Three Craws

Obviously "the third craw wisnae there at a"

Bye bye Cbeebies

Moving house is a bit like New Year in that you take a good look at your life in the run up to the move and decide what you want to keep and what you want to change. For months before we moved MrV and I had the same conversation over and over which would invariably start "when we move up to Edinburgh I want to.." simply because finally after a year that felt like our lives were on hold we had the opportunity to start to live again.
Some of what we decided we've managed to start doing - the FB no longer has access to hours and hours of CBeebies. Apart from his tv addiction noone else in the family really watches that much tv so we're back to five channels again, and really the only thing I miss is the rewatch facility we used to have.
I can't wait to start going to the gym again, to join the library and to finally get my act together and start embroidering again.

Laundry dilemmas

The FB's school has chosen, with great wisdom and forethought, to use as part of their uniform, white shirts. For four years old. The FB has been at school for 3 weeks, has 3 tops, none of which are unstained. One has a huge mudstain right up the back. It won't come out. Neither will all the tomato stains.



My only solution therefore was to go out and replace them all. Except that the shops have stopped selling school uniforms now.



Pass the valium will you.

(I wanted to post a photo of the FB in his uniform before it was trashed, but the cable for the camera is in one of those boxes over there. You can be assured he looked utterly gorgeous and so so grownup)

Proper Bread

Thankyou, I think he's pretty cute too. Not however at 1am when he's fighting sleep for all he's worth, but definately at 2am when I rolled over in bed to find him finally fast asleep, bum in the air in that adorable yet surely uncomfortable position that only babies use.

Yesterday evening the FB and I made our very first loaf of bread in our brandnew breadmaking machine my parents gave us as a housewarming present (caused of a bit of an uproar with my sister who was given a potplant when she moved into her new home 5 years ago) and this morning we had it for breakfast with Farmers' Market eggs, and jam. And oh boy it was delicious. The price of bread has skyrocketed here over the last few months and the only bread costing less than £1 is of dubious character. MrV and I are trying to eat by Michael Pollen's rule of eating only what our great grandmothers would recognise as being food which works up until I want a diet coke.

The Count never took to bottles until he found one that was more to his taste

Was he giving it up? No chance!

I should probably say, incase you're worried, the bottle was unopened and when it was opened he wasn't allowed any. He is after all, still a baby. Currently a grumpy baby with a snotty nose, but a baby nonetheless.

Home, Home on the Grange

well that was a rather longer break than I meant it to be but there was rather a lot going on in the background which couldn't be written about until now. MrV who is a simply wonderful person, started negotiations with his work to do his job from home, which instead of being in South London would be in Edinburgh. OK they said, but this needs to happen, and this, and this, and this....and so on until at the begining of June they said that we could go ahead. I couldn't write about any of this simply because I didn't want to tempt fate taking it away, in fact we didn't actually start telling people (bar immediate family) about the move until the end of July.

But here we are in rainy Edinburgh (alas not the Grange though) and it's wonderful. The difference between here and Wallington where we used to live is incredible. There are actually things to do here apart from walking round a park. There are shops, museums, art galleries and cafes. There are libraries and gyms. This is civilisation folks.

The FB got into a good school and has a fantastic teacher and he appears to be enjoying himself - well he waves hello to his school which I take as a good sign. My mother takes the Count to a baby and toddler group every week which he loves, and I love because hell, who wouldn't love a few hours peace and quiet from two noisy children every week!