the adlards

We had a fantastic weekend with the Schonkens and the Midgleys. It’s a pleasure to spend time with people you get on with so well and – as important – whose children get on so well with yours.

BBQs, Pimms, indoor climbing, tennis and lots and lots of talk. Perfect.

It feels strangely lonely coming home to a place where people have only known us for six years. There’s something about school friends that I don’t think I’ve really appreciated before.

Pic above pinched from Phil and Mel’s camera. Pics from Friday and the weekend in the gallery.
Lots more to follow when I have a chance to negotiate copyright with Phil …

Jo joined me on the commute today and, after she’d met everyone, settled quickly to watching her Toy Story dvd. We’ve been on the London Eye, seen a man without a head and met a friendly knight, eaten sandwiches. Who knows what other delights await …

Apparently it’s not always in Sophie’s best interests to turn off the telly.

Some new pics in the gallery.

… amid fits of giggles. Bum-shuffle manically to the telly, punch the button, look over shoulder and collapse in fits of laughter. Repeat.

Fortunately she’s in bed before university challenge …

Josie had a teddybears’ picnic today. It was 36 degrees, so a great day to have forty or fifty kids and their cuddly toys out in the sunshine. Josie chose Sophie’s little stuffed mouse to take with her. Given the risk of sunstroke I’m not surprised she wasn’t prepared to risk her own. I am impressed that at the tender age of three she has understood that when approaching a high-risk opportunity you always, always take someone else’s mouse in, not your own. Investment banking, the self-help industry and any number of other exceptionally lucrative endeavours are entirely founded on this principle – the same principle that saw me as a twelve-year-old ride my brother’s bike down a steep hill and through a wooden fence to see what would happen. Sure I had splinters embedded in my skull, but I could ride to school the next day.

If it all works out I have fun and you have a tanned mouse; if it doesn’t: “Mouse, what mouse? Mine’s in my room, I think.”

Following her critique of MGW’s singing Jo has continued to excercise her not inconsiderable skills in manipulation and control. My, we’re having fun … . We’ve all been a little poorly this week, which I think is intensifying everyone’s grumpiness – not least Dad’s!

Sophie had her first physio appointment on Wednesday and pulled herself up onto her feet for the first time, right in the consulting room. The physio is – perhaps unsurprisingly – not worried about her development at all and has given Michelle some exercises to help Soph develop upper body strength faster.

Work is frenetic at the moment. There’s also lots happening on the Cape Town opportunities front, of which more later.

Those of you interested in the phone saga will be delighted to hear that I’ve decided, after two failed sales, to keep the phone. It’s keeping me entertained. Nokia has released quite a cute piece of software called Lifeblog which creates a timeline of messages, clips, photographs, … and lets you annotate and publish them to a blog. As long as that blog is Typepad (or fully Atom compliant). I’m spending some time writing an interface for WordPress, which is fun. It’s been a while since I wrote useful code.

Today was Josie’s sportsday. I was reminded starkly of how much I used to loathe this time of year at junior school; sportsday was second only to the inter-house gala, but that only began much later. It took several years to figure out that sportsday offered perhaps the year’s best opportunity to bunk out because teachers were unable to manage that many kids all at once in groupings other than their normal classes. Andre and I went to his house and designed space rockets, or to mine and cooked up smoke bombs from saltpetre and icing sugar.

Josie loved learning to run the races last week but was singularly unimpressed with arrangements on the day. I guess somehow all the fun goes out of it when you’re lined up like bullets in a magazine to go charging down the track with a bunch of yelling parents and tense teachers looking on. A dynamic that I’m sure wasn’t there in training …

aah well. Like father like wonderful little girl.

Michelle, Jo and Soph were driving back home today and Michelle was singing “Ba Ba Black Sheep” to Sophie. Eventually Josie piped up: “Stop that Mum! People are trying to drive!”

Londoners lined the streets at noon today to remember 7/7 with two minutes silence. I find there to be something immensely powerful in this sort of unified action in the faceless City – it’s not a protest, it’s not just a rememberance, it’s a flying in the face of danger, it’s the general populace taking on the Churchill-esque role of walking through the ruins encouraging the survivors, it leaves lingering an absolute certainty that no matter how many times these events might be repeated we will still stand.

One must try to remember one’s siblings and extended family abroad. Hope you’ve all had a great holiday.

If you’ve been following the saga of the phone you might be interested to know that my buyer called today to let me know the handset’s faulty. I’ve agreed to take it back and fully refund him. So now to get it swapped out under warranty …

Today Josie got herself out of bed in the morning for the first time. She appeared on the stairs yelling, “Mummy! Mummy! I waked myself up!”

On the upside I think the whole going to sleep thing will be further de-stressed as a result of this discovery.

Both girls are sleeping as close to naked as continence allows. It’s still very hot despite thundershowers late yesterday. Not great weather to be jammed on a train.

The phone sold on Monday to somebody who doesn’t want shipping to Nigeria and has actually paid.

And last – but definitely not least – I’ve found a job I really want. Hold fumbs everyone …