Mishmash

If a strange child (by strange I mean unknown rather than odd) aged about 5 was bullying your child (age 3) and the parent of strange child was sitting, reading his newspaper and ignoring his daughter, would you tell the child off? I took the FB to the local leisure centre today as he loves the soft play area there and a little girl corralled him with a giant exercise ball and wouldn't let him move until another parent told her to let him go, then she refused to let him play on one of the toys there, and finally told him he wasn't allowed to play in the actual soft play area and he was to go away. That's when I intervened and had words with her. What would you have done?



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On our way home from the supermarket yesterday the FB and I saw this tree in bloom...
A few hours later the sky had darkened and it hailed. Today it snowed!





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No Rule of 3 today done. Instead the FB and I went out. He played and I read The Book Thief and sobbed at it. Beautiful book, thanks for recommending it Nutmeg.


How do you get Blogger to behave and publish posts without messing up the formatting? Grrrr

Make Your Mind Up Will You

The Nor' wind blows and in a trice
What was water now is ice
What sweet rippling water was
Now bewitched is into glass

We used that poem in handwriting class in Primary 6 and that's all I can remember of it. Can't find it on the web alas so I can't even tell you who wrote it, but it has stuck in my head for almost 2 1/2 decades.

Last week Spring had sprung, the daffs were in bloom, cherry blossom adorned the trees and the sun shone gloriously. Over the weekend the wind started up from the north and carried the smell of snow with it. Today, ok the sun is shining as I type, but we've had thunder, sleet and hail. No snow but that may still come. We're back to winter again. Nevermind, maybe tomorrow we'll have fast forwarded to my favourite season, Autumn.

(Rules of three going very well today. Kitchen, utility room and bathroom have clean floors, or rather had. The FB is now in the kitchen with his playdough.....)

The Fly(lady) in the Ointment

I'm lazy. There, I've said it and hopefully you haven't run away in disgust. I would infinitly prefer to sit on my couch and sew or read than get off my rapidly expanding butt and do something, anything about the mess my flat is in. For years I've put it down to disorganisation but well, it is time to face facts. No amount of lists, programmes or control journals is going to solve the problem. Today I started writing down three things that I have to do then and there. No diversions, or sitting down until they are done. When they are ticked off I write out another three and so on. Has it worked? Well my bathroom, utility room, kitchen and hall are tidy, not clean, but tidy. It's a start. I only hope I can be bothered to continue.

It's not easy being green

We are experiencing a plague of frogs in our home at present. The little buggers keep turning up in the most unlikely places, a yellow one in the bathroom, a red one in the bedroom and at one point two of them were chilling out on top of the freezer. The FB is in playchef mode. He likes to pretend to cook the frogs, present them to you then whisk them away and hurl them down the stairs. Which explains why there has been a green one hanging out amid the tangle of wellies, trike and scooter.

We now return to our usual schedule

Well the parents left this morning after a very busy but good weekend.



On Friday we went for a ride on this and remarkably we got good weather for it too. I thought it would at the very least pour with rain with possibly a hurricane chucked in for good measure but as you can see blue skies! It does get buffeted about in the wind when you're at the top which is a little nerve racking, especially if, like me, you don't like heights but the view is worth it....














(It's the London Eye)

And on Sunday we took the FB to the Imperial War Museum to see the "Family Tank" it was ridden in by a member of the family, has his photo and nickname on the front) - it was very tempting to see if it could be liberated from its current home and brought back to mine; I'd rather like to see the traffic wardens try to clamp or remove a tank for parking without a ticket! But he was more interested in the submarines and aeroplanes than a tank from the 40s.

Oh, did we pass the white glove test? Well as the FB was taken out ALL DAY on Saturday by his grandparents AND they babysat for us that evening I guess the flat must have been slightly cleaner than its usual shambolic mess.

There will be a short intermission

Parents are arriving this evening for a long weekend so won't be able to put any posts up. Am off to make sure there are no dead mice under the couch bed and that the flat passes the white glove test

k

Thoughts and thankyous

I think one of the most important things we learn from pregnancy is not to take your health for granted, and I'm not talking about morning sickness here. I'm thinking of how lovely it would be to be able to sit, stand or walk without pain. I'm so very thankful that in 11 weeks or so it will all be over and whilst the sleep deprivation bit will begin, the joint pain will stop and I just can't wait. Right now I am very glad that this is short term; I cannot imagine what it must be like to live in this kind of pain every day for years on end...

Thank you all very much for your kind comments on the dreaded cold lurgy going round. It is getting better - the FB is back to sleeping in his own bed at night, and my lungs are only occasionally doing orchestral impersonations, however, much to MrV's disappointment, the snoring has not improved!

Bleurgh

The dreaded lurgy has reared its dastardly head again infecting both myself and the FB with its germs so we haven't been up to much recently. The FB is generally fine during the day but starts feeling awful shortly before MrV and I am due to go to bed, whereas I feel equally lousy during the day as at night.

Have finished all the library books but can't face the walk to the library so until I get better or MrV carries me there (am I sounding pathetic enough yet?) I shall have to rely on what I have at home. Currently this is "Diary of a Provincial Lady" which despite being set in the 30s seems eerily modern at times.

I am off now to feel very sorry for myself!

Life on Mars

It is possible, considering the differing rates of planetary revolution and movement around their suns, that yesterday, somewhere in the universe it was Friday 13th. It certainly was here, if not in date then definitely in manner.

• The FB was in sulk mode, finding it unfair of me even to ask him to try to put his socks on.
• The rubbish bins had not been provided by the landlord but had been brought home by our downstairs neighbours, and I had graffitied them with our house number. Apology required.
• It was a rainy and windy day which is never a good combination. The FB's pushchair's raincover can't cope with rain and wind and turns into a smothering layer of plastic so when the FB, after several attempts by me to keep the cover off his face, kicked the raincover off, my limited patience gave out and I stalked off down the road followed by a screaming toddler. Witnessed by another parent from his nursery.
• etc etc etc

The list is endless and the day cumulated with the FB being sent to his room in disgrace and me sobbing on the couch. All in all a horrible horrible day.

Today, despite the rain, wind and thunder, the sun is shining on our little home. The neighbours were fine with me painting the house number (we share the same house number) on the bins, and although it absolutely bucketed it down as I left to pick the FB up from nursery, by the time I had arrived the sun was shining and another battle with the raincover was avoided.

As for Mars, well the little area of SW London in which we reside has a crater named after it. No Provencal village or adorable hamlet in Tuscany for us, no, we get a lifeless hole in the ground.

A-ha!

The landlord giveth, and the landlord taketh away (in reverse).

Actually it was his son who wandered off with the wall but last night two rubbish bins appeared in our front yard. As no one else on the street has received any I'm thinking it was the landlord and consequently have painted our house number on them both (I've also painted our downstair neighbour's number on as they have the same landlord as us) before someone takes a liking to them.

Foolish me. Remind me in future not to boast about how much less painful this pregnancy is compared to carrying the FB. The wonderous hormone relaxin has kicked in making me feel like a hippo on top of a particularly wobbly pair of stilts. I'm also thinking of begging Wandsworth Council to install either a ski lift or a Stena stair lift up the hill to the FB's nursery.

Nancy Drew and the Case of the AWOL Wall

I've written in the past about some of the strange happenings in this flat; our on-site poltergeist MrsS and her penchant for bath plugs and clothes hangers, and the thing in the livingroom but last night took the biscuit...

Our garden wall disappeared.

Yup, that's right, it vanished. A waist high wall built out of roofing tiles that seperated our messy front yard from next door's equally messy yard, was there last night but this morning, all that's left is a tangle of ivy, some rather disgruntled spiders and a trail of dirt leading out of our gate and across the pavement. That last fact rather puts the culprit in the land of the living as the supernatural don't tend to leave dirt behind, ectoplasm yes, dirt no.


(credit for the title must go to Isabelle's student)

Latest books

Finally finished the last lot of library books (would definately recommend My Father's Notebook and The Kaminsky Cure - Nutmeg I think the latter is right up your street), and got some new ones out. Again a mixed bunch, a couple chicklit, one sort of political, and one from the "A" shelf.

• Not buying it: my year without shopping by Judith Levine. Levine and her partner decide to opt out of buying anything unessential for a whole year. They are allowed to purchase food, toiletries, medication, and pay bills etc, but no restaurants, cinema, dvd rentals. They do cheat a little I thought by ensuring that their magazine subscriptions are renewed just before they started, but it was an interesting read and has made me think about exactly what I spend MrV's salary on. (finished this one already)
• Something Borrowed - Tina Reilly
• Diary of a Married Call Girl - Tracy Quan
• Minaret - Leila Aboulela

Wheeeeeee!

We took the FB to the Tate Modern today, not, I hasten to add, to introduce him to the wonders of modern art, but because the Turbine Hall has these cool things in it:

They're slides! The FB had a fantastic time on them (he didn't go on either of the two above - they're for slightly taller people) and sobbed his heart out when we left. I was peeved too; I wanted to have a go but they don't let pregnant ladies on, and the exhibition will be over before the Peanut makes his appearance.

(photo courtsey of my lovely MIL)

Ahhh so cute and tiny! Did he really wear them once?

We got the FB's baby clothes out of the loft at the weekend in preperation for the arrival of the Peanut. Yes, I know he's not due for another 14 weeks but MrV was prepared to go into the loft on Saturday and who knows the next time he would be willing to go up there. Anyway, the clothes are down and sitting in the corner of the bedroom waiting to be washed and put away except that we don't have anywhere to put them. At present we don't actually even have space to park the Peanut let alone his clothes so I fear that at some point in the next 3 months we are going to have to have another radical clear out. The hard bit is that most of the clutter is infact baby and toddler clothes that have been put aside to be used again and I don' t want to chuck them out and buy new ones. But something has to go, the space under the bed is jampacked, and the top of the wardrobe is so heavily overloaded that it has a rather scary lean now.

It amazes me, almost daily, how different this pregnancy is from the FB's. At this point with him I couldn't walk up hills, found most sleeping positions very painful, and could only walk for very short periods of time. There has been so much less pain this time round not only because my hips failed to do the whole dislocating thing, but also there's been no round ligament pain, pelvic or back pain. Hurrah!

Whinging Pom alert

I have a dream, admittedly probably not the same as Dr King's as mine involves shopping. I would dearly like it if the apparel I have bought would continue to fit when I get home. In the last 10 days I have purchased

• 2 pairs of maternity jeans - one just a little on the small side, the other needs drastic hemming
• 2 maternity tops - both shrunk on their first wash (at 30C), one so badly it had to be taken back, the other only a little. Note to self do not buy any more tops from Next as they always always shrink.
• a pair of shoes (discovered old ones leak terribly when it snowed) - despite being the same size, brand, colour and style as the old ones, these fit differently and are rather on the large size (I thought your feet were supposed to swell during pregnancy, obviously mine shrink).
• 2 pairs of maternity bras - normally my downfall; bras usually fit in the shop then, once home, either inexplicably expand so much that each cup can be used to carry several pounds of potatoes, or shrink to the size of eggcups thus creating that four breasted look. Yum sexy! However, this time I got measured so, 3 days later, the bra still fits and the straps don't fall down. Hurrah!

Obviously the weirdness that was in my livingroom last week also affects clothing sizes. Either that or I'm going to have to lay off the chocolate. Or join a blind nudist colony.

Siehst du den Schnee? (Do you see the snow?)

One thousand abject apologies for keeping you all in the dark about what happened when the door opened. I had an unexpected, all day visit from Mr Braxton Hicks yesterday and contrary to what the pregnancy sites say, it hurts (I strongly suspect that the people who write for these sites are the same people who lie to you about periods, round ligament pain and well everything else). So what I wanted to do was to have some snappy quote from The Eyre Affair (one of the characters is called Braxton Hicks) but as alas I couldn't find a relevant one you've got the one above which works because...today it snowed. Oh it comes from a book called Der Kleine Baer by Else Holmelund Minarik and as a 17 year old au pair I used to read the book every day to a pair of 18month old twin girls over and over and over.

Anyway today we woke up to snow and believe me even this grotty part of town looks good when covered in snow. Now you may recall, as I think I may have mentioned it once or twice, that the FB's nursery is located part the way up the hill, towards the top part alas, which is a workout on its own on non-snowy dry days, but when the path resembles a Christmas cake (decorated in litter, not fortunately today of the plastic, pink, buzzy kind) and your pushchair contains a 3 year old adamantly refusing to walk, the hill starts to take on a kind of mythological status (I'm thinking of the bloke who has to push a ball up a hill for eternity and unfortunately can't remember his name but I'm sure that you all know exactly who I mean). So after the FB was changed (he managed to fall over twice in the snow when he was in the mood to walk) and deposited at nursery there was no way I was going to walk back down the hill especially as the pushchair, or rather my personal zimmerframe as I like to think of it, gets left behind, therefore into a cafe I went. Such a lovely treat you know, going to sit in a cafe by yourself without a little one demanding a never ending stream of biscuits, muffins, cakes, the toilet. Oh nothing happened in there, no crazed gunmen ran in demanding free doughnuts or anything like that; no the worse thing to happen was that, and I admit this with great shame, I discovered that I quite like the new song by Take That "Shine" (it doesn't have Robbie Williams in it which is probably why it is actually good).

Where was I? Oh yes the door..... are you all sitting comfortably? OK well standing in the doorway was nothing. Nope, that's right, there was nothing there. Still I didn't go to sleep that night or many nights after until the first call to prayer sounded (at dawn).
Sorry!

Things that go bump

I had a really bad night last night. I woke up somewhere around 2am with a feeling that there was something not right in my home. The feeling was so strong that it took me quite some time to pluck up enough courage to get out of bed to do a walkaround. All the rooms were pitch black except for the living room where the blue glow from the button on the front of the TV cable box gave off enough light for the outlines of the furniture to be seen. The middle of the couch that I usually sit on (and where I am sitting at present) was in darkness and giving off vibes of simply pure evil. I turned round and walked out, went to check on the FB and then returned to bed to lie wide awake for another couple of hours. Every once in a while the FB's door would thump as if someone was pushing it from the inside but each time it happened I would check on him and nothing was there.

This morning the creepy feeling in the flat is still there, and MrV told me that he has felt a bit odd walking around in the middle of the night.

But it put me in mind of a night about 14 years ago. I had watched, stupidly, Amityville 1992 which revolves around a living room clock taken from the original house. When the clock struck 3 (am and pm) horrible things happened. Now when I watched the film I was in Saudi visiting my parents and had forgotten to bring my watch, so my mother kindly lent me her little travelling clock which unfortunately had the same sounding tick as the clock in the film. One night I was feeling particularly creeped out and couldn't sleep so at 3am I was wide awake with the lights on in my room with one eye half on the clock when the bedroom door opened.

Random acts of typing

It's Monday again and frankly this morning's walk to and from nursery lacked a little something. Maybe it was because no alleged killers ran past us covered in blood, perhaps it was the lack of sex toys lying about in the street or maybe it was just because the sky promised snow but gave out nothing. This, ladies and gent, is just not on. I want our walks to be, well I was going to say stimulating, because otherwise I'll have nothing else to tell you.

In the interest of bank accounts, and spousal nerves I'll give you a quick public announcement. If you are in any way tempted by art supplies DO NOT read Victoria Finlay's Colour. She dots her book with mentions of Winsor and Newton who I googled. Don't do that either. You may find yourself drooling over one of these .

The fairies have exchanged the children back again. The FB is back to his normal adorable self. He probably asked "why" just one too many times.

The Changeling Boy

Once upon a time there lived a little boy who was the personification of sweetness, goodness and all things that parents wish their children to be. Then one morning he woke up and decided that that was that. He had had enough of being nice and now it was time to be a three year old. He argued that black was white and vice versa, dictated the terms under which his family would live, developed personality quirks that would keep psychiatrists in jobs for years, demanded, sulked, refused and whined at everything and everyone in his path. Until one day his parents had enough and shipped him off to his grandparents.
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I wish!

How do you keep the damn things up?

Bought a pair of maternity jeans today. They sit under the bump and have the elastic stretchy bit at the side and they keep falling down. My only xxl belt (bought to keep trousers up after the FB was born) barely fits round the bump and digs in whenever I sit down.
Any suggestions?


I realise I usually post about all the horrible things that happen in our neck of the woods, but something wonderful is happening.... We are getting a Cafe Nero. Does this mean that we are going to be dragged kicking and screaming into the enlightened, cafe culture age away from the greasy spoon? The best thing about Cafe Nero is that they usually have a toilet complete with nappy changing facilities which as the supermarket still hasn't opened theirs, and the library requires you to be accompanied by a librarian to unlock their facilities, this can only be seen as a good thing. I give them one week before they close it for “renovations".