Today I travel to Barlborough for a rather large project initiation meeting. BUT Thameslink cancelled the 0724 which was my connecting train – just a ten minute trip – so instead of getting there at 930 I’ll get there at 11. A mere three and a half hours door to door. What’s more I forgot my 3g card at home so am reduced to blogging on my phone while email gathers beyond my reach.
Not an illustrious start to the day.
It was a stunningly beautiful morning: ground haze being burned off by the heat of the sun and the traffic to reveal a crystal clear blue sky; birds trying manfully to be heard above the rumble of tyres on tarmac; the acrid taste of carbon on the tongue as I drew my first deep breath of fresh morning air. Aaah, what it is to be alive in this brief carcinogenic moment.
It is traditional, on one’s wedding day, to save a tier of the cake (if said cake comes with tiers) to cut at the christening of your first-born. Ours had no chance. I think it might have lasted as long as 3 months after the wedding, perhaps six. That cake was good. No, I mean goooood. Every Christmas my little heart beats faster as the prospect of rich fruit cake looms closer, and every Christmas I’m comparatively disappointed. Last Christmas we had a pudding which came close. OK, yes, we had four of them. They came really rather close … but they were not to be confused with the real thing.
Today my Aunt Barbi who produced the initial version, the alpha particle, the very first astoundingly good exemplar, sent me the recipe. May-the-good-Lord-pour-out-more-blessing-on-her-and-her-livestock-than-she-can-easily-deal-with (which is quite a lot, I suspect). Now there’s no way I’m publishing the recipe here (no begging please), but I thought you’d like to know that I’m in the market for about 20 pounds of assorted fruit and nuts, a couple of litres of good liquor and a fair old whack of all the other cake-type ingredients you’d expect. If I get my act together it’ll be a Christmas to remember. Chances are this takes some practice, so perhaps Christmas 2009 will be a Christmas to remember.
In the gallery today: Josie decorates her little sister with glitter stickers; helps build shelves by holding the nail for dad; tests out her new bookshelf; Sophie models the hoodie look.
Josie moving far too fast for me to catch her front-on with my phone.
“Michelle, you’re a fairy, a star, and a saint all rolled into one.”
“What? A fart?”
She really is very quick.
We woke still all full of colds and flu and exhaustion but, HEY!, it’s Bank Holiday weekend. We were in the park by 10, while it was still relatively empty. Some quality time on the swings and slides then a quiet coffee and ice cream stop before we found the new toddlers water play area (pic above). It’s a great place – a soft surface area as big as a large swimming pool with spouts and fountains and showers all over it. The smaller sprays are always on for little kids, the huge ones have buttons to trigger them. Josie loved it although she’s still not sure about the whole showering thing.
No, her hair’s not red, that’s my phone pretending to be a camera. Mr Camera was very usefully sitting in the living room while we were out in the sunshine.
Josie and I spent a good part of the day scrubbing down old garden furniture to put to use at the bottom of the garden. We also put up a bookshelf for Josie’s books. She helped all the way up to the drilling part; she was very brave and decided to stay in and help me drill, so we were all in the living room together. I gave a little test drill in the air and all seemed well, so I ripped into the wall. I glanced up to see Michelle leaping across the room and two little girls doing their very best starfish impressions, mouths wide open screaming together.
I stopped. They went outside. I drilled the other three holes and then all was peace and harmony.
Back to work for me tomorrow, but I’ve taken Friday off so it’s a three day working week! Mark, Sarah and Elspeth come to visit next weekend. Can’t wait to see them all again …
I woke this morning to Josie on one of those perpetual yell-loops, “Mummy. Daddy. Mummy. Daddy.” etc ad nauseum. It admittedly took a while to get through to me but then I rolled out of bed, letting her out of her 2-by-4 dungeon just before the spikes lowered far enough to pierce her kneecaps. She didn’t want to dress or take any clothes downstairs despite it being cold so we staggered down, me topless and her bottomless. I put the telly on and made a pot of coffee. Two cups in she decided she was cold. Casting about in desperation for a reason not to climb the stairs I found a pair of trousers left from one of several eBay envelopes that have arrived at the door over the last few days. It seems you cannot, however, wear trousers without panties. Crawled upstairs to search for a tiny pair of knickers.
Back dowstairs the requirement for trousers had passed. It returned after another cup of coffee, however, and dressing began in earnest. I helped Josie on with her knickers twice, both times winding up with a leg-hole around her waist. Sadly, I have no confidence that had I tried a third time I would have got it right. So convinced was I, in fact, that I’d got it right the second time that I decided I’d got it right the first time too, and that it was OK to wear a pair of knickers with a waist so tight you couldn’t grip them to pull them up since Michelle, who knows all things, hadn’t taken them out of circulation. I left them on and moved on to trousers.
Fortunately Michelle came downstairs at this point and fell about laughing before showing me the crotch gusset which had been positioned over Josie’s hip. I know to look for gussets now. Later in the day I found out why gussets are useful, but I’ll spare you that.
After a fourth cup of coffee and an hour or so staring into space I was judged awake enough to drive so we went out.
The ends of my days are not much more distinguished. Last night, holding Josie’s hand to go up to bath, I tripped and made a damn fine attempt to somersault upstairs. I whacked my head hard on a step with a clear line of sight to my ankles (about six inches away – I know I’m not that supple) and landed in a heap on the stairs completely disoriented. Josie laughed so hard she couldn’t stand.
Oh well. At least I make them laugh.
In the knowledge that health, wealth and wisdom matter to us all I thought I’d remind you that tequila helps with the former and caffeine – plenty of it – with the latter.
Of course, you might get enough physical exercise in your day and live somewhere the hours of daylight are designed to support the initial premise. A farm in Ah-frika for example. Which reminds me – you won’t believe this – that phrase came up in interview the other day. One of my stock questions is why the interviewee is interested in working with us. This particular candidate started off with, “Well I grew up on a farm in Africa …” with his sideways-glancing-I’m-playing-my-ace-now-are-you-listening face on. He obviously hadn’t recognised my accent, which admittedly five years on is substantially lighter than his thirty years on. I was absolutely stunned; here was a Karoo boy sitting in front of me telling me that sheep farming in the Free State half a century ago predisposed him to work with me.
I suppose we all have our reasons, although I suspect his farm in Ah-frika predisposed him to every job he applies for. Ummm, how did I get to this point? I ran out of tequila last week, so it’s not that … oh well, later doods
Just updated the gallery
If I thought that the mere fact of living abroad would render him immune to prosecution I would publish Tim’s pictures, taken with camera and motor-drive, of his oldest son flinging himself from the top of the toy-room wardrobe. It’s a tricky one, that, isn’t it? If you stop your child from jumping neither one of you gets the adrenalin hit; if you try to catch him you both get the hit but one or both of you certainly winds up in hospital. Telling him to wait while you fetch a camera is a great solution.
Leaping out of the top of cupboards has something of a history in our respective families; I’m pretty sure Tim and I did some cupboard jumping, although while I think I can remember climbing to the top of his mum’s cupboards I can’t remember the jumps. MGW bent her first steel bedframes leaping from the tops of wardrobes. Malcolm had the good sense to jump onto beanbags, which at least had the potential to explode into a gratifying shower of little white bobbles.
I’m not even going to start on lighting fires with gasoline. Didn’t you think I was good to get through a whole piece about cupboards without once refering to anyone’s drawers?
Not me. I’m ill, tired, cranky and more vitriolic than the soon-to-retire runner-up in a national election. Not that I’d say anything of course …
It may be noted at this point that the discerning toddler is not very far removed from the average teenager.