International travels

Well, Ireland anyway. We're planning a small trip around a work conference I'm attending in October. Since I'm still breastfeeding, Ems is naturally coming too, and since I'll need a babysitter that means Husbandio is also tagging along behind. Actually, he's tagging ahead since he's going on a couple of days earlier to spend some time with his best friend who's lived over there for the last few years. I'm glad we're not going too far since I'll be flying alone with Emsy - OK, the flight's only 1hr and 20 mins but that could feel like an enormously long time if she screams all the way!

As I was feeding her last night and mulling over the trip I suddenly realised we didn't have a passport for her - duh! So today, rather than spending a quiet day getting Isabel ready for her first day back at school tomorrow, we spent a lot of time trying to get a decent passport photo taken of a four month old. Clearly using a photo booth was a bad plan, so we went to the Post Office which has a shop attached where they also take passport photos. Sorted, or so I thought. The guy seemed to know what he was doing, plopped Emily down on her back on a cushion, and proceeded to take a series of pictures that made her look like a vampire at best. Everytime I presented them at the Post Office counter (where they have a checking service so that you don't send your passport application off only for it to be rejected for some reason) they gave me a look which said "You don't really expect me to accept that photo do you?". This got me, and eventually Emily too, into a right stressed out state, largely because it made Isabel and I late for our hair appointments (I hate being late!).

The extreme level of incompetence of the man was made even more laughable by what happened later. After our haircuts (yes, we look lovely, thank you!) and a chill out session in Cafe Nero we walked up to the local camera shop, which also does passport photos. They were professionalism personified. We've been in there several times - my mum bought her new camera there when she broke the old one, and Husbandio bought mine when I lost the other one at Whipsnade, and they've been brilliant every time. So this post is now an advert for the camera shop - and deservedly so! I ended up with 8 perfect photos (OK, her ears are sticking out a bit, but that wasn't the photographer's fault!), and managed to send off the passport application this afternoon. Should take two weeks - hope it does, since we're off in a month!


We used the bottom picture in the end. Although I'd rather have used the one below - after all, she is really Pumpkin Rann!