the adlards

I didn’t blog yesterday but I have survived the weekend. Mostly by eating curry as it happens. I figure there’s no bacterium that could survive more than 30 seconds on something that hot so my odds of being ill (through poisoning) were small.

I did also (I know you’re concerned) eat breakfast and lunch. Well, on Sunday I did. Having found myself unequivocally awake at 5am I thought cooking breakfast was as good a thing to fill the time as any.

The Three landed in Cape Town safe and sound yesterday morning. Sophie slept pretty much all the way. Josie only slept for an hour and a half (the hour and a half Sophie was awake) but, I’m told, was very good. She watched a lot of unsuitable telly. “Mummy, this is not a nice story” as she watched The Curse of the Were Rabbit through twice.

The three are airborne and winging their way South to warmer climes. I’m left with an empty feeling in the pit of my stomach, probably because all I’ve ingested today is a bowl of Weetabix and two lattes. It was considerably easier saying goodbye to them this time as I’m going to join them in a couple of weeks rather than just not see them for a month.

So, what to do … where to begin …?

With a bag of crisps and a pint of course 😀

Brent came to dinner on Tuesday night. Josie really took to him: “I like your friend, Daddy.” She did insist on calling him Margaret, which he took very well. I think he makes a very fine Margaret.

Brent read her her bedtime stories (about as close to singing for your supper as we get) and she insisted he put her to bed, which was a refreshing change from the usual daily “No, Mummy take me to bed.”

It was very good to catch up. Things are going well in Bahrain (and there’s no tax). It sounds like the family is thriving, the place is beautiful in its own way and the job is stimulating. And – there’s.no.tax.

Interestinger and interestinger

“Mummy, Daddy’s got a wiggly bottom” (pronounced boppom)
“Has he?”
“Yes, have you got a wiggly bottom?”
“No I haven’t got a wiggly bottom Josie.”
“Daddy’s bottom is wiggly … it’s long … and wiggly like a caterpillar.”

Time to invest in an en suite.

It was the Christmas that Peter got a set of rubber molds for making animals out of plaster of paris. We were in house number five and I remember mixing plaster with him at the shed halfway down the garden and lining up molds to dry in the hot Christmas sun; I remember pots of yellow and green and black paint and it being very difficult to make a plaster cast look at all lifelike; I remember Grandpa sitting on the veranda near the stag’s horn cracking wallnuts with his bare hands; I remember being instructed, shortly before Christmas, that Joy & Ted were henceforth and without exception to be known as Grandma & Grandpa. I remember asking why. I don’t remember what I got for Christmas.

That is, of course, the earliest memory I have of Grandma & Grandpa. I don’t think I have any of Joy & Ted. I certainly remember driving in convoy behind the machine gunner in our Volkswagen to visit them in Bulawayo; I remember the stacks of Coke bottles in crates in preparation for Barbi’s wedding and I remember finding bullfrogs in and around the pool (and dropping my new cowboy hat into the water) at the school where Grandpa taught; I remember them being around but can’t picture them before that Christmas.

I remember Grandma telling me stories about the War and the WAAF; I remember her love of occasion, especially New Year, and that she never once in thirty-four years missed a birthday of mine, always showing stubborn generosity that refused to be limited by her means; I remember her implicit insistence on proper etiquette – I remember feeling compelled to say, “Pardon me” when a girlfriend (who shall remain nameless) belched loudly near enough for her to hear; I remember taking a call from her in the gardens of Hatfield House for an animated chat while she was visiting her sister in Newcastle; I remember her pride in the accomplishments of her children and grandchildren and I remember her eyes lighting up talking about her husband and what a wonderful man he was … I’ve wondered what it must be like to have nobody you care about call you by your right name for such a very long time.

Grandma passed away peacefully this evening in Cape Town. She’ll always be Grandma to me, but I hope this evening that someone she loves is calling her by name.

I finally got around to fitting smoke alarms in the girls’ rooms today. They sleep with their doors closed so we can’t rely on the main alarms to let us know if they discover the art of fire-making while enjoying a midnight feast or have an accident while lighting farts.

I thought I’d been very careful to involve Josie in the work without letting her know precisely what was going on given her concerns about loud noises and fire. When it came to bed time she looked up at the alarm and said, “Daddy, you put that in my room.”
“Yes I did. I put it there to keep us all safe.”
“Yes you did. That’s a fire alarm. If it goes beep then you come rescue me and fireman comes to put out fire.”

So she has that sussed. I hope she can’t reach the test button.

Work over the road is moving on at pace. The site levelling was complete just after New Year and in the last few days BCC Services “the piles specialists” have arrived on site.

They are, as you would expect, drilling enormously deep holes, dropping steel I-bars down them and filling them with concrete. What you wouldn’t expect is that the only disturbingly noisy part of this operation occurs when the drill operator tries to shake the clay off his drill by switching very rapidly between forward and reverse emitting a metallic clank of a magnitude that double-glazing is powerless to dampen.

I thinkhis clay-shaking tactic is a sneaky ploy to gradually increase the noise levels as build progresses so that when there are sixty builders on site in a couple of weeks we don’t even notice they’re there. And certainly don’t complain.

Yes, Michelle has an extremely painful neck. Quite how rabbit-punched becomes bunny-whipped is somewhat beyond me but I’m hoping Anne Summers plays a part.

Daddy, you come home from work!
Yes darling I came home because I love you.
That’s right.
And you know what? Tomorrow I’m not going to work.
You staying here!?
That’s right. Some days I go to work to earn money to buy food and clothes –
That’s right. I need new clothes and you need new clothes. You need new shirts. And you need new trousers ‘cos your jeans are poopy. We wash the poopy off in the … in the …
Washing machine?
That’s right. We wash the poopy off in the washing machine.

MICHE-E-E-LLE!?

Jo is beginning to really look forward to flying to South Africa next month. She and Mum have chosen their seats and, I’m informed, “You can come on the aeroplane too if you want. There’s a seat for you too.” I’m trying to get her to understood that I’ll be on a different plane two weeks later. She’s not quite there yet – I’m hoping she understands that well before we get to the airport.

She is, however, making progress on seperating out her grandparents and their various dogs in her mind. She’s always been very definitely flying 8000 miles to visit maggie-the-dog. She’s progressed now to visiting two Nannies, two Poppas and two maggie-the-dogs. The excitement’s almost more than she can contain, as evidenced by the patches she’s worn bouncing on the sofa.