously, do these people in England know what they are missing by not having closets? There are a lot of things I miss about my house back in the US - the double sinks in the master bath, my garden bath tub, the big bedrooms, the basement playroom.... but I think closets and cupboard space just topped the list!