May 2004

May 20, 2004

Went to the gym first thing to do what Nova insists on calling my “stoutness exercises” – out of the mouths of babes and all that…

I’m weighing up whether or not to return to work fulltime, and have to make my decision by tomorrow afternoon. My job share Susan is going off on maternity leave at the start of June. The decision was made to advertise the post internally first, and the only candidate who applied was a person that I currently line manage. He’s a very nice guy and we get along well, but it could be awkward to be managing someone part-time and job sharing with them the rest of the time. Also, Adam is wanting to drop some of his bread-and-butter lower paying work and concentrate more on CSR consultancy, and if I was earning more he’d feel more confident about doing that. Also, it’s not a permanent decision, just for the nine months she’s on leave.

My main concern is spending less time with Nova, but Adam has committed to spending one day a week at home with her, and I’d work from home one day a week, which would cut the extra nursery hours down. I’m still mulling it over… I’ve been getting so fed up with work that I’ve been thinking of quitting, and I know that one of the frustrations is trying to do a full-time job on three days a week. It seems that I might as well try this full-time thing for a while and if I don’t like it, quit then.

In the afternoon, Nova and I walked down to the library. She always wants the same books and the only video she’ll consider is Tubby Nursery Rhymes, so we took out the usual collection and a couple of new additions. I gave Jemima a call, and she and Ruby met us at the Highgate Wood playground. The girls had a great time playing, and looked so adorable walking home together holding hands. “Ruby’s my best friend!” Nova said happily.

Adam was out for the evening, so I ate dinner with Nova. I’d just put her down for the night, and was about to go upstairs when I heard some muffled noises coming from her room. I opened the door to discover her out of bed and across the room getting her necklaces. She gave a terrified gasping sound, like someone in a horror film just before they die of fright, and burst into tears.

I felt awful, scaring her like that. I apologised, and explained that I’d heard a funny noise in her room and was just checking to see what it was, and tucked her in again with lots of cuddles and kisses. It made me realise that she’s growing up and is entitled to a bit more privacy. I shouldn’t really be bursting into her room unannounced – I hadn’t really considered it before.

May 19, 2004

I took Nova to nursery this morning, as Adam had an early meeting. She insisted in working out practically every address along the way: “What’s that number? Seven and three. What does seven and three make? SEVENTY THREE!” etc. Things went a little better once I put her up on my shoulders – at least I had more control of the pace that way.

Took the opportunity to do a bit of shopping after work, as Adam was picking up Nova and I did have the travel card I’d bought to attend an external meeting this afternoon… While I was rummaging around Oxford Street, Adam took Nova to an impromptu 37th birthday part for Rob. Fun was had by all (except when Nova peed on the carpet – she hasn’t done that at home for ages…)

Nove had just gone down five minutes earlier when I got home, so I went in to give her a kiss goodnight, but she was already fast asleep.

May 18, 2004

Went to the gym this evening. I’m trying to book my runs into my diary like appointments (Tuesday evening, Thursday morning, Saturday morning, Sunday morning) and that way I just keep them automatically rather than wondering if I feel like it, or if later might be better…

I find the evening runs pretty hard actually, I’m definitely a morning person when it comes to exercise. Anyway, I just did it, as they say, although can’t say I enjoyed it. I’d eaten an omelette before I came, and it wasn’t sitting all that well.

It’s always a dilemma whether to eat or not before evening exercise. If I don’t eat, it’s 10pm before I have my dinner, but it’s about getting the right amount of the right thing. I’ve bought a few brands of energy bar to experiment with on my long runs, so maybe something like that would be the way to go…

May 17, 2004

Nova did a funny thing this evening. She’s starting to get interested in letters again — after months of complete obsession with numbers — and she’d been finding various magnetic letters and telling or asking me what they were while I was cooking.

I’d put her food on the table and called her for dinner, when she said, “I’ve got to get the letters first!” She put the letter L next to her plate, then returned with the letter S, then O. “Now I need the number 2” she said, and I realised what she was doing. Sure enough she followed that with K, D, and X, which is the licence plate number of our car. “There! That spells ‘Rock-a-bye baby on the tree top when the wind blows the cradle will rock!'” she said, tucking into her fish fingers and peas.

May 16, 2004

Went for my first long run in ages. My recently resumed marathon training schedule (taken from Jeff Galloway’s marathon book) lays out a “to finish” plan that takes 26 weeks, but I figure I can adapt it to the 23 weeks I have available.

Since I do most of my running on Hampstead Heath, it’s very difficult to estimate the distance I’m covering. I’ve tried a pedometer type thing in the past, but found it woefully inaccurate. Wendy and Gail (my two marathon companions) have these global positioning things that can calculate your distance by satellite. In the absence of such a device, I’ve decided on a time based method instead. I’m going to calculate the long runs on 12 minute miles, and assume that I’m running at least that fast. (I’ve tested it out on the treadmill at the gym and am pretty confident that I am…)

Today’s run is supposed to be six miles, so I just ran for 1:12:00, walking one minute out of every ten. I felt really good — it was a lovely morning, and it was so wonderful to be out enjoying all that glorious spring weather and the beautiful scenery of the Heath.

After a quick bite, we headed for the gym. I took Nova for a swim while Adam did some laps. Went over to Doron and Antonia’s to see baby Marni. She’s very cute — surprisingly she’s almost bald, while Ollie resembled a miniature Elvis Presley with his impressive quiff. We sat in the garden and had tea, while Nova and Ollie played around each other as usual.

May 15, 2004

We had dinner with Eytan and Dina tonight, at the new pan-Asian place in the village. Adam had messed up the arrangements with the babysitter, booking her for Friday night by mistake, but Pete and Pasc came to the rescue, and let us put Nova down at their house.

The place was packed to the gills, and it took a good half hour to get a table. Once the food started arriving, it was hard to see why… I’m always a bit suspicious of restaurants that attempt to straddle cuisines (aside from those Greco-Roman places Vancouver is full of, that seem to work somehow…)

They’d taken the concept a stage further: you choose whatever noodle you like, then meat/fish/tofu, then the sauce/vegetable combination, then decide whether to have it stirfried, in soup or whatever. My dish was reasonably good (stirfried Shanghai noodles with the Thai vegetables and sauce, but I thought the vegetarian broth for Adam’s dish tasted like cigarettes. I wouldn’t have been able to eat it. I can’t imagine how they managed to make stock taste like that…

We picked up Nova about 11pm. She’s such a cooperative little thing, really. No complaints at being plucked from bed, bundled up in a blanket, transported through the cold night air, and plopped down in another bed. She asked for a drink of water then went straight back to sleep. Bless.

May 14, 2004

We’ve got a tenant in the flat for the summer. Rosalind is the daughter of a friend of the McGhees. She’s a law student from U of T who’s over in London working for the summer. She arrived this evening just after we’d got Nova down.

Actually, we’d have preferred not to have it occupied in the summer, when we spend so much time in the garden. It makes access more difficult, as you have to go out the front door and open the side gate with a key, instead of just walking out the back door. She seems very nice though, and the extra money is always welcome…

May 13, 2004

It’s all happening around here today… gardeners, plumbers, window washers…

Adam had the morning off, so I took the opportunity to escape to the gym. I’d noticed that there was a car valeting service set up in the corner of the parking lot. Our car was looking pretty filthy — we haven’t had a chance to clean it since the Cornwall trip, and the outside is covered with sap and tiny petals from the tree in front of the house that drips all over it for half the year.

There was a scruffy looking young guy hanging round that turned out to be the car valeter. I checked that he’d be able to do the car in the next hour and a half, then handed over the car keys. Getting changed, it struck me how potentially stupid that might have been — handing your car keys over to a complete stranger in a carpark… It added a certain frisson to my workout. Happily, the car was sitting there gleaming in the morning sun when I returned. They did a great job of getting the sap off as well…

Went for my final scan at the Whittington this afternoon. Good news at last — the lining is back to normal, and two little eggs ripening nicely… seems to have taken forever this time.

Went over to Jemima’s so the girls could play together. It all went pretty smoothly until they had a bath together, something they often do. They were having a lovely time until Nova said that Ruby didn’t like animals. Ruby was completely outraged and nearly in tears over this slur. She kept saying, “I like animals, Nova!” There was no consoling her: we all agreed she liked animals, Nova went so far as to say that Ruby loved animals, but she wasn’t to be mollified. We left shortly afterward…

May 12, 2004

The Central Line’s broken this morning (there was a train derailment at White City yesterday afternoon) and I had to make my way from Tottenham Court Road. It was a meetings kind of a day. It crossed my mind as I sat through a one hour all-staff meeting that this endeavour was costing the organisation. A rough calculation of average salaries suggested that we were spending about £1500 of taxpayers money each time we have a all-staff meeting…

I worked late at the office on my e-marketing strategy, and after a quick meal of pad thai I worked on it all evening as well. I find that projects like that tend to drag on forever, now that I’m part time. Its in good enough shape now to submit it next week…

May 11, 2004

I had a good day at work, but Nova made up for that once I got to the nursery… If you don’t like reading all the poop stories that seem to dominate my life these days, you might want to skip this entry…

I found Nova sitting on the potty, but she leapt up when I walked in with nothing to show for her efforts. We were just getting her boots on, when she clutched her bum and said, “Poop poop, mommy!” I whipped off her trousers and sat her on the potty, but the damage was done. It was a mistake to strip her in the cloakroom, because by the time we got to the loo it was a huge mess. It took me nearly half an hour to clean up: poop on the inside and outside of her boot, poop on her trousers and panties, poop in and on the potty, poop on the floor…

We finally set off, bag of shitty clothes in hand. I called Jemima on my mobile to firm up our evening’s plans. I was just saying how it could have been worse if Nova had had her accident on the walk home, when Nova clutched her bum again and cried, “Poop poop, mommy!” This time, there was nothing to be done but continue the fifteen minute walk home. She was pretty miserable about it, and kept saying she was “dirty”.

I transferred her straight to the bath and peeled her clothes off. I wouldn’t have believed what a mess she was if I hadn’t seen it. She looked like she’d been painted brown. There was no hot water (I discovered later that Adam had switched off the boiler) and I had to hose Nova down with icy cold water like some sadistic American marine in an Iraqi prison. It was a nightmare for both of us…

If there’s one positive about the whole ordeal, perhaps she’ll be keener to poop on her potty after this experience. Or perhaps she’ll never poop again…

Adam was supposed to be home early, but he phoned me 45 minutes after I’d expected him to tell me he was still in Notting Hill. I’d got Nova fed and into a nice warm bubble bath by the time he finally got in. I headed for an evening out with Jemima, leaving piles of poopy laundry in two sinks.

We went to a political comedy night at a pub in Crouch End, where I immediately downed a Schmirnoff Ice. I could have had five more, but it was a work night. The comedy was pretty good. There weren’t many people there, which brings down the atmosphere, but a few of the acts were very funny, particularly an Indian guy called Jay Sodagar, who had a whole series of jokes about racists (turning the whole racist joke thing on its head) and a man called John Oliver who writes comedy for Radio 4. Home about 11pm.

May 10, 2004

Carolyn left this morning. It’s been really nice having her — we always enjoy their visits. It was my first day back at work as well. I felt much more ready to be there than I did a couple of weeks ago…

I got lots done — sorted through the 200+ emails that had accumulated (hard to remember what it was like coming back from work before the email era), and picked up most of the balls that had been dropped in my absence and got them in the air again.

I ate dinner with Nova then went to the gym when Adam got home. It feels reallly good to be able to exercise again. I ran 2 1/2 miles and did some cycling and rowing, as well as my weights and abdominal exercises.

May 9, 2004

Felt the sake a bit this morning… I took Nova for a swim at the gym. It’s adults only except for a four-hour slot on Sundays. It’s the first time that Nova’s been able to go — they don’t let kids in the pool unless they are potty trained, which is reasonable. She was very excited about it; it’s been a while since we’ve been swimming together. The pool was a complete madhouse, with dozens of kids and parents frolicking away.

We had lunch in the gym cafe afterward. We were sitting there eating our lunch when Nova said, “Ruby’s here”. I looked around but there was no sign of Ruby or her parents. About five minutes later, Ruby and Rob walked into the cafe. I have no idea how she knew Ruby had arrived, unless she heard her voice through the open cafe window. It was pretty noisy in there though, and it is on the second floor. One of those Twilight Zone moments…

Adam had work to do in the afternoon, so Nova and I went over to Ruby’s for a visit. The girls had a pretty nice time together, except for the ongoing poop drama. Nova is very averse to pooping in her potty or on the toilet and will hold on for days if she can. It has been three days since her last installment, and she was clearly feeling uncomfortable. I stuck her on their toilet half a dozen times but she refused to go. Once we got back home, she finally did the long-awaited poop in three installments, protesting all the while…

By the time she went down for the night, I was as rung out as a dishrag. I didn’t have the energy to cook dinner, so we ordered pizzas and ate them in front of the telly.

May 8, 2004

Went to the gym for a workout first thing. I’d scheduled a facial afterward. I was going to have the kind I’d had before, but apparently the only woman qualified to do that kind wasn’t available, so I had an Espa instead. It was nice, but maybe a little too aggressive for my skin, I just don’t need that level of exfoliating.

Adam had taken Nova to Fay’s fairy birthday party by the time I got back. I pottered about the house, and made an aubergine dip for lunch. Made the trek to Brent Cross afterward, to buy Adam a raincoat and Nova some new panties (the accident rate is still too high to manage on five pairs…)

We’d arranged to go out for dinner at Nobu with Rob and Jemima this evening. Carolyn had agreed to babysit. We set off in a cab about 7:30, and got there in time to have a cocktail before sitting down to dinner. The guys had martinis ( a lychee martini and a saketini) and I had champagne flavoured with ume boshi plums.

For dinner, Jemima and I had the same chef’s selection menu I’d tried the first time, while Adam and Rob tried the experimental menu which changes daily. The food was as fabulous as last time, but I think Jemima and I slightly edged the men out — when we were served the black cod they were given a sea urchin flavoured egg custard…

We also dispatched a couple of large flasks of sake between the three of us (Jemima doesn’t drink). I didn’t realise how much I was feeling it until tried to totter down the stairs to the ladies in my high heels). No wonder the time seemed to fly by… It was great fun though…

Got home about 12:30am. I went in to check on Nova, and discovered her standing beside her bed, bent over to rest her head, and fast asleep… the little sweetie…

May 7, 2004

Today was a “home day” as Nova calls them. With Adam at work and Carolyn off sightseeing, it was very peaceful. Or it would have been if Nova wasn’t in such a stroppy mood…

We spent ages in the garden playing the “tightrope game”. Nova dresses up in her tutu, and picks her way along the top of the dangerous patio wall holding her pink umbrella and reciting lines from Maisie goes to the circus.

Things improved in the afternoon. We made snickerdoodles, and since the weather was so miserable and cold, we climbed into bed and watched Winnie the Pooh and ate popcorn. “I want more popcorn,” Nova said in all seriousness after dispatching a massive bowl.

She tucked away a healthy dinner, and was agreeable about going to bed, so we ended the day on a high note. I made a Vietnamese chicken-cabbage salad for dinner, Adam got in about 9:15pm (he’d had a big day getting the Body Shop annual report out) and we ate then, and watched Peter Ackroyd’s London. London has certainly burned a lot, and each time the opportunity to plan a more logical, commodious city have been spurned, and the old twisting alleyways reemerge.

Watched the news afterwards. Pretty much the whole hour was devoted to the Iraq prison torture scandal and those awful pictures. For the last year I had the feeling that I could have predicted every twist and turn in the whole bloody, unnecessary mess. In fact, I’m pretty sure I did in the endless conversations we had leading up to the war. But these torture allegations have dumbfounded me. I guess I must be naive, but I would never have expected American and British forces to behave in such a disgusting, barbaric way. My first thought when the images started coming out was that they must be clever propaganda cooked up by the Iraqi resistance…

May 6, 2004

The plumbers returned to put the finishing touches on their work. Adam was at home, so I took the chance to go to the gym. Completed my new workout — it takes about an hour and a half. This afternoon, out of the blue, Nova said, “Which would I like — peepee potty or peepee toilet? Peepee toilet.” She happily hopped up onto the toilet and did one. I don’t know what inspired her, but it opens up vistas of possibility…

Cracked a bottle of champagne this afternoon to christen the new boiler. It turns out we haven’t seen the last of the plumbers. They are returning next week to install a new shower in the flat.

Left Adam to do Nova’s evening routine, and took Carolyn out for a pre-theatre dinner at the Criterion, and then to the Arts Theatre to see Hurricane. Adam had taken Beulah for her birthday in January, and they both thought it was terrific. It’s a one-man show that tells the story of Alex “Hurricane” Higgins, enfant terrible of snooker. Mesmerising performance, although the story itself was little more than a chronological account of events in his life. There was no interval and we were home quite early…

May 5, 2004

The plumbers had another full day’s work, so I decided to head into town. Selfridges is doing this Brazil thing at the moment, and the store was hopping with a five-piece live band, fashion show, Brazilian cooking demonstrations and so on. I tried a glass of acai juice (apparently it’s all the rage in Brazil at the moment) and had a black bean fritter stuffed with prawn curry, which was very tasty if a bit heavy.

I also bought a new skirt — knee length, A-line, in a colour described as “clay”, which means is goes equally well with browns and blacks.

Got home to discover that most of the boiler work has been successfully completed. The guys have a few details to finish off tomorrow, then that should be it. Heat, hot water, and flushing toilets! The new shower is great — although there was a lot of room for improvement. The old one was so feeble that I had taken to showering at the gym as much as possible.

Adam out for the evening, taking part in some kind of environmental focus group. Carolyn was out in east London seeing a ska opera. I had cheese and crackers for dinner in front of the telly — everyone needs an evening like that once in a while…

May 4, 2004

Nova was dead against the idea of nursery this morning. As she grows more articulate it is harder to ignore her objections: apparently she doesn’t like the food, the teachers, the other kids, the garden, the painting etc, etc, etc…

The boiler replacement starts today. The plumbers were here at 8:30am, and cut off the water, toilets and heat. Needless to say it was a freezing cold, rainy day. I decided to go to the gym. I’d arranged a fitness assessment and workout consultation. The fitness assessment showed that my weight and body fat are at the top end of the desired range, my grip strength is average, my blood pressure is good, and my flexibility is excellent. So not bad…

The trainer carrying out my assessment was very good, and came up with a workout based around running and weight loss, with a range of abdominal exercises on those big balls that everybody uses these days. I thought she’d just talk me through it, but we went through every inch and rep, so I got more of a workout than I’d planned, and felt better for it. It’s been a few months since I’ve been able to do any exercise…

Stopped off to do some shopping in Muswell Hill. The rain was absolutely bucketing down, and thunder was rumbling on the horizon. I bought Nova some new, plastic animals for her farm. (The toystore carries these surprisingly anatomically correct German animals — her toy pig sports a huge set of balls, and her toy bull very impressively endowed.)

May 3, 2004

We packed up after breakfast, cleaned the house (I’m certain that we left it much cleaner than we found it…) and set off about 10am. Stopped for lunch about 12:30pm, at a little Somerset town about half way home. We each had the ploughmans with different cheeses, and then shared. The give you such a huge hunk of cheese with a ploughman’s that the variety was welcome. Nova did three peepees while we were there — she quite likes the excitement of traipsing off to the toilets…

The traffic on North Circular was awful, so we took a cross-country route recommended by Carolyn. I don’t think it saved us any time, but at least it kept us moving.

Once we’d got unpacked, I had a little nap. Woke up in time to get Nova’s dinner together, and made grilled salmon and a quinoa salad for the adults. Watched the snooker final — Ronnie O’Sullivan captured his second (or was it his third?) title. Snooker is one of those sports that, once you get into it, is inexplicably exciting to watch on television…

May 2, 2004

Woke up to lovely sunshine streaming through the bedroom window. One thing about good weather — you appreciate it so much more when you’ve been deprived of it…

The Cornish countryside was transformed, everything dazzling green and the embankments studded with bluebells, primroses and campion. I’d been telling myself how greens show up more vividly against a dull sky, which is something I learned in photography class, but it’s a load of shit really.

We drove to the lost gardens of Heligan and spent a few hours. What a marvellous place. Created in the 1800s, the gardens were among the finest in England, with a wonderful collection of trees and shrubs from all over the world. When WWI started, the male staff all signed up to fight. Heligan House was taken over by the War Office and became a convalescent home for officers.

After the war the house was rented out and the gardens declined. They were lost for many years under mountains of ivy, bramble and laurel. Restoration started in 1990, and today they’ve been returned to their former glory.

I always enjoy vegetable gardens, and there was a manure pit for growing pineapples (apparently a Victorian passion) that was particularly interesting. The centrepiece was definitely the “jungle boardwalk”, which took you past massive rhododendrons, gunnera, huge tree ferns — surrounded by such exuberant foliage, you would never think you were in England.

We could have spent much longer, but Nova’s patience was wearing thin. We drove into Megavissey on the coast for a fish and chip lunch, then had an ice cream as we strolled around the harbour. We took the tiny, single-track B-roads out of town and round the headland to Hemmick Beach. At one point we had to hop out and open a farm gate, after which the road proceeded across a sheep field on the cliff’s edge with incredible views west to Lands End. It was practically the same as walking the coast path, which we did in 1991.

We parked in the National Trust carpark, and hiked a 1/2 mile to the beach. It was a lovely secluded spot, with beautiful clean sand and great views. Adam and Carolyn promptly sprawled out and fell asleep, and I spent the next hour running in and out of the ice cold sea with Nova. She has an amazing tolerance for cold. I’d rolled up my trousers to my knees but she was catching waves up to her middle, and I was the one that was freezing.

Got back to the house about 6pm. Nova did peepee potty, then the minute our back was turned did a massive runny poop on the livingroom carpet, which was a nightmare to clean up.

Carolyn cooked mushroom risotto for dinner. Crashed out by 11pm.

May 1, 2004

We set off promptly after breakfast to visit the Eden project. The weather, although not sunny, was better — warmer and the sky was higher and less menacing. I don’t think you’d want to visit on a hot, summer’s day actually — most of the site is inside these enormous biospheres (greenhouses) and they were pretty hot.

Spent all morning in the biospheres, stopping for a tea break between the jungle and temperate environments. We had Nova’s potty in the backpack, and took her for peepees in the toilets whenever she asked.

The outdoor part of the Eden project very impressive as well. It’s hard to believe that only five years ago the site was a hideous gaping hole in the ground. Ate lunch in the restaurant before heading off. The food very good, with lots of nice fresh herbs, and why not with the acres of herbs growing outside.

We’d promised Nova an outing to the beach, so in spite of the gray skies and biting wind, we stopped off at Par Sands on the way home. It wasn’t a very nice beach. I encountered two nasty items, which I buried in the sand, before we’d gone twenty yards. There was a dirty great factory hulking in the distance round the bay, although the lousy weather obscured our view of it a bit. Nonetheless, Nova had a great time digging, gathering shells, and visiting with other beach folk (she scored a doughnut and a glass of lemonade from a group of picnickers).