I shivered as the cold London air whipped my long blonde hair into my bright blue eyes while I continued to walk down the sidewalk to our hotel.
"Gracie, wait up!" my younger brother Ben called to me as he ran up beside me. I had been too preoccupied thinking about how much I disliked it here, it was so different that I didn't think I would ever adjust. I had been in London for only a week and was incredibly homesick for my friends and the hot Australian summer I had left behind. We had been living in a hotel in the city as our house wasn't ready for us to move into yet, my dad needed to start his job so we couldn't stay in Australia until it was ready. I didn't even get to finish my school year in Australia; I had left before the end of year 11 so that we would get here before the start of the winter break. That was also another matter, starting school, I was starting at a performing arts school in London and was extremely nervous about making new friends and what the courses would be like, even though I had been at a performing arts school in Melbourne I was afraid the kids there would be much better than me.
Ben and I walked into the hotel lobby to find our parents and our other brother Charlie waiting with all our bags.
"What took you guys so long?" Charlie shouted from across the lobby,
"Benny took about half an hour to decide he only wanted a packet of chips for the car ride!" I replied,
"It was either that or a chocolate bar okay it was a tough decision!" Ben cut in,
"okay guys that's enough! Now get your bags into the car." Mum was always stressed about packing and trips, so we didn't dare get on her bad side. As soon as we had packed the car we started on our drive to Holmes Chapel, our cousins lived there and since they were the only family we had in England we were going to spend Christmas and winter break with them, luckily they had enough spare rooms to accommodate for us. They had used to live in Australia but then moved about five years ago which was a shame because Jeremy, who was 17 like me, used to be one of my best friends so I was insanely excited to see him again. His younger sister Ellen and Ben were quite close too since they were both 11 and Charlie used to get on with both of them, being 13. Aunty Cathy was mum's sister and the two were very close since they were only two years apart and her husband Patrick was crazy funny and was usually the life of the party, him and my dad got on great since they both had a good sense of humour.
The car ride was taking forever and as usual my brothers were being stupid and punching each other when they saw a yellow car, screaming their heads of as they did so, and mum was asleep which is surprising since the boys were making such a racket, I think she may have been listening to music. Dad was jamming out in the front to Elton John and other music from the 60's and 70's while I would occasionally take out my iPod and jam along with him; father, daughter bonding at its best.
After a painfully long 3 hour car ride with multiple toilet stops, I think my mother’s bladder is the size of a pea, we finally arrived at Holmes Chapel. Now we just had to find the house, no doubt this would take my dad another half hour, so I put on my headphones and immersed myself in the voices of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.
As we pulled up to the house we could see them all waiting for us, Jeremy looked so much older - well duh Gracie you haven't seen him in 5 years- and broader, I could tell he was the same though from the smile on his face. Ellen was absolutely beaming, I couldn't wait to run up and hug her. We hopped out of the car and ran towards them; I jumped on Jeremy screaming "JERMY!” which is what I used to call him when I was younger because I couldn't pronounce Jeremy.
"Gracie Bear!" he screamed as we toppled over,
"Gracie!" Ellen came running over to jump on top of me,
