Old Portsmouth - nurseries/childminders/Little Shipmates - aargh decisions

[LovelyKay]

Just got our RN housing allocation confirmed as Old Portsmouth. Hurrah! Now just need to sort out ... errr ... everything else. In particular two days a week care for my 2 and 4 year old.

Wondered if anyone here knows much about Little Shipmates in HMS Nelson? Are they chocka? Or can you recommend a good childminder? Still not sure which route to take (but have a definite feeling that I may not be able to do whatever I want anyway, there may be 'availability issues' oh dear).

Is Portsmouth the sort of town where you need to put names down at nurseries before they are born? Certainly hope not as need to be a bit sorted by February half term!

Any advice much appreciated.

We used to send the boys to Rose Lodge just along the sea front (opposite pier) which was good. This was 2 years ago. Run by ex RN couple.

Not sure how much help that is, but you will love Old Portsmouth. I really miss it...and I know all my old friends were having fun in the American bar tonight....

Hi mumof(hopethat'sjust2)boys,

Thanks for that! I'm looking forward to Portsmouth and being by the seaside will be brilliant. Have been making enquiries at the Roberts Centre nursery but will go to look up the Rose Lodge now...

and the American bar too of course...

Were you in the Woodville Drive area? Am trying to find out the vague layout of the houses. We'll be at the memorable no.69.

Latest Homeport magazine has incredibly helpful (?) article about moving home in which it recommends checking the measurements of rooms to be sure furniture will fit etc. Not sure that is very helpful for MQ moves. So far don't even know if living room is downstairs or upstairs. Have visions of changing mind about best place for 3 tonne dead weight sideboard. Movers are going to love us!

I can't help much with nurseries but I can say there's a very active spouses group (we used to live in Eastney, moved to Lee on the Solent, but I still go to the Southsea coffee group). The houses are 3 story townhouses with the kitchen, cloakroom, and small dining room on the ground floor, living room and some bedrooms on 2nd and more bedrooms on 3rd. I'm not sure what floor other bathroom(s) are on. In my opinion the dining room is TINY. The back gardens are postage stamps. Sorry I don't have more details on them but our old house was completely different.

I've never had the feeling that people were putting names of LO's down for nursery while they were in utero so I imagine you'll be fine with waiting a bit. I can put in a plug for the nursery we use at Port Solent but it's nowhere near Southsea.

The "regulars" at coffee group (Tuesdays at 10:30) include a fairly large int'l contingent (including me, a Yank) which I like. If you'd like more details, I'd be happy to forward them to you along with the organizer's email address (which I don't have handy) - I'm sure she'd be happy to answer other questions for you about housing.

Hope this helps.

Hi Laraeo, What a mine of info, thanks! Would be great to get in touch with the local group. Nice to hear it is a pretty mixed bunch from all over.

I shall be down in Portsmouth at a loose end every Thursday evening in January so may well come prowling around the street peering in at the windows of the new house - let's hope it's empty... Managed to get a look at the outside of the street when I was down for a job interview so realised the gardens were smallish. Bit sad to hear that the dining room is likely to be tiny - any space for table & chairs in the kitchen perhaps?

It's so tempting to try planning these things ahead, isn't it? But maybe best to just wait and see what happens when we turn up. I wonder if the DHE realise the huge chunks of goodwill they'd build up by producing rough floorplans for anxious movers!?