May 2010

May 31, 2010

Adam did a croissant run first thing while I made the coffee. Back in 15 minutes, with wonderful croissants, pains au chocolat, and baguettes that were still warm…Did a more comprehensive shop at the Intermarché this morning, and returned home with our bounty for a lunch of tomato salad, salami, last of the chicken, paté, and cheese. I love these French holidays that revolve around shopping for food, preparing food, eating food, shopping for more food… I also love how it’s still relatively difficult to eat badly in France…

Margo and Aaron went off for an outing in the afternoon. When they returned, Adam and I took the opportunity for a bit of time on our own. We drove into Fayence to look for an Internet café (the wifi at the house doesn’t seem to be working). Discovered the local ice cream shop, which has about 80 flavours, all homemade according to the proprietor. Things like salted caramel, lavendar, basil, rose, cherry, gingerbread alongside the more predictable ones. My pernod ice cream was a definite winner…

Dinner was sausages on the barbeque, cous cous and potato salad. I’m teaching Nova to play crib — I’m surprised at how much I’ve forgotten, but it came back to me as we worked through a few hands. I used to play a lot of crib when I was younger, occasionally with mum who enjoyed it as well.

Happily, the weather is better than I’d expected. When I checked in Britain, the long range forecast wasn’t too promising. Also I thought it might be a bit chillier (and wetter) up in the hills. Nothing but high 20s to 30s high twenties so far…

We’re getting through the rosé at a rate of knots — it goes down very easily in this environment…;-) Tonight’s film is Donnie Darko, which is a great movie, though doesn’t really make sense to me. I’m always a bit baffled by sci-fi type plots though…

May 30, 2010

“Shall I make you a little hairstyle?” Lyra asked this morning in bed. When I gave a little chuckle, she said, “Don’t laugh! I’m making you a hairstyle, not a joke!”Fed the girls apples for breakfast — the rest of us went without. Provisions were a pretty high priority, especially as we knew any shops that were open would shut by noon, so Adam, Margo and Aaron set straight off to see what they could find.

The girls were determined to get in the pool, even though it was only 9:30am. Unsurprisingly the water was pretty cold, and we only lasted ten minutes before Lyra was shivering and blue. Piled under towels on the deck chairs to warm up. Spent the whole morning by the pool, braving the water from time to time…

The others returned in time for lunch with essential provisions like bread, milk, and rosé…;-) The afternoon passed much like the morning, except the water was warm enough to swim without developing hypothermia…

The main excitement came when Lyra fell in the pool with her clothes on. She was walking round the edge of the pool when she was distracted by a butterfly. Looking up, she lost her balance and toppled into the pool. She clawed her way to the edge before any of us had time to react, and hung there wailing. She scraped her nose on the edge as she fell, and has a painful little graze, but is otherwise unscathed. “Why did I fall in the pool without my swimsuit, mummy?” she kept asking, trying to understand how it happened.

In the late afternoon, we drove up to Tourettes, which is our nearest village. Perched on a hillside, there are marvellous views down the valley towards the coast. We wandered the narrow streets to the local chateau (now converted to luxury apartments. The cherry tree next to the chateau wall was heavy with ripe cherries, and we snaffled a few accessible handfuls for the walk back to the car.

Returned home for a dinner of rotisserie chicken and salad washed down with copious quantities of rosé. The house has a very good DVD collection — there are about a dozen films I’d happily watch. I kicked things off with Michael clayton. Margo’s pick tomorrow…

May 29, 2010

Lyra woke me at 3:45am… she had a nightmare about a monster with a tail and getting stuck in the curtains. She’s having a lot of bad dreams these days. It took a while to settle her, and I couldn’t get back to sleep afterwards. Got up about 5am to tackle the rest of the getting ready…Made an enormous packed lunch for the train, finished our packing, and got the girls up and dressed. We were all ready when the cab arrived at 7:45am. As we were setting off, I passed our travelling papers to Adam to doublecheck we had everything.

“Where did you put my passport?” he asked. When I said I hadn’t seen it, Adam insisted he’d put his Arsenal passport holder with the packing pile and I’d either lost it or stuck it in the wrong spot. Cue increasily frantic searching of our luggage, blaming of incompetent wife, unsuccessful trip back to house. While he ransacked our bags, I went back to look myself, and easily found it in the wooden box he always keeps it in…

“Now, all the bad luck is gone!” said the taxi driver optimistically. Oh, if only that were the case… We still had adequate time to make it to St Pancras for the 8:57 to Lille. That leg took about an hour and a half, followed by a quick change for the train to Marseille. It was one of those two story trains — we were on the bottom this time, but the view was still very good.

Broke out the lunch at noon on the dot. I’d made a big stuffed round loaf sandwich with all our leftovers from Borough Market, as well as regular sandwiches for the girls, chopped veg, mini cucumbers, crisps… The hard boiled quails eggs with cumin a particular hit with everybody.

After eating, the girls got busy drawing, reading, and working through their magazines. “I don’t feel very good,” Nova said to me after a while. I took her to the toilet and when we returned to our seats, decided to give her a gravol. Whether it was the taste of the pill or the sip that broke the dam, she immediately vomited spectacularly all over the table. Fortunately, we’re old pros at vomit management — I never travel without ziplock bags, paper towels, handwipes etc. With Aaron’s help, I had that mess cleared up in no time…:-)

Whenever we travel by train, Lyra always hangs over the back of her seat and engages the passengers behind her in conversation. People are always completely charmed by her, and she chats away happily with them. This time, there was a young French couple seated behind her. “Hello!” Lyra chirped. Nothing… “Hello!!” she repeated louder. Not a flicker…

Lyra is nothing if not persistent, and she must have said “hello” thirty times, before turning to me in bafflement. “That woman won’t say ‘hello!” she told me. “I think she’s French, sweetie,” I said. “You could try saying ‘bonjour’.” “OK,” said Lyra, clambering up the seat again, and poking her head over. “Bonjour!” Rien… After another thirty or so fruitless “bonjours”, she finally gave up. “Why don’t you try saying hello to someone else?” I suggested.

And she did… For the last half hour of our journey, she wandered up and down the carriage, blackening the silent woman’s name to her fellow passengers. “That woman won’t say BONJOUR!” she’d announce loudly to each person. “You try to say bonjour to that woman!”

Disembarked at Aix, and headed straight for the car rental. Our hire car was rented in Aaron’s name, but unfortunately he’d misplaced his wallet (with his driver’s licence etc) a couple of days ago, which presented a problem. We had to cancel our internet booking and make another, higher priced one. Frustrating, but nothing time and money couldn’t sort out…

Lyra kicked off at the sight of her car seat. I think her dignity was offended by the paper cover they provided to protect the seat from spills. “I DON’T WANT THIS CAR SEAT!!!” she screeched. “TAKE THIS CAR SEAT AWAY AND THROW IT IN THE BIN!!!!” With one hand applied firmly to the chest, I managed to wedge her bucking body into the seat and strapped her down. She expended a lot of energy on that tantrum slept the rest of the journey, and what a journey it turned out to be…

The roads aren’t that clearly signed leaving the train station, and we ended up setting off in exactly the wrong direction. We were past Marseille before we managed to sort ourselves out. Further confusion arose when we exited the motorway resulted in us taking a tortuous goat track to Fayence. The car journey ended up taking two hours longer than it should have. Not having a map definitely didn’t help…

Finally arrived in Fayence about 8pm. There was nowhere open to buy provisions, and we still didn’t know where the house was. Adam called the caretaker Angela who recommended a route through Tourettes. Our Picasso mini van is a bit wide for the narrow little roads, and we didn’t feel confident attempting what we thought she was suggesting. Made it eventually, by going back to the main road and back up again…

Our house is up a long flight of steps (there are 74 of them, somebody said later). It is beautifully situated with amazing views, and seems a charming place. Didn’t spend much time checking it out — just dropped the bags and headed back into Fayence for dinner.

Ate at a busy pizzeria off the main drag, and got back home about 11pm. The house feels pretty damp, apparently it’s been raining torrentially — let’s hope we have no more of that this trip! We turned on the heater to try and take the edge off it and retired to bed.

Adam and I are in what is clearly the master bedroom, which is tastefully decorated and has French doors opening on to the verandah and a view over the valley. It also has a little adjoining annex, separated by a curtain, with two single beds for the girls.

Margo and Aaron have ended up with a dark little room on the other side of the house, with a three foot square view of the garden wall. At least it has an en suite bathroom. I felt a bit guilty, but it wouldn’t have been feasible to allocate the rooms the other way…

May 28, 2010

One of those frustrating days where I’m trying to get ready for a big trip with a zillion things to do, and all Lyra wants is to play shopkeeper or sleepover on the moon, and has no interest in watching her DVDs.Every third word out of her mouth is ‘actually’ at the moment. When I suggested that she play quietly in her room for a while, her response was, “Actually, I want to play noisy with you, mum…”

Adam was up against a major deadline for Bacardi (quelle surprise). He stayed up all night last night, and carried on all day. I took Lyra round the village with me on my errands: deli (train food); jeweller’s (cat collar batteries); bank (euros); bakery (doughnut to bribe Lyra); stationers (fly swatter); greengrocers (dinner/train food); butchers (ditto); newsagents (magazines to keep the girls occupied on the train).

Naturally, Lyra refused her nap — “actually, I’m not sleepy, mum!” She did hang out in her room long enough for me to call my friend Michaela who lost her grandmother a couple of weeks ago and is feeling very low…

Sausages and lentils for dinner, which is a good meal for clearing out the veggie tray. Adam went straight back to work after dinner. Once I had the girls in bed, I found myself curiously unmotivated to finish the packing, write notes for the milkman etc. Opted to spend a couple of hours sipping vodka with Margo and Aaron and listening to music instead. Finished off the Zubrovka and the vanilla vodka, and made a reasonable dent in the Grey Goose. To bed about midnight…

May 27, 2010

Our neighbour John turned 90 today. Pretty impressive, although his wife Anne is already 94, which steals a bit of his thunder…;-) Took him round a card and a bottle of cava.Had a houseworky kind of a day, plus trying to get ready for our trip to Provence. Had the usual list as long as my arm — which included designing the invites for the neighbourhood garden party in June. I wanted to do something different to last year’s, but didn’t want to spend a whole lot of time I didn’t have on it. Finally came up with this:

Margo and I headed into town at 5pm. Ate dinner at Wahaca, a place I’ve wanted to try for ages. Had a number of little dishes — chips and guac; pork pibil tacos; ceviche tostadas; chorizo & potato quesadillas; and chicken taquitos — plus a couple of very tasty tequilas each.

It was a short walk from there to the ENO, where we had tickets for Tosca. I went for the upper circle, which were the best tickets available by the time I booked. Actually, it was pretty interesting up there, and great people watching. There was some sort of art school class of trendy young things attending en masse, and it was fascinating to observe their interactions and speculate about them.

Really enjoyed the show, which was the directorial debut of the American soprano Catherine Malfitano. While the staging was quite traditional — until the last scene when it went all futuristic — I thought the tenor and the evil priest (Scarpia) were both excellent.

May 26, 2010

Finally got the results of the controversial review of digital services that was carried out in February. It was supposed to be a review of digital services, but in reality was more of an assessment of my team. The consultant returned to present his findings as a PowerPoint presentation. This was followed by an hour with our director discussing implications and next steps.There were no big surprises, but it won’t be any surprise either when the resulted are twisted to justify all manner of non-strategic, cost-ineffective, transparently turf-grabbing initiatives against us either… Not that I’m cynical…

Picked up Nova from Amy’s, and spent an hour planning the girls’ joint birthday party over a glass of wine. They are going to have a swimming party at the Mallinson Centre. The cost is fixed for up to 25 kids, so they are going to invite all the girls in the class, plus a few other friends/siblings each.

Lyra was happily entertaining Margo and Aaron when we returned. How that girls loves a captive audience… Dinner was a fridge clearing affair, washed down with a bottle of sherry… I’m on holiday for the next eleven days — woohoo!

May 25, 2010

“I like saying things — and I don’t like sharing!” Lyra announced at breakfast, demonstrating an admirable degree of self knowledge…I showed my new tooth to my teammates, and was surprised at the number who claimed not to have noticed the old cap. This in spite of the way it had “over-erupted” (to use the dentist’s word), resulting in a black line at the gum line, and a tooth that was a couple of millimetres longer than the other. Could it be that other people aren’t as interested in the state of my dentition as I thought…? Here’s a shot of my new tooth:

Walked to the Angel after work and met Gilda and Patricia at the Old King’s Head pub. Gilda had organised tickets for Jekyll and Hyde in their pub theatre. It was obviously done on a shoestring — the four actors made numerous quick rearrangements of two boxes, a stool, two shapes that looked like halves of piano, a bar shelf and a curtain to set each scene.

I thoroughly enjoyed it — though having three gin and tonics and a handful of nuts for dinner likely helped with that…

May 24, 2010

Cracked my capped tooth today — eating my breakfast meusli of all things. The tooth was well past its expiry date (I’ve had it since I was about fifteen), but it was still traumatic. The tooth cracked vertically and sheared as well, like a pair of slightly opened scissors, leaving a razor sharp edge exposed both front and back. Pretty irritating, as I told the dentist that it felt unstable on Friday, and he pooh poohed me.There was no way I was eating anything until I got it seen to. I dropped Nova at school, then went straight to our local dentist, who made a great show of squeezing me in on Wednesday afternoon. I returned home and called their other office, taking a different tack this time, asking the receptionist what time today they could fit me in for an emergency appointment. 12:30 was the answer…

The dentist took one look at it and said, “That has to come out immediately!” and within five minutes I was having novocaine injected into my gums. I’m no fan of dental work, but there are worse things in life. An acquaintance of ours — a woman my age — has recently been diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour, and will be dead within months, leaving two young children behind. I thought of her having a hole drilled into her head when the dentist was wrenching my old cap off its stump.

The temporary cap feels a bit strange, and I have to be careful not to bite things with it… As long as I’m careful it should last me the three months needed to decide whether to have a permanent cap or go for an implant… Set me back £200, but I’m just glad to have it replaced…

After the girls were down, I went for a drink with Pasc in her garden. I offered to bring a bottle of wine, but she said she’d fix us a cocktail. Never mind that she’s never made a cocktail in her life — she juiced a couple of lemons, flung in some sugar, water, a handful of mint, a hunk of ginger and a big glass of vodka and we were good to go. Home about 10pm…

May 23, 2010

Cleo stayed out all night. It’s the first time she’s done that — I think it may be because the batteries in her door zapper are getting low. Had a little walk around calling for her, but she didn’t appear…After breakfast, Margo and Aaron set off for Paddington station in a taxi. They were back fifteen minutes later, having forgotten their train tickets. Assume they still made their train, as they haven’t returned again…;-)

Reasonably lazy day pottering about the house. Ate a lunch of bruschetta in the garden, and managed to settle Lyra for a nap. When she woke, we hopped in the car and headed to Ben’s for Asparagus Fest 2010. It’s the best weather he’s had for it in years, and also the first time we’ve arrived late in the day. There was lots of food left, but we missed the drama of platters of food arriving. Even worse, we also missed the cake…

Got home about 8pm, and settled the girls. Once they were down, we managed to track down the cat who was hanging out in Somerset Gardens. Her door fob isn’t working properly, which means she can’t let herself in and out as usual, but I imagine she’s befriended other families in the road as well…

I wish people would think a bit before feeding other people’s pets. It’s one thing for a cat to wander in for a visit, but something else if you’re regularly putting out food for them. Word on the street is that the neighbour who “looked after” Cleo while we were in Iceland last year (costing us about £200 in long distance calls on our mobile phone trying to track her down) has installed a cat flap so that Pumpkin and Cleo can drop in for food and visits…

May 22, 2010

Packed a picnic lunch first thing, and set off for Kew Gardens. We took the train from Gospel Oak, which gets you to Kew in about half an hour. It’s certainly been upgraded since the last time I used it — staff at the station, working ticket machines, shiny new trains — it used to be pretty grim. I’m sure that David Cameron and his crew will soon put a stop to such wasteful use of public money as upgrading public transportation. If you can’t afford your own car, you deserve to rattle around in piss-reeking, decrepit old trains…It was a glorious day and a lot of like-minded people queuing to spend a day at Kew. Started with a visit to the tropical glasshouse with the enormous palms. I think it may have been something Aaron said, but Lyra spent the whole time keeping an anxious eye out for monkeys. She’s been nervous of them ever since watching The Wizard of Oz with those creepy flying monkeys.

Meandered towards the playground, via the world’s smallest waterlily, to where we stopped and ate our lunch, which included some very tasty artichoke-pequillo pepper sandwiches from last night’s leftovers.

Took the rhododendron walk to the Thames, where we sat for a spell contemplating Syon House, then headed towards a kid’s attraction identified on our map as the Badger Sett. Turns out it’s a human-sized badger sett so kids can experience what it’s like to be a badger. Nova disappeared straight into one of the tunnels, but Lyra was a bit more cautious at first.

I don’t know what was going on in there, but half the kids who re-emerged seemed to be bawling. It turned out there were three or four entrances and exits, which was part of the problem. Little Nigel would venture into one tunnel, spend several minutes bumbling around in the gloom bumping into other disoriented children, and emerge from a different tunnel where — shock! horror! — there was no mummy and daddy waiting where you thought you had left them…

Our final stop was the treetop walk, a circular route 18 metres above the ground. The views were great, but it was hard to relax with Lyra tearing about, dodging through people’s legs, trying to pry up wobbly pieces of flooring etc. Happy to be back on the ground again…

We had great connections both ways, but it was still a full day’s outing, which left us just enough time for a beer and a little relax before we set out for dinner at Providores. With four of us, it made sense to get a taxi. And with four of us, it was possible to order most of the great sounding stuff on the menu. Overall, Aaron made the best menu choices, with me a close second, but pretty much everything I tasted was excellent. These were my particular favourites:

• Smoked duck, tamarind, liquorice and coconut laksa
  with green tea noodles, a soft boiled quail’s egg (Aaron)
• Tempura spicy dahl stuffed inari pocket on char-grilled
  aubergine with atari goma tofu dressing, basil, za‘atar,
  Medjool dates and preserved lemon (me)
• Crispy Middle White pork belly on black pudding panizza,
  Oloroso soaked raisin and parsley salad
  and pickled king oyster mushrooms (me)
• Roast New Zealand Firstlight Wagyu sirloin on Heirloom
  tomato and marinated beetroot salad, red onion jam,
  smoked chilli and yuzu jelly and a black
  sesame rice cracker (Aaron)

What I really like about Providores is the way in manages to be a temple to fine dining in a relaxed, buzzy atmosphere. In some of the finer restaurants we’ve eaten in, everybody is so formal and serious that you feel enjoying yourself would be frowned upon as interfering with a proper appreciation of the food.

May 21, 2010

Went for a run first thing — just my two mile quicky, but it was all I had time for. I’d arranged to pop round for a visit with Jemima and Rosa before heading into town with Margo, Aaron, Adam and Lyra.We started at Borough Market, where we picked up a few bits and pieces and grabbed a bite of lunch. Walked along the Thames as far as the foot bridge, then crossed and wandered up to St Pauls.

We caught a bus to the Barbican, where I was keen to see an exhibition that was closing on the weekend. The French artist Celeste Boursier-Mougenot has transformed one of the galleries into an aviary inhabited by 40 zebra finches and a collection of electric guitars.

I wasn’t the only Londoner keen to see it. The line stretched most of the way down the main hall, and as they were only letting in a couple of dozen people at a time, it took the best part of an hour until we were admitted. Fortunately, it was worth the wait. A sandy boardwalk leads through darkness to a brightly lit aviarym, alive with fluttering finches. The birds perch on guitars and cymbals, which serve as food and water dishes. The instruments are fitted with microphones and amplifiers so that each movement of a bird on an instrument is transmitted, and creates an ambient soundscape. Quite marvellous…

Dinner was tapas — grilled asparagus, albondigues, tortilla, olives, bread. Kicked off the meal with a round of Margo’s excellent martinis, which she had the good sense to pre-mix before we headed out this morning, so they were properly chilled…

May 20, 2010

Margo and Aaron arrived this afternoon! Adam went off to Heathrow to meet them, while I spent a bit of time getting the house in order. It’s great to see them — they don’t appear to have changed a bit in the two years since our last visit. I hadn’t realised it has been ten years since their last trip to England. Too long…The girls were a bit shy at first, but soon warmed up. Made a simple pasta supper and broke out the Pink Floyd rosé, which was lovely…

May 19, 2010

Impromptu working at home day — it made sense, as I needed to take Lyra to doctor to get her leg looked at. She’s still not walking on it properly. She won’t flex her ankle at all, and swings her leg out sideways as if the cast were still on it.According to the hospital, she should have been walking properly by now, but the doctor didn’t seem overly concerned. When I asked him about physio, he said that children are so active that physio generally isn’t necessary. Talking to Wade later, he suggested swimming, which I think is a really good idea.

They’ve closed our path again to fix the disaster they created when they sealed off Pete and Pasc’s sewer pipe… grrr…

May 18, 2010

While I’m enjoying my course, it really takes a bite out of the time I usually devote to home and work. It feels like those parts of my life have been pretty neglected. The weekend away didn’t help either… I’d like to have some time to prepare for Margo and Aaron’s visit — they arrive on Thursday — but I don’t think that’s going to be possible…Walking to Tottenham Court Road tube this evening, I passed a wine shop displaying a rosé called Pink Floyd. Hooked me like a trout — I went it to check it out and got chatting with the shop owner. It turns out the wine gets its because the chateau where the grapes are grown is where Pink Floyd recorded their Dark Side of the Moon album. Furthermore, the chateau is now home to Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. Had to get me a bottle of that… It’s not cheap, but I’ll save it to christen Margo and Aaron’s arrival and our forthcoming trip to Provence…

May 17, 2010

Lyra is increasingly keen to dress herself. This may be driving her greater enthusiasm for teeshirts and trousers — she sees them as learning opportunities. Whatever the reason, it makes a nice change to see her in something other than fancy dresses…Went for a drink with my friend Carol after work. I think the rebellious teenagers inside both of us recognise one other — whenever we get together it’s always trouble. We played it relatively safe tonight, ordering only one bottle of rosé (and a large glass for the road). We even ordered a bit of food and a jug of tap water to minimise the impact of the alcohol.

Carol does interim work at quite a senior level. For example, I met her when she did a four month stint as the Comms director at my agency. She’s very good, and never seems to have any down time between posts. I’ve known her for a couple of years now, and I’ve noticed that she seems to present a different incarnation of herself as she moves from place to place. Interesting to consider how even a job I’m no longer invested in may be impacting my personality and image…

May 16, 2010

Got a reasonable amount of sleep for first time in days… Nova crept in about 6am, but fortunately her dad sorted it out. One advantage of taking the bed further from the door…;-)After breakfast there was a spontaneous change of plans to ride steam railway. Made a mad dash to Bewdley station 10 miles away. Richard drives like a crazed F1 driver under normal conditions, and he was really going for it this morning. Both the girls were green by the time we arrived…

Rode the train two stations down to Highley and back, which took about 45 minutes. Alongside where we parked were three train carriages that had been converted into shops. One was for train enthusiasts, with back issues of magazines, memorabilia and bits for model railways. The other two were more toy/junk shops, and one had a collection of dolls’ house items. Nova was in heaven — she loves her retail therapy, that girl.

Our return was more sedate thankfully, though poor Nova still staggered out of the car and vomited on their gate… Lunch was a catch-all meal.There’s something very relaxing about that sort of hospitality. You can’t feel you’re putting people out when they serve up a frozen personal-size pizza and two boiled eggs between six.

Went to an open garden afternoon up the road at friends of theirs who happen to be Jenny and Paul’s next door neighbours. Spent an hour or so, and actually had a chat with Paul and Daniel over the fence (Jenny was inside nursing a hangover).

The drive home was a real slog, and a reminder why we like to travel earlier in the afternoon. Lyra slept the whole three hours, waking up as we pulled in at bedtime, making her a treat to settle for the night…not…

May 15, 2010

Lyra cried out twice in the night, requiring me to get out of bed and settle her down. Although as she told me this morning, it was Daisy who did the shouting, not her. Can be pretty handy having an imaginary friend…It was a glorious, sunny morning — the kind that had me wishing I’d brought a pair of dark glasses… Walked the dogs in the surrounding fields after breakfast, then headed into Tenbury to check out the local food fair. It was a pretty small scale event, but we bought a few bits. Lunched on sausage baps and an ice cream cone.

On our way back to the car park, we bumped into the Wellings. Former neighbours of ours, they moved out of London six years ago, and now live a five minute drive from Richard and Rosanne. Jenny started straight in on how I should have told her we were coming, and how we had to come round for a drink etc. I don’t know if it’s my course making me more assertive, but I pointed out to her that she never bothers looking in on us when she visits London — which she regularly does — even parking in our road at times.

After an excellent roast dinner, we got the girls to bed about 9pm. Not too far behind them this evening…

May 14, 2010

Lyra asserted her need for security (as represented by her mother) at 4am, which meant only two hours sleep… No rest for the wicked…;-)Spent the morning doing acting exercises with a theatre director and trainer. It was good fun. For the last bit, she arranged the group as an audience, and we had to take turns walking into the room and doing some impromput public speaking. In my initial critique, I learned that I was standing too stiffly, not using my hands enough (at least above waist level), and scanning the room with my eyes rather than focussing on one individual at a time and addressing a sentence to them. She had me do it again and again, until I got the hang of it.

As soon as I got home, I helped Adam get us packed for our weekend at Richard and Rosanne’s in Tenbury Wells. The house was a shambles, but we just pulled the door shut on it — it can wait… Traffic was heavy initially, but we made good time after the first hour, and arrived about 8pm.

Rosanne fed the girls first, then we settled them before the grownups ate. Unfortunately Rosanne collects china dalmations. There are dozens of them, meticulously arranged on every surface. Not easy to explain to a three year old that she isn’t to touch any of those tempting, toylike items…

Dinner was accompanied by three bottles of wine. Yet again, I’m humbled and impressed by the way the “older generation” can knock it back. Pretty exhausted by the time I went to bed at midnight.

May 13, 2010

Ran my presentation past Nova this morning who laughed supportively in the appropriate spots. I actually I didn’t feel that nervous, and started well. I felt a little shaky in the middle, but don’t think it was that obvious. I got a couple of really big laughs — fortunately, where I was hoping to get them — and at the end two people had tears running down their cheeks.My feedback consisted mostly of words like ‘brilliant”, “beautiful”, “brave” and “amazing”, which weren’t the kind of words that had been used to critique the previous ten presentations. Even Nicholas the course organiser said, “I’m not quite sure what you did, but it was magical”. Given that my main ambition was not to disgrace myself, I certainly overshot the mark.

Went out for a group dinner at the end of the day to Trattoria Semplice in Bond Street. Nice Italian food and far too much wine… Caught the last tube train home, and rolled into bed about 2am…

May 12, 2010

My big insight from this week’s course is that I have quite an adolescent orientation to the world. In one of the group circle sessions, we had an exchange about what the course leader guy was doing when he sat in the circle with us. One woman felt that he was grading us, another thought he was a mediator, one guy thought he was observing and reporting on us, and the other guy had impulses to be mischevious — turn our chairs around, refuse to speak for the whole hour etc. It made him giggly just thinking about it. My own view was that he was there to watch, but I didn’t ascribe much importance to the role.This brought us onto a discussion of our attitude to authority, and a realisation that mine is actually quite jeuvenile. Apparently, this can happen if your father’s not firm enough or something… I’ll have to do some reading around that…

Got home reasonably early for a change. Got the girls down, then went to work on my presentation — I’ll be glad when the bloody thing is over. I had my ideas pretty much where I wanted them, but when I started practicing actually saying it in front of the mirror, I wasn’t so great at conveying them. Felt like an ass doing it as well, but I think I’ll be the better for it tomorrow…

May 11, 2010

Had a couple of guest speakers today. I quite enjoyed the Jamaican barrister/rapper, while the radical C of E minister seemed to create some conflict within the group. We also did group work on our presentions on conflict and diversity.We had evening tickets to the National Theatre to see a play called London Assurance. Written a hundred and fifty years ago, it was one of those English country house sex farces. It must be in the English DNA to like that stuff — like pantos. Personally it leaves me pretty cold…

May 10, 2010

The theme of this week’s course is managing conflict and diversity. I’ve had mixed feelings about it — wondering if they would be deliberately putting us into conflict situations so we could practice resolving them. It was really good to see everyone — I’ve been so lucky with the group of people I’m doing the course with — and wouldn’t have fancied fighting with them for the sake of it…Our first session looked at what conflict actually is and where it starts. Without giving it much thought, I would have said that conflict was something that occurs between two people who think or feel differently about something important to both of them.

Today I learned that conflict starts within yourself, when you feel something negative and then make assumptions about another person’s role in generating those feelings. Usually those feelings arise when one of your needs are not being met. There is a hierarchy of needs that are pretty much universal, starting with safety, sustenance, shelter, and climbing through companionship to things like a creative outlet. And generally people can’t focus on the higher ones unless the lower ones are being met.

But it’s the assumptions you make that tend to be the problem. For example, you walk into a room and someone doesn’t greet you. You think, “she doesn’t like me”, or “she wishes I hadn’t come”, when actually they are just daydreaming, and it builds from there…

May 9, 2010

Felt very low energy this morning. I’d wanted to go for a family walk in the bluebell woods near Great Missenden, but the weather was discouraging. I think the fact that my course starts tomorrow may have put me off as well — I know it’s going to be intensive and demanding… Sort of looking forward to it and dreading it at the same time…

May 8, 2010

Dropped the famiy off at Freddy and Beulah’s after breakfast, then did my Waitrose shop unencumbered. I had time for a quick coffee with them myself before we had to dash back to deliver Nova to Fay’s birthday party.Met Keith Fraser and his wife for dinner at Veeraswamy. They are visiting from California with their son Gabriel, who was being babysat by the staff at the Dorchester. Keith’s wife Talin is Armenian — which made me realise how little I know about Armenia. I wasn’t even sure where to locate it on a map. I would have put it on the south coast of Turkey, but while it’s actually on the Black Sea…

Did the equivalent of “name ten famous Belgians”. Can’t recall who we came up with now, but pretty sure it included Andre Agassi, Dr Kevorkian, Kim Kardashian, Atom Egoyan, and a couple of Hollywood types…

May 7, 2010

Dozed a few hours and woke to the unsurprising new that the election result was hanging in the balance… Nova had been up in the night, and was too tired to go to early morning choir. Only Lyra was bright eyed and bushy tailed…Spent the morning slouching about in my jammies, watching the election coverage and dozing off when it got dull. It looks like the Conservatives and Lib Dems will have a go at forming a coalition government. Personally, I’d prefer to see a coalition of the left that excluded the Tories, but there is something a bit dubious about blocking the largest party from helping form the government.

It’s not what I voted for, but maybe it’s not so bad to have a minority Tory government for a time to help people remember what assholes they are. And perhaps it’s not a bad election for Labour to lose. There are some tough decisions on how to cut the budget deficient looming…

Watched Pocahontas for movie night. Technically it was a violation of the movie night contract –the idea was to wean Nova off of Disney movies. But I hadn’t seen it either, so was happy enough to give it a whirl…

May 6, 2010

Election day in the UK — and as our school is always the local polling station Nova had the day off. We’d originally thought of going for a bluebell walk round Great Missenden, but the weather was gray and too chilly for picnicking, so we opted for the zoo instead.We’ve recently cancelled our zoo membership as the girls never seemed to enjoy it all that much. They barely look at the animals, and spend all their time campaigning for bouncy castle rides, helium balloons, gift shop tat and mini doughnuts.

For some reason, they were much more into it this time. Because we won’t be coming so often in the future, I was keen to get to some exhibits we never manage to visit, such as the Bugs building. It’s more about biodiversity than bugs, with insects, fish, coral, reptiles, and rodents. There were some particularly nasty creatures called naked mole rats — blind, fat, hairless rodents with jaws strong enough to chew through concrete. Nova stubbornly insisted the nasty little things were cute…

I was much more taken with the leaf cutter ant display. It presented the whole cycle, from the plant the ants were harvesting, the ropes they carried their leaf bits along to a glass-sided colony where they processed it.

When we were all zoo-ed out, we hopped in the car and drove to Harry Morgan for lunch: cream cheese bagel for Lyra; chicken soup and kneidlach for Nova (who got a bit huffy with the waiter for suggesting a child’s portion); falafel for me; and salt beef sandwich for Adam.

Did a little work on my presentation in the evening, then settled down with a bottle of wine at 10pm when the polls closed. Voter turnout was relatively high this tie — in fact a number of polling stations ended up turning voters away because they didn’t have the resources to handle the numbers. Labour was ahead at first, but by 2am the Torys had drawn even and started pulling away. By the time we headed to bed at 3:45 Britain’s first hung parliament in 40 years was looking inevitable…

May 5, 2010

Caught up with my friend Michaela after work for beer and dim sum at Ping Pong. (I’m living the life of Riley these days!) I haven’t seen her in months, so there was lots to catch up on. She’s standing for the Green party in a no-hope commuter belt seat that always elects a Tory. She’s also been campaigning in Brighton where the Green’s have a reasonable hope of getting their first ever MP elected.Home by 8:30, where I discovered the girls still awake. I had a little time with them which was good. The day just doesn’t feel quite right if I don’t spend time with them at both ends…

May 4, 2010

Back to work… My diary was practically empty, which gave me the chance to make inroads to my perennially overstuffed inbox. I’m off on my course next week, and there’s no way I’ll be anywhere near where I’d like to be by tomorrow afternoon…Met my friend Jenny for dinner in Islington. She’s someone I’ve met on the course, so we had plenty to hash over while we sunk a bottle of wine. It’s such an intense experience we’re going through together that it’s hard to convey to people who haven’t been there…

May 3, 2010

Overheard Lyra listening to Bob the Builder this morning: Bob – “Can we fix it? Yes, we can!” Lyra – “No we can’t!” So young, and yet so cynical…;-)Made a batch of Margo muffins with dried blueberries. They were surprisingly different to using fresh fruit — less moist, with a finer crumb. The berries are quite intensely flavoured, and when I checked the package I discovered they have added sugar and flavouring, so I won’t be buying those again…

I was feeling a bit glum — it’s been a washout of a weekend with Adam working nearly all of the time and dreadful weather. Adam encouraged me to go for a run before lunch, and I felt much better for it afterwards.

Dinner was Yorkshire pudding with the last of the goddamn lamb cooked up into a sort of braise. It was nice, but won’t be cooking any lamb for a while… My first time making Yorkshire pudding — what a fun, satisfying thing to cook, and a big hit with the girls as well…

May 2, 2010

Another all nighter for Adam… I don’t know how he can stand working that way, and I’m sure it’s not doing his health any favours either…The weather is absolutely foul, even by British bank holiday weekend standards — the thought of doing anything outdoors is laughable. We’re feeding Pete and Pasc’s cats for them, and yesterday evening Adam went over to discover their basement floor had flooded. He mopped up, lifted the rugs and called the council(?) who provided sandbags. My first thought was that it was connected to the blocked off sewage pipe, but apparently it’s just the torrential rainfall.

We have a fair amount of leaking through the dining room ceiling. The water collects on our flat roof, and if it rises above the edge of the drain or something, we get leaks. We’ve had our builder friend Arthur up there to have a look at it, and according to him the only thing to be done is to try to keep the drain clear of leaves etc…

The lousy weather turned my thoughts to soup. Made a big pot of squash soup for dinner, followed by a blueberry tart for dessert.

May 1, 2010

“Rabbits!” I said to Cleo when she walked across my head at 4am… That’s one good thing about going to bed early — when the cat wakes you up at 4am you’ve already had 6 hours sleep…;-)I was too lazy to go for run, but carried on with the sorting/organising work until it was time for my yoga class. This is the perfect yoga class for a sporadic attendee like me. I would get bored with it if I went every week, but it’s just challenging enough for occasional attendance.

Watched the Bad News Bears with Nova this evening. Not the Billy Bob Thornton remake — the original one with Walter Matthau. I really enjoyed it, but it was a bit of a stretch for Nova who knows nothing about baseball. She was impressed with the wise-cracking Tatum O’Neal, and enjoyed some of the humour. I don’t imagine the “team of jews, spics, niggers, fags, and booger eating spazzes” line (which they said twice) made it into the remake…