January 2009

January 31, 2009

Dave came to London this weekend, and he and Adam went to the Arsenal v West Ham game, 0-0 draw on a freezing January afternoon. He brought some sad news — his friend Bernie (a lovely guy who we’ve met a number of times over the years) died of pancreatic cancer on Monday. He was 57, and leaves a partner and 13-year-old son. Dave is very cut up about it…Nova’s homework this week was to write a setting for a horror story that uses the weather to set the scene. Her effort:

It was a cold evening in January. I was taking the fastest way through the woods home from a friend’s house. My father was meant to pick me up, but he was busy with his important job. My mother was a baker, getting complaints that her pastries were making their children sick. As I pushed open the gate to the woods, I felt more frightened than ever. The clouds were dark and anything but white, a lot like smudges of grey ink streaked with now-and-then lightning. Rain was falling down like a banquet being thrown from the sky in raindrops instead of roast dinner and beer. There was a howling wind and surely something made those trees make such scary skinny-dragon shapes. But I knew I was near home. It was getting foggy, so I couldn’t see my lazy cat on my porch anymore. I was running faster than ever before. Too bad the school race was not now. And I was using my talent for a good reason; getting back home.

January 29, 2009

Nova this morning: “My mouth feels like the Sahara Desert — can I have a drink of your water? That’s better, now it feels more like the Pacific Ocean!”Had a couple of mums and babies round for coffee this morning. Lots of parallel play, disjointed conversation, and crumbs on the carpet… Lyra coined another verb today — “caking” for eating cake. A few of her other efforts in that direction: lapping (sitting on my lap); crowning (wearing a crown); booking (reading a story); teething (brushing teeth); chipsing (eating chips)…

January 28, 2009

Met Adam after work and ate dinner at Mr Jerk, a Jamaican restaurant in Soho. Chicken roti for me, salt fish and ackee with the mysteriously named “hard food” for Adam. The hard food turned out to be big lumps of potato, yam, plantain and a dumpling more dense than a hockey puck. Not my cup of tea, but the rest of the food was really nice.Caught “The Reader” at the Holloway Odeon afterwards. It wasn’t my first choice — I don’t much like Kate Winslet or Ralph Fiennes, and I didn’t enjoy the book when I read it years ago. But it started at the right time and it’s been getting all those nominations, so in we went.

It didn’t take long to remember what I didn’t like about the book. The characters are distasteful and their motivations unfathomable. I suppose it was a good piece of acting, but it did nothing for me…

January 27, 2009

Harvey’s rate of growth is amazing — hard to believe he was ever the runt of the litter. I think there must be steroids in that hamster mix… And what he doesn’t scoff, he hoards. He must spend half the night transferring the food from his bowl into his hide, then blocks up the entrance with sawdust and cotton wool.When we took the roof off the hide this evening, there was Harvey hunkered on a great mound of food and bedding, with scarcely room to turn around. The roof was wet with condensation — he must have been sweltering in there…

January 26, 2009

Ate our haggis one day late…
Adam’s still not drinking, but I had a wee dram in honour of the bard, and another to offset a real stinker of a day at work…

January 25, 2009

I can’t remember when I last had such a hangover…
Didn’t get out of bed until noon, except to be sick…
I’m sure it must be drinking on an empty stomach. I only had four glasses of white wine over the whole evening, but I drank them all before eating any food. Adam is still on antibiotics, and didn’t drink at all last night, but wasn’t too smug.Eventually had to face the inevitable, and get up to attend Beulah’s birthday lunch at the Durum. Fortunately I’d made her card yesterday:

I was still too poorly to face anything but a plate of melon slices and a bit of undressed salad. The Burn’s night haggis we’d planned to have for dinner is definitely on hold…

January 24, 2009

I’d planned to go to an introductory pilates class at the gym, but got their to discover I’d been given the wrong time (4:15 instead of 14:15…) Managed to get into a yoga class instead, which I really enjoyed. It’s been ages since I attended a proper yoga class (pregnancy yoga doesn’t count) and have got into a bit of a rut with my home practice, when I bother to do it at all…Went to a 50th birthday party for a work colleague at a restaurant in Muswell Hill. We didn’t know any of the other guests, but were seated with a really nice Italian couple. We were having a great conversation until the live music started up. I nearly always find live music too loud — especially when you’re eating dinner (or in our case waiting for your food to arrive…)

Stayed for a bit of the dancing afterwards, getting home about midnight…

January 23, 2009

It’s always a good idea for Lyra to have an outing in the morning, but with the weather so bitter and wet the park isn’t an option. Called up Mitsuko and invited ourselves down for a cup of tea. Jackson’s Lane has been blocked off for the last month, and by the time we walked the long way round to their house we were chilled through.Mitsuko served Lyra and Nana little cups of ovaltine and biscuits — they looked so grown-up sitting at their little table, at least until the unseemly scuffle over the last biscuit…

January 22, 2009

Went into work for a meeting, even though it’s not a day I normally work. My job share is in the States for a couple of weeks, and one of us needed to attend. It’s tough when one of us is on leave — we do six and a half days between us, so I’m juggling more than twice my usual workload while she’s away…

January 20, 2009

Barack Obama’s first day as president of the United States. I went into the office today, but got home in time to watch the inauguration ceremony live on television. Moving stuff, especially the part where George Bush got his sorry ass into the helicopter…;-) Lyra came upstairs part way through Obama’s inaugural address. “Funny! Funny man!” she kept saying. Not sure what that was all about…I’m reading Obama’s autobiography and the moment, which is an interesting counterpoint to the historic events unfolding. I doubt he would have been quite so candid about his youthful drug use and other indiscretions had he known this day was in his future.

January 18, 2009

Took Nova for a swim at the Laboratory this morning. She was keen to show me how her swimming has progressed since the summer, and proudly demonstrated her front crawl, breast and back strokes.After twenty minutes or so working on technique we spent the rest of the time mucking around. At one point, Nova clambered onto my back and clung on while I swam. “I’m a whale rider!” she cried, provoking chuckles from a few people in earshot. “Are you sure you didn’t mean ‘dolphin rider’? Or ‘mermaid rider’?” I said.

Lyra’s still going mad with the verbs. One of my favourites is “lapping”, which she uses when she wants to sit on my lap. Another favourite is “mores” when she wants seconds of something. Maybe she’s trying to be efficient, and ask for thirds at the same time…

January 17, 2009

Set off after breakfast to pick up our new hamster. Sandra he hamster breeder was in Richmond, and it took us over an hour to get there, Lyra shrieking objections most of the way. I don’t know what she was objecting to, I’m not sure she did either…There were eleven baby hamsters in the litter, in various shades and sizes. They almost five weeks old, and need to be separated imminently, as hamsters are sexually mature at five weeks. We’d planned to pick a female, but Nova found herself drawn to a fluffy little gray male, the runt of the litter. He was Sandra’s favourite as well, and you could see she was sad to let him go. We’ve agreed to email her to tell her how he settles in.

The car journey home was another screamfest, though the bag of chocolate coins I’d brought along kept Lyra’s mouth full part of the time. Spent the journey thinking of names for the hamster — Peaches wasn’t going to cut it for a fluffy gray male hamster. Nova eventually settled on Harvey, which seems to suit him.

Nova hovered about hopefully, looking for some face time with Harvey, but he opted to hang out in his hide until after she’d gone to bed. Not long after, we heard some crunching sounds, which suggested he’d come out for a bit of food, and then the whirring of him running on his wheel. Sandra told us that as the runt of the litter she’d noticed he got very little time on the wheel, so I hope he’ll be happy in his bachelor pad.

January 16, 2009

We’ve decided to get a hamster for Nova, and have an appointment with a hamster breeder in Richmond tomorrow morning to pick one out. Bought the cage, sawdust, water bottle, bedding, hamster pellets and wheel this afternoon in readiness. Nova is enormously excited of course, and already picked out a possible name. Should she choose a reddish brown one she plans to call it Peaches.Watched “Old Yeller” for movie night — my choice. I remember seeing it when I was about Nova’s age, and finding it incredibly sad. The first time, the film was all about the boy and his deer — this time it seemed was all about the parents. Gregory Peck’s youthful beauty was a revelation as well…;-)

January 14, 2009

Knocked off work a bit early to compensate for the hours I did last Thursday. Did a bit of clothes shopping in Covent Garden. Still lots of sales about, and I picked up a pair of jeans, cords, a skirt and a couple of teeshirts.Having arranged for Ewa to put the girls to bed, I walked through to Leicester Square and saw “Slumdog Millionare” before heading home. I don’t think I’d describe it as the “feel-good movie of the year”, but I thought it was excellent.

January 13, 2009

As Adam’s in Germany for a few days, I invited Pasc and Trish over for dinner tonight. I made green coriander chicken, eggplant-onion curry, and a carrot raita. The chicken was incredibly delicious. I’d marinated it overnight in garlic, ginger and lemon juice before cooking it in a sauce made with coriander, tomato, chillies and yogurt.They turned up around 8pm, just as Nova was going to bed and didn’t leave until midnight. Got through a couple of bottles of wine, but drank a fair bit of water as well, to mitigate against the alcohol.

January 12, 2009

Into work today, though I probably should have had another day off…
We’re tendering for some web work, and I had a full day of presentations scheduled. My job share could have covered it, but I didn’t want to leave her in the lurch. 

It’s funny about job sharing — you might think they’d provide opportunities to skive a bit, but it seems to work the opposite way. You feel a responsibility to an individual in a way you wouldn’t to a post. Also, the sense that you’re being compared — by your manager, team, colleagues — is ever present, and naturally you don’t want to fall short…

January 11, 2009

What a lost weekend… we’ve all been sick with some sort of intestinal flu. Poor little Lyra’s been feeling off for more than a week now — grumpy, whiny, sleeping badly, poor appetite. Because there’s been no big symptoms like a fever, cough or streaming nose, it hadn’t really registered that she was sick.Adam and I both fell ill on Thursday. My first thought was to blame some smoked salmon we’d both eaten the day before. The freezer in the garage got unplugged over the holidays, and while I know all the food safety around refreezing defrosted food, I reasoned that it’s been so cold lately (consistently below zero) that it was probably okay. We dragged along until Lyra went down at 7pm, then took to our bed. Poor old Nova had to settle herself that night…

By Friday evening Nova was sick as well. Again there was a bit of ambiguity. I’d cooked some meatballs from the freezer, reasoning that as long as they were thoroughly cooked any potential bacteria would be killed off. I’m almost certain that it’s that rotovirus everyone’s catching that’s to blame, but decided to throw out the contents of the freezer anyway, just to be on the safe side. Pained me to do it — I’m not cheap, but I HATE wasting money.

January 7, 2009

Nova often asks me, “what would you like a picture of?” and often gives me a few options to choose from. Tonight’s choices included: “a marvellous feast for the president and his family in Cincinnati.” No idea where that idea came from, but she had me intrigued…Once the picture is produced, Nova talks me through it, describing the people, furnishings and food in great detail. In this instance, she had the president and his family sitting on “horn-rimmed, golden chairs” and a long banqueting table. Apparently, “Cook always makes lovely food, but this time she absolutely outdid herself.” My favourite bits were the “mouth refreshener” in case you tasted something you didn’t like, and the selection of flavoured oils, including banana oil.

January 5, 2009

Lyra’s talking has really exploded in the last couple of weeks. I think that having everybody around all day has made a difference. She really getting into verbs now, mainly as gerunds — opening, pushing, pulling, tickling, clapping — and lots of new nouns — body parts, more obscure animals, characters in her books, colours…Being Lyra she has very strong opinion on some things. Black is white… or red in her case. “Red!” she’ll insist, no matter how many times I decribe her beaker as blue. She’s also forming two and three word sentences — “mummy out bed” is a recent effort.

Mummy didn’t feel much like “out bed” this morning when it was time to get ready for work. I’m not quite poorly enough to call in sick, but almost… Went through the required motions on autopilot, and in due course found myself standing on the tube platform with a handful of similarly disoriented looking back-to-workers.

Learned something new today at work. Apparently if you fall sick on annual leave and call HR, they credit you back your leave for the days you’re ill. I thought the team member was trying it on, but there it was plainly spelled out in the leave policy. Not sure how this has escaped my notice for the ten years I’ve worked in the NHS…

January 4, 2009

Dismantling Christmas a couple of days early, which is fair enough, as I set the tree up two weeks earlier than I’d originally planned to. I always feel a bit sad on the last evening of the Christmas tree. I’ve always to look at the Christmas tree glittering in the dark. It’s why the tinsel question is such a no brainer for me…We stripped the tree of ornaments, harvested the icicles, tossed the tree over the balcony, took down the Christmas cards, wrapped up the Russian santa, snow globe and candle holders, collapsed the paper stars, swapped the crocheted snowflake mobile for the bird mobile, boxed up the carol CDs and holiday videos, and packed away Nova’s creche. The place looked positively austere by the time we were done. That’s what January’s all about I guess, this one more than most…

January 3, 2009

It occurs to me how people often express surprise when a famous person turns out to be nice. There seems to be an assumption that successful people are assholes, and they may be some grounds for that: the motives that drive people to succeed, they way the may have to behave to get to the top, the effects of huge wealth and power…Nonetheless, there are plenty of unsuccessful assholes around. It stands to reason that there should be successful people who are lovely individuals as well…

Adam went off to an Arsenal FA cup game in the afternoon. I hung out with Nova making paper doll clothes with her new kit from David and Denise. In the evening we went to a party at Doron and Antonia’s. Caught up with a few friends of theirs that I haven’t seen in years…

January 2, 2009

Put my new steam cleaner to work this morning. What a blast that is! I cleaned the glass door of the oven, the cupboard doors, the wall above the cooker, Lyra’and one of the dining room chairs. I’m keen to tackle the stains on the sofa but need more practice using it first…Had the Nolans round for a drink this afternoon — all six of them. Nova and the older two went off to play, while Lyra and their three- and one-year-old boys stayed upstairs. She’s not at the playing together stage yet, or the sharing stage for that matter… Eventually I put My Neighbour Totoro (which has been on continuous loop since Christmas) on to distract her from the interlopers.

They are such nice, laid-back people… he’s very interesting, one of those people who talk in ideas; she’s lovely and warm. It wasn’t until after they’d left and we were eating dinner that it occurred to me how insanely wealthy they must be. Writing, directing and producing Batman films is good work if you can get it…;-)

January 1, 2009

Happy New Year everyone!
Started the new year gently with a leisurely breakfast of fruit salad, toast and tea. The nurofen kicked in nicely, and I didn’t feel too bad… We could have sat there all morning, but Frea’s umbrella attack on Lyra gave us the sense we might have outstayed our welcome. She’s generally a real little sweetie, but I think she was keen to have mum’s undivided attention again…Went straight over to the Stillmans (not even bothering to unpack the car first) for a couple of glasses of champagne…;-p They’re just back from a five-day jaunt to southern Spain and looking remarkably well, and younger than I felt by the time we staggered home.

I watched the Lemony Snicket movie with Nova while Adam had a nap. Threw together a simple pasta supper and made some family phone calls to wish people a happy new year. Managed to watch another episode of The Wire before bed — my first successful night of no couch napping…