the adlards

There are good things and there are bad things about improving language skills.
“Out of way Mum! Need to see telly!”
“Did I hear you say please?”

It’s been a frenetic week – loads happening at work and all of us recovering from colds in turn. There’s been lots I’ve wanted to blog this week but haven’t; here are some bits I shouldn’t have missed …

The lake froze over again early in the week. Pics to follow when we’re home. In the ongoing cold snap it’s been a week for staying indoors as far as possible. Cabin fever culminated in a manic Michelle-and-Josie ribbon dance on Thursday afternoon. I worked from home on Friday to help nurse them back to health.

Congratulations Clare and Nick on the birth of Sarah last week! May she be a great blessing to you and everyone whose life she touches.

And belated happy birthday to Ben the day after little Sarah.

I must make time to blog, it helps keep me sane. We’re visiting Phoe, Nin and Emma today. Sophie-sitting while everyone else is out for a walk provides this opportunity to write.

The lake in the park froze over on Friday (mostly) and Michelle and Jo watched some “big boys” breaking up the ice and throw it about. It was nearly an inch thick and I’m told made an amazing noise when the boys broke manhole-cover sized bits off and sent them skidding across the ice. Josie had great fun picking up shattered bits and flinging them into the lake – she is, by her own admission, very big and strong …

On the way to the park Jo told Michelle, “It’s winter. Leaves are falling off.” Which served to both surprise her Mum and inspire me to finally get my butt in gear and change the somewhat inappropriate summer masthead on this site.

We updated the gallery yesterday with some pics from the last month.

It’s one of those crystal clear winter mornings which simultaneously freeze my face off and fill my heart with joy. It’s also Friday, which doesn’t freeze my face off but probably helps with the other thing.

I got the girls up this morning when they woke and the timings were such that I had the very rare opportunity to spend half an hour chatting to Sophie alone. She really is the most startlingly eloquent infant. The amount she can convey with her eyes alone is staggering. And so beautiful.

Jo was up a couple of times in the night and, for my part, those were far less eloquent encounters. After much tummy rubbing on the second occassion I realised with a start that she’d actually been asking for a dummy and was right then thinking, “Oh for goodness sake, what’s the daft bugger up to now? Send me my Mum!”

We got email out of the blue last night from Brent Jackson to say that, For One Night Only, he would be visiting London. So I’ve just had a great couple of hours catching up with Brent over a spot of dinner. I think last time we saw Brent we were all at uni together on the other side of the world. Now he’s in Bahrain and we’re in London and we still have a lot in common. Bahrain’s worth a look I reckon.

Now I’m jammed on a train next to a halfwit who thinks he’s entertaining the carriage with his half of a conversation with his girlfriend. He lives with his parents so this is probably the only chance he gets to have a candid conversation. Pity he’s not using it.

Opposite me is a stoned young lady who is convinced the person sitting next to her is interested in how she spent her evening. She’s so far gone she’s telling her about people she doesn’t know and reading her text messages over her shoulder. Very longsuffering neighbour. My goodness I’m grumpy 😉

I have a new phone which is much better for blogging on the train but doesn’t have a camera and still looks uncomfortably like a highly functional brick. Perhaps this is what an intelligent housing system is.

Jo went to an art group yesterday morning and had a wonderful time painting with her fingers and a paint brush. I think Michelle enjoyed it too although staffing levels suggested that the cover charge just covered clean up.

Last night for the first time Jo told me about her actual day rather than her ideal day, her aggregated week-to-date, or her imaginary day. When I left for work in the morning I told her I’d be back at bathtime and when I was she said, “Dad, it bathtime and you come home!” and then launched into the tale of her day. She’s obviously getting to grips with the fundamentals of the passage of time although patience still seems to be somewhat beyond her …

It has been a real pleasure coming home to the Three this weekend. Josie woke on Saturday morning with, “You come home.” Simple as that. Lots of cuddles but no further questions. Sophie is as placid and good-natured as ever except, perhaps, when she has a really bad time coughing at which point we’ve imagined we see a definite foreshadowing of “PLASTER! P-L-A-S-T-E-R!”.

Michelle is a star and a blessing. She’s raising two wonderful daughters and is outshining them in wonder and beauty and all-round quirkiness at every turn. They’re lucky to have her. As am I.

Lots of walking (in the cold I’m suddenly not used to) and planning and dreaming this weekend. It’s been fun.

A post I wrote on the train from Gatwick but haven’t had a chance to post, so dated retrospectively …

On our return to the hotel last night just before 8 we were met by crowd barriers and burly security men in tuxedos with earpieces. The front of the Carlton Intercontinental had a huge Bond sillouette projected onto it. Having established our credentials we were welcomed into the lobby by Hale Berry and Oddjob (the hat-throwing oriental from Goldfinger, I think), with behind them an avenue of Bond girl look-alikes directing us towards the mayhem beyond.

There were lasers and mood lights, jazz bands, string quartets, paino bars, DJs and pounding sound-and-light shows over dance-floors. It was a great evening. I once again proved singularly incapable of getting to grips with PS2 controls, but fared somewhat better on the blackjack tables. The only disappointment was the total absence of Martinis. Perrier for me.
Oh, and the predicted gender balance made dancing a little less appealing than the music deserved.

But NEVER MIND ALL THAT, I’m home!
Sophie’s better, Michelle’s doing well, and we’re hoping Josie’s moody-ness and penchant, developed over the last two days, for throwing things will disappear as soon as she sees me in the morning. She’s apparently been talking to me in the back of the car in the past two days and then yelling, “NO!” if Michelle asks if she’s giving Daddy a cuddle. This is why I don’t like being away for long …

Doesn’t look it though, does it? I made some time today to sit and watch it for a while, which was a treat.

It’s the conference gala event tonight, which is being held in the hotel I’m staying in. Setup is well underway and it looks like they’ll be using every salon in the hotel. Each room’s getting a different Bond theme (it is an IT conference, after all). I’m sitting in the bit of the lobby I’ve found to have the best free wireless access and there are spotlights and flame-effects being moved in all around me.

The whole thing reminds me of the anticipation before formal school dances, in particular my school-leaving dance, which was also Bond themed and took place just a few months after Michelle and I met. I can clearly remember how beautiful Michelle looked and the delight of escorting her into the dance on my arm. I think tonight’s will be quite different. For one thing I don’t think many of these IT boys packed dresses; for another I don’t expect to have to queue for luke-warm beef stroganoff.
Eek. I’d forgotten that.

It’s startling to think that some of those bossy school-dance-organiser-type-people go on and do the same thing for the rest of their lives. This is, admittedly, on a slightly different scale; my room, which affords me a lovely view of the backside of the hotel, this morning afforded me a view of mountainous palettes of drinks being moved around with forklift trucks while an army of porters unloaded a collection of trucks – an operation which appears to have continued unabated pretty much all day.

Here’s a pic of the hotel from the pier. I’m going home tomorrow and I can’t wait 😀

That’s a yesterday evening pic; it’s a little cloudier today.

Something’s up with my body clock. I didn’t set an alarm last night because I decided I probably need some sleep but I woke, wide-eyed, at 6.30 (which is 5.30 UK time). This is most unlike me. I proceeded to have a good breakfast. This is most unlike me. I had time to wonder down to the beach before the first sessions of the day.

I’m reminding myself of a me I’d almost forgotten.

I’ve just chatted with Michelle; Sophie is still very ill. Michelle’s picked up a very sore throat too and Jo woke up three times during the night, so it’s intense disruption all round. I find it very frustrating not being there to help. Mind you, if I was I would almost certainly be the leading invalid …

Two things struck me tonight. One when walking in the garden of the beautiful restaurant where I had dinner; the other just as I put half my imaginary cash onto the blackjack table later in the evening.

The thing that struck me as I wandered in the garden, having exhausted my supply of social patience for a short while, was that very many of the wonderful people I’d left back in the restaurant were very much like the spectacular sculpted horses leaping from the fountain in the centre of the garden: on closer inspection they turned out to be fibreglass shells that nobody had bothered to make the arse-end of because that was supposed to be underwater.

The second was that only by recognising that you have nothing can you hope to risk enough. Something I’d perhaps lost sight of a little in the search for my arse-end.

So a useful day. I wound up doing lots of work as it happened, but got into the sessions I needed to. Dinner was a spectacular buffet on the terraces overlooking said garden with more variety than you could shake a stick at. Highlights for me were the best smoked salmon I’ve ever had, sliced on the buffet and served with capers; similarly excellent parma ham similarly sliced; lots and lots of whitebait. With good champagne to cleanse the palette in between I ate more than I’ve eaten for a very long time. At least since breakfast.