the adlards

I’m in my favourite position: on the deck in the dark with a spot of dinner and a delightful Spanish red. The (minor) girls are asleep and MGW is out with her girlfriends. I’m completing job applications (three new possibles today) and planning alternate business ventures. I’m fully aware of which is more exciting and which is more sensible.

We have our first two visits from friends booked in Cape Town already, so the rest of you need to buck up! Jeremy’s arriving the same day we are and the Coxes are planning a February trip. Can’t wait …

We’ve had three quotes in for our move now. They range enormously. It’s incredible that three blokes can come in and look at exactly the same set of stuff and vary in their estimates of volume by 60%. Perhaps removers should consider employing women into that role. 60% variance in volume translates, as it happens, into 100% variance in cost.

I was going to save this for a day better suited to it, but here’s a pic of the facilities at work today:

Nuff said.

Josie was really quite worried. Sophie had found a green disk of watercolour that had misteriously fallen out of Josie’s paint tray right in front of her.

Last weekend the delightful schonknechts visited. It’s always a pleasure to spend time with them and Josie and Ben get on brilliantly. Josie is still confused between Ben and Anna, ben and anna, and Ben and Helena such that when ben and anna visit anna is called Helena and ben is Uncle Ben. Hopefully when next she meets Uncle Ben it’ll all become clear.

This weekend Vic, Maurizio, Jess and Amelie are visiting. Josie was beside herself with excitement – she found out they were coming 15 minutes before they arrived. Most excitingly they have Jet-the-dog with them. Josie and Sophie were up first this morning and came into the lounge while Jet was still sleeping. They let her out for a wee and gave her water and showed her where the best bits of leftover food were on Sophie’s highchair. “Ooh! Good boy!”
When speaking to dogs Josie pronounces “boy” like Americans pronounce “buoy”. Very cute. For a split second I found myself thinking we should get her a little dog. Just a split second mind …

We’ve had all three removers in to quote now and the first quote back. There’s still lots to be got rid of / sorted out. And there’s still so much that’s completely irresistable on eBay …

The purchasers of our house have convincingly missed the date we’d agreed for exchange of contracts, so we’ve had valuations done for rental and will put the house on the rental market next week if nothing moves on the exchange front. We’d prefer to sell but we can’t afford to have an unsold empty house when we leave in four weeks!

I took a couple of days holiday last week and we went to London on Wednesday to see the Howard Hodgkin exhibition at the Tate. It was wonderful – he’s Michelle’s all-time favourite. They’ve got a great setup at the Tate for kids. There’s a station with five or six different art/craft activities each of which has a stack of materials to choose from. Josie chose to make a mask and picked out loads of stuff to cut and stick. It all went on a tray for her to carry around and work on when we stopped. They must have some terrific CCTV footage of kids sitting on the gallery floors cutting and sticking and drawing.

There are some pics in the gallery (none of the Tate activities as there’s no photography allowed).

We had our first movers in to quote yesterday. I took him through the house and when we got to the garage he kind of stood there quietly for a bit and then: “So you guys moved here from a bigger place temporarily to fill the time before moving abroad?”
A noncommital “Uh” was the best I could manage.

We’ve been in this house nearly four years. Perhaps the accumulation of stuff is why we’ve not stayed in a house this long ever before. Perhaps because we’ve not stayed in a house this long before we’ve not accumulated stuff. 900 cubic feet we’re at (for just the essentials, mind). We’re going to look at garden play equipment to fill out the last 100 cubic feet of a container-load. Woohoo!

It’s been an eventful week or so since last I blogged. On Friday Jo tried to inhale a 50p coin while travelling in the car with Michelle. The experience left her with a scratchy throat and Michelle with palpitations. It reminded me of a day at playgroup when Aunty Jenny was taking us in her brown Variant to feed the deer at Rhodes Memorial and one of us got a lifesaver stuck in his throat. It might have been me, I’m not sure. I have an enduring memory of the person leaning over the front left seat from the rear seat such that his belly was on the top of the backrest while Jenny drove with her right hand while beating his back with her left. Move over Dr Heimlich.

Sophie crawled for the first time last week – just two days after we took the shuffle clip published previously, so that was in the nick of time. She has since figured out climbing onto one of the toyboxes and diving off. Much hilarity, clips to follow.

On Monday I bought my last monthly railcard for quite some time. That feels good.

This from my darling Mum (yes, I grew up with very little sympathy):

“Everyone’s going crazy here after a life guard at Muizenberg had his foot chopped off by a great white. They should be grateful that sharky wasn’t hungry but curious.. No one in their right mind goes walking around in the Kruger Park without a serious gun because they expect to be eaten. In false Bay the sharks come to Seal Island to feed but they also swim around about 200m out beyond the surfline. Being intelligent inquisitive animals they will swim up to unknown creatures in the sea and ” mouth ” them to see what they are, if the object of their investigation then starts kicking the hell out of them with their free leg, they understandably become a little startled and inadvertantly close their mouth suddenly resulting in the shearing off of a foot. If they really wanted to eat you well you’d have no chance. It might be argued that after “tasting ” the lifesavers foot he might then have lined himself up for a real attack, but, hey, lets give him the benefit of the doubt and let him go free and stay well away from his territory next time.”

Must try that “inadvertently closed her mouth” thing next time Sophie bites Jo …

Sophie was working at refining her rodeo shuffle this morning.

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Sophie is developing in leaps and bounds. Or at least at a manic shuffle-pace. She’s now developed quite a vocabulary and will call for her sister at the top of her voice from pretty much the moment she wakes, just after she stands up in her cot and calls for Mum.

She has developed the bum-shuffle into an art form:

• The wobble-shuffle is what’s required when both hands are full – with a doll and an apple for example. It requires immense heel-strenth as the heels are used together with a well-timed torso wobble to drag the body forward. If she ever takes to rock climbing she’ll have a mean heel hook.
• Then there is the gorilla-jog, which is designed, like Dubya’s walk with hands perpendicular to sides, to deliver maximum visual impact by filling as much of the target’s field-of-view as possible. Knuckles are on the floor in front for balance; propulsion is delivered primarily by the calves being extended and pulled back to roll under the bum. This is the one used when trying to scare Josie off a favourite toy and also when coming over for a cuddle.
• My all-time favourite, though, is the galloping-bum-bounce, in which she propels herself diagonally with the assistance of strong thrusts of the leading arm, resulting in truly impressive forward speed but necessitating a complex tacking manouvre to ensure the objective is ever reached.

Her absolute favourite thing in the day is the moment after her bottle at night, when she’s had a cuddle and a burp and Dad says, “Bedtime.”
She leans back with a beautiful smile on her face and half-closed eyes waiting to be put down and tucked into bed.

Like father like daughter …

We found out yesterday that Gina Ford, author of The Contented Little Baby Book and others, is trying to have the MumsNet parents’ peer-support network shut down because of some allegedly libellous statements made by members in discussion. In an effort to avoid being shut down MumsNet has banned all reference to Gina Ford on their website. It is fitting that an action apparently born of ignorance has led to a reaction that is in nobody’s best interests. You can read the MumsNet statement yourself.

Somewhere between 60,000 and 250,000 parents use MumsNet as a support forum, with somewhere in the region of 10,000 posts daily. Gina Ford’s actions are petty and outrageous. It’s gratifying this morning to see many mainstream papers picking up the thread:

The baby guru who threw her bottle out of the pram Daily Mail
This is my favourite: “Perhaps she is just at that age where she needs to test the boundaries. Or maybe she didn’t have her afternoon sleep.
Whatever the reason, Gina Ford has launched into what can only be described as an old-fashioned tantrum.”

Mothers’ website falls foul of Queen of Routine Independent
Childcare expert threatens to have website shut down Guardian Unlimited
Childcare guru goes to war over website Times Online

Posturing of this kind is always annoying – the story thus far is:

• Gina gets offended by MumsNet postings
• Gina gets her lawyers, Foot Anstey, to get antsy with the group of mums who run the website
• The website goes further than is reasonable in accommodating her demands (they deleted entire discussion threads)
• Gina’s lawyers continue to threaten legal action unless MumsNet pays damages and legal fees
• MumsNet refuses and Gina’s lawyers go to the website hosts demanding that the site be shut down
• In a last-ditch effort to avoid legal action MumsNet bans all reference to Gina Ford on their website
• Gina is labelled a petty cow in every major paper and online forum in the UK

So why‘s she doing this again? There should be additional penalties for time wasting.

As much as the hype around Web2.0 and online communities (like they’re new) annoys me, this seems to be an example of someone who either doesn’t begin to understand the phenomenon, or is just unbelievably stupid, suffering irreparable reputational damage as a result of her ignorance. Her solicitors at least should have known better. If she’d let it lie after her initial complaint this would have fizzled out, but now it’s being picked up by hundreds of thousands of people who see the integrity of their online communities being threatened.

If anyone from MumsNet is reading this, my suggestion is that you propose marketing Gina’s farts online as nursery air freshener to help her cover her legal fees. Book sales might not cover it …

Josie and Michelle went to the movies together this morning to watch Cars. There was popcorn. Josie was rapt throughout; no toilet breaks, no fear, no talking. All in all a much better experience at the movies than Michelle has when she goes with me.

The Cox’s are in town this weekend. We got together yesterday evening at Wagamamas and met the delightful Jemima, latest edition to the Cox clan. They’re in London today, I’m meeting Mark at the Goat later and we’ll all have a lazy day together tomorrow. Cracking weekend …

You may have seen the London tonight piece about tea houses on telly last night and felt your pulse quicken and your attention sharpen during the montage of oh-so-behind-the-times coffee drinkers. Well that was me. So quick as to be almost invisible, but cleverly recognised by ITV as being essential to the success of the whole.

If, of course, you actually know me then chances are you were either commuting or watching kids telly at that time and missed the spectacle. Which, of course, begs the question why anyone would screen “London tonight” while London’s still at work. Perhaps it’s aimed at people who wish they were in London. Perhaps ITV’s forgotten how to aim.

I was filmed during a meeting with Sarah in the coffee shop. They assured us the sound wasn’t on so we filled five minutes of film with inflamatory gossip to test them.