Back to reality

Isabel went back to school today, her first day in Year One. I'd thought she might be a bit nervous since she was towards the end of last year - mind you, that was because she thought she was the only member of her class going up to Year One, and that she wouldn't know anyone. Ah, the self-centred world of the five year old!

However, today dawned bright and windy (very windy - blew the cover off the garden furniture twice!), and she skipped down the path to the school singing "first day back at school - hooray!". You gotta love the little geek. She was even happy going into a new classroom, no hanging on my sleeve, just pootled off - one kiss and she was gone. This is a far cry from the girl who used to have to be peeled off me when she went to her Montessori nursery school in Kilburn, before we moved out to the sticks. It's like she's had a personality transplant - the change in confidence levels is quite remarkable.

I must admit to a guilty sense of relief at sending her back to school. It's been lovely spending the summer with both of my girls (and Husbandio, for two weeks at least) but exhausting. Never mind salaried work, spending every day with a small baby and a five year old is far more draining. Small baby was the least of my problems, since she's now in a lovely routine, and sleeps from 9-9.45am, noon - 2pm, and 4-5pm. Which leaves plenty of time to get stuff done, and even have a nap. Or catch up with Holby. And that's exactly what I did today - my mum was here for the day, and she and I both napped during Emily's lunchtime siesta. But Isabel has no off switch - she's constantly chatting, questioning and, if given half a chance, misbehaving, for every waking second of the day. By about 5pm each day I usually had to say "Just be quiet for 10 minutes!" - this is why normally sane parents resort to the babysitter known as the television. They just can't stand the Chinese water torture of constant communication.

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!

Crafty stuff

I've probably mentioned before, but I'm not really one for craft. I'm not terribly artistic, and Isabel's pictures now are pretty much as good as mine are! She got quite a lot of craft-type presents for her birthday, and we've played with quite a few of them now.

So far, my favourite by a country mile is Hama beads. You place small cylinders onto a peg board, complete a picture, and if you like it, you iron it and the pegs all melt together and hey presto, art! I like it because it's simple, clean (not like painting!) and you can produce something pretty cool looking without too much effort. We all like it actually - some evenings Husbandio, Isabel and I have all been gathered round the coffee table, being creative. We've been working hard on our Hama beads, and below are some of our best creations.


The close second in my book are Connecta Straws. I remember playing with these when I was a kid, and I still like them! We made a little family, although they needed a little help to sit up!


We'll be moving on to making windchimes and friendship bracelets soon - and of course expanding our Hama bead repertoire. Watch this space!

Smooching with Goats

I know you're all desperately waiting to hear about the jam, so I won't keep you in suspenders. It was delish! Although one jar smells slightly of Thai green curry paste which is a bit offputting. I ran it through the dishwasher and the steriliser, but that curry paste clearly isn't easily washed away! Mental note for next time - don't use a curry paste jar for storing things in once it's empty.

Today's excitement was more to do with animals than fruit. We spent the day at Odds Farm Park with some friends and their 2.5 year old who is a real cutie. There was a brilliant playground next to the picnic area which kept the kids entertained, and we then mooched slowly round the farm, doling out sheep and goat food to the most worthy looking candidates. Isabel wasn't at all sure about feeding the goats at first but finally plucked up her courage and then thought it was great, and said it felt like they were kissing her hand when they ate the food off it.



The sun came out as the afternoon wore on and we had a lovely day, although we did at one point think we'd lost Isabel which was a rather heart-stopping moment. She was in the playground, and had actually asked if she could go, it was just that she hadn't said "right, I'm off now" and we couldn't see her for a couple of minutes. Looooooong minutes. But all's well that ends well. I almost had heart failure again a few minutes later in the gift shop when I gave Emily, who had been asleep for over two hours, a little poke to make sure she was OK, and she didn't move a muscle. A devil on my shoulder then shouted "she's died in her sleep, you terrible mother", causing my heart to stop for the second time in about an hour. But of course this was complete rubbish, she was just having a nice nap thank you very much, and could I please stop poking her? Silly Mummy.....

Getting my hands dirty

So, we live in the countryside, and that means the smell of cows, the sound of cockerels in the morning, and a veritable supermarket of goodies on our doorstep. Isabel and I went for a walk the other day and came back with enough blackberries and damsons to make a fruit salad - today, buoyed by our success, we undertook a family excursion to do some proper blackberrying.

Armed with ice cream tubs we set off, and managed to pick almost 2lb of blackberries. And here they are:

The picking was not without its pitfalls - namely thorns and stinging nettles. And the staining qualities of blackberry juice of course.

When we got home we got the breadmaker out, mashed the blackberries, added an unfeasibly large quantity of jam sugar, and after 1hr and 20 mins ended up with this.

The real test will come tomorrow - we'll see what it actually tastes like. And there are still some berries left for an apple and blackberry crumble tomorrow - made with apples from our garden.

This rural life could be fun. Although it was a tiring day for all concerned!

Hippies are just a bit rubbish

We went to Regent's Park today for a picnic with some current and ex-colleagues. And it DIDN'T RAIN. I thought that deserved caps!

After our picnic we went for a walk (mainly so that Emsy would stay asleep, she really was a terrifically grumpy baby all day, poor little thing). And we came across a hippy camp. In Regent's Park! Bizarre. They'd built some very elaborate tree houses and hamocky things, and Isabel and I climbed up to a couple. One even had a library in it. All kind of cool, except I thought it could have been friendlier. We pootled about there for a good 10-15 minutes, but not one hippy approached us. We left, rather bemused as to why the whole installation was there at all. Having Googled it when I got home I found that it was meant to be some sort of art collective, hosting various events. Not when we were there, we only saw a lot of lazy-looking people sitting around in the sun. They had earned it in some way, because the tree houses were very cool:



The signs didn't make it any friendlier:

My theory on hippies, should anyone be interested, is that it looks fun to be one, but it's actually an enormously selfish way of life. Hippies seem to be able to get away with ignoring all of the minutiae of life which the rest of us have to take into consideration: things like getting a job and paying the mortgage, or sending people birthday cards. Does that mean I don't like hippies, or that I'm just jealous? Combination of the two perhaps!

The Baby Boom

I've got a small group of school friends that gets together fairly regularly, and until recently we had a handful of children between us. Not any more. As a group, we are experiencing a significant baby boom. I was actually the first to get pregnant so Isabel's the oldest of our children, and a couple more appeared over the next few years. Currently, between eight of us, there are nine children, and by the end of this year there will be sixteen! And interestingly, of this group of eight, four will have had their children thanks to the wonders of IVF. And of those four, three are having twins.

What is it that's spurred this sudden urge to procreate? My theory is that it's a combination of the credit crunch (can't afford to go out, therefore we're all staying in and making our own entertainment) and the increase in volume of our biological clocks. After all, we're all closer to 50 than we are to 20. God, what a depressing thought. Well, depressing in one way, but not in another - every day I work gets me a day closer to retirement, which spells a reasonable disposal income and the time to do what I like with it. Result!