November 30, 2003
Drove down to Surrey after breakfast to visit Ben and Michaela in their new home. Michaela prepared a huge veggie Thanksgiving lunch: Quorn roast, roast potatoes, sweet potato and parsnips, veggie sausages, corn on the cob, Brussels sprouts, and broccoli. I made the bread sauce (another recipe for the cookbook successfully tested) and it came out pretty well. There were homemade pumpkin and apple pies for dessert. Nova acquitted herself pretty well at the table, polishing off a piece of corn, a couple of pieces of broccoli, a slice of “roast”, and two little servings of pumpkin pie and ice cream. She displayed a natural suspicion of the Brussels sprout I put on her plate, and couldn’t be induced to try it, even though I tried selling it to her as a broccoli ball.

The little girls played reasonably well together given the age differences (5, 2 and 1) and it was a very pleasant visit. We had a nightmare of a time getting home again. The M25 is a slog at the best of times, and the rain, fog and dark didn’t improve matters. When we saw a sign warning of an accident between junctions 15 and 16, we decided to take our chances crossing London instead…

It all went reasonably well until we crossed the Thames. Vauxhill Bridge Road was practically gridlocked. I have no idea what the problem was, but several lights passed without the traffic moving at all… Eventually we crept up to Rochester Row, where we made an illegal right turn, and cut across to Buckingham Palace. It was still pretty slow going but we managed to keep moving at least. Finally got home about 7:30 — a 1 1/2 hour trip had taken 2 1/2 hours. At least Nova slept for part of it…

I didn’t think she’d be agreeable to going straight to bed the minute we got home. Adam made us a couple of stiff gin and tonics and we lay on the bed watching Nova potter about for 40 minutes or so before I tucked her in. Adam ran me a hot bath, and I had a good soak then tucked myself in and went straight to sleep…

November 29, 2003
For my sins I found myself back in Brent Cross this morning. Adam and Nova did the grocery shop at Waitrose (the very branch where Adam severed his finger when he was 18) while I had another go at the Christmas shopping. We met for lunch at McDonalds afterwards before heading home. Nova’s eagle eye noticed that they sell chocolate-covered doughnuts (news to me) and ate a whole one after her french fries.

Eytan, Dina and Ben came round for a visit in the afternoon. Nova was very shy and clingy around them, and cried whenever Ben came near her. They stayed for a couple of hours and the only time she relaxed was when we got out the tin of sugar cookies. Otherwise it was as if she was trying to pretend they weren’t there. We played a few rounds of ring-around-the-rosy, and Nova would only hold hands with Adam or I, and walked around in the circle with her head averted so she wouldn’t have to see Ben opposite. She even refused to say “bye bye” — I guess on the principle that they weren’t there. Why say “bye bye” to people who don’t exist?

The minute they left she was cheerful as could be. I made orrechiete with broccoli for dinner and she ate a good serving. I’m trying to move towards giving her what we eat, instead of making her a separate meal. Often she’ll end up picking half-heartedly at her main course, and then polishing off a couple of bananas for dessert, but at least it feels like we’re travelling in the right direction.

November 28, 2003
It was Adam’s morning home with Nova, so after breakfast I headed off to Brent Cross. I wanted to either buy Nova a Christmas stocking or else pick up the materials to make her one. I managed to find a reasonable one in M&S, and did a bit of Christmas shopping as well.

I need to buy myself some new clothes, but it was just one of those days when the shopping gods are against you. At Next, I took a couple of perfectly reasonable looking garments into the dressing room with me. The overhead fluorescent lights made me look like a 90 year old with severe jaundice. The three-way mirror provided an unwelcome glimpse of the back of my head, with my hat-flattened, graying, overgrown haircut. I tried the first top on — a dark purple, wrap front shirt — and words actually fail me at this point… I looked so incredibly awful that I yanked it off, pulled on my sweater, jammed my hat back onto my head and left without trying on another thing.

Took Nova to see “Finding Nemo” in the afternoon. She was quite excited at the prospect of going to the cinema. I bought our tickets, and went to the concession to buy some popcorn. After paying for it, I turned around to find her eating flattened old bits of popcorn off the floor…

The cinema was practically empty and I let Nova choose our seats. She looked just adorable sitting in her seat with a tub of popcorn balanced on her lap, and her red beaker in drinks holder in the armrest. She enjoyed the trailers for “The Cat in the Hat” and “Brother Bear”, and happily engrossed in Nemo, until the shark scene… “Want a big hug!” she cried, and scrambled up into my lap, burying her head into my shoulder until the scary music stopped.

It was an endurance event from that point onward… She’d take an interest for a little bit, but as soon as anything the slightest bit scary happened she’d start campaigning to go home. I distracted her with popcorn, walks up and down the stairs, changing seats, and a whole bag of Maltesers I had in my purse, and managed to hang in there until the end. Afterward, when I asked her how she liked the film, she said, “Got popcorn, got chocolate, Nemo found his daddy!”

Adam tested Wendy’s tuna casserole for dinner this evening. It was pretty good, but I don’t think we had the right sort of noodles. They seemed to suck all the moisture out of the dish, and the ones that were supposed to crisp up on top, were rock hard and inedible and I had to pick them off. For some reason it was incredibly peppery as well. Nova seemed to like it alright though...

November 27, 2003
The weather has been just miserable lately. It was pouring with rain when we woke up, and so overcast and gloomy that we needed the lights on until about 10am. When the rain let up, I strapped Nova into the pushchair and went out for a walk. Otherwise, it was pretty much a housebound day. We made sugar cookies, read magazines, painted our toenails, danced to the Hoppity Song (Nova’s favourite track on the CD of kid’s songs that Patty gave her), and watched Winnie-the-Pooh. Pretty chilled out day…

Once I had Nova settled for the night (and Adam got home from work) I went out with Jemima. We had some uninspired tapas at El Molino on the Holloway Road, then went to see Spellbound, a documentary film about the Scripps-Howard National Spelling Bee. It was a lovely film, and surprisingly suspenseful, given the subject matter. I don’t recall there being any spelling competitions when I was growing up (and while I did find this site for Spelling Bee of Canada, all the winners seemed to come from the Toronto area, and they misspelled December on their calendar, so I don’t think it’s in quite the same league). Personally, I think I would have been a spelling bee demon…

November 26, 2003
Adam left at 5am for Nuremburg and I didn’t manage to get to sleep again afterward. I showered and got ready for work while Nova was still sleeping. She didn’t seem as alarmed about nursery as yesterday, but insisted on wearing her blue jumper again. The drop off went a bit better as well, although it’s heartbreaking to see her try to hold back her tears as they carry her off.

Made it to the office for the first day in almost two weeks. Trawled through my 200+ emails and dealt with the most pressing matters that had piled up in my in-tray. The restructuring is now complete, although they haven’t filled all the posts yet, and there is a lot of jockeying for position in my new time. I just find it all incredibly tiring…

It’s a really gloomy, overcast day today, and between the fluorescent office lighting and the flickering computer screen my eyes were sore and aching in no time. I left mid-afternoon, and had a late lunch at home before picking up Nova. The nursery manager said that she’d been pretty good today, although she cried a few times. She asked if there was anything going on at home that they should be aware of. They know about mom of course…

Nova seemed pretty cheery once we got home. We had a nice dinner together — her appetite is definitely back — and fooled around together doing somersaults. She can do a pretty mean somersault. Every time I do one she says, “Very good, mommy!” in a teachery kind of voice.

She was a bit clingy again at bed, and went to sleep with her blue jumper on over her pyjamas again. I think she’s feeling very insecure at the moment. Adam and I talked about it after he got home. We going to try to keep to a routine as much as possible for the next little while, so she can feel that she knows what to expect. Who knows…

November 25, 2003
Nova tried the “home teeshirt” angle again this morning, but I stood firm. I did allow her to wear her non-regulation blue jumper over her nursery ensemble though. She’s formed a strong attachment to her blue jumper and has worn it over her pyjamas for the past four nights.

Pretty distraught when I dropped her off, which is always hard. I was planning to go to work, but bailed out half way to the tube. I could have gone, but my eyes are still pretty sore, and I think another day’s rest will probably do them good.

Had a domestic kind of a day instead. Made a big pot of chicken barley soup from the crystal chicken bones, and baked a loaf of banana bread as well. Adam came home about 2pm, and we had a bit of time together before I went up to the village for a massage.

Tonight in the bath, Nova taught me a song she learned at nursery:

Father Christmas, Father Christmas,
He got stuck, he got stuck,
Coming down the chimney, coming down the chimney,
What bad luck! What bad luck!

(Sung to the tune of Frère Jacques)

Dylan came round this evening to help us with the computer set up. He finished installing software on the new machine, showed me how to hook up the video camera to the computer, and attempted to fix Adam’s problem with Internet Explorer. Unfortunately, our service provider is having difficulties at the moment, and it was impossible to access my site, or a number of other web pages to test whether he had fixed things or not…

November 24, 2003
I was getting Nova dressed for nursery this morning, and as I put on her teeshirt (with Highgate Activity Nursery emblazoned across the front) I said, “Let’s put on your nursery teeshirt.” “Not a nursery teeshirt! It’s a home teeshirt” she cried.

I was hoping she’d be over her aversion to nursery now that she’s feeling better, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. I pretended to go to work make things seem as normal as possible, and Adam wheeled her down to nursery.

After they left, I gave Pascale a call. She does her Tesco shop on Monday mornings, and I thought I’d go along with her, as my eyes aren’t really better enough to drive. The whole expedition was a complete fiasco. The traffic through East Finchley was unbelievable, and eventually Pasc pulled a highly irregular maneuvre (that involved driving the wrong way up half a block of the A1000 and carving up an ambulance) to turn off on a road that goes to Muswell Hill instead. Unfortunately that road was blocked off part way along, and we spent the best part of half an hour trying in vain to find a road that cut through to Muswell Hill before returning to the A1000 traffic jam where we’d left it. Eventually we abandoned all hope of getting to Tescos, and stopped at a little Budgens in East Finchley and did our shopping there.

It turned out that a water main had burst in Muswell Hill, and the whole area, including the nursery was out of water all day. Although they didn’t have to close the nursery early (as they had feared), I picked Nova up early anyway. She burst into tears as soon as she saw me, but they said she’d been okay for most of the day. We dropped into Jemima’s for a cup of tea on the way home. Nova was a bit apprehensive that she was going to be left again, but relaxed once she saw I wasn’t going anywhere…

Made Margo’s crystal chicken recipe for dinner along with a rice noodle salad. Noved loved her chicken, and ate so much I was starting to feel a bit concerned. Adam worked late, and didn’t get home until Nova was asleep.

November 23, 2003
Adam got back about 10am this morning. About 10 minutes after he got in, Antonia called to invite us over for brunch with her mother, Beulah and Freddy. Between the state of my health and last night’s excesses I wasn’t feeling up for it, but Adam took Nova over for a few hours.

Jemima had offered to have Nova for a bit so Adam and I could spend some time together, but Nova really wasn’t keen. We had to go and get her after 20 minutes because she wouldn’t stop crying.

She’s feeling emotionally fragile at the moment. I’m sure she can tell that I’m feeling down. She comes up to me nearly every day and says, “Mommy’s very happy!” as if saying it will make it so. She also says, “Grandma Fern’s all better now,” quite a bit…

She’s been funny with Adam lately as well. When he comes near her she’ll say, “No daddy!” and push him away. I think it may be because he’s been in and out of her life so much these past couple of months, and will sort itself out once they get to spend some solid time together.

In spite of her protests, Adam did the bedtime routine this evening. I could hear her shrieking and crying downstairs as he tried to get her pajamas on and teeth brushed. Eventually it fell quiet… I went downstairs and saw that he’d managed to get her into bed and was reading her a bedtime story. “Mommy read it!” she cried as soon as she saw me. I read the story, turned out the light and kissed her goodnight the way I always do. As I was closing her door, I heard her start to cry. Not attention-seeking crying, just quietly sobbing into her pillow. I went back in and lay down with her. She clutched her arms around my neck, and didn’t loosen her grip until she started falling asleep.

November 22, 2003
My left eye is definitely a little bit better today, but it’s all starting up in my right eye now. Had another terrible night’s sleep. Adam finally called at midnight and we talked until 12:30am. I think I fell asleep pretty quickly after that, but woke up at 1:40am with eye streaming. My next wake up was 4:20am then 5:30am, then 8:30am…

It was all quiet in Nova’s room, and when I went in to check on her she was sitting glumly on the side of her bed. (For some reason she never gets out of bed in the morning until we come to get her.) I changed her nappie and we went upstairs for some toast. Over breakfast she said, “I said ‘Mommy, mommy, mommy but you didn’t come.'” I must have slept through her calling me, which made me feel a bit guilty. I’ll have to set the alarm tonight…

Rob and Jemima called, inviting us out for brunch at Banners in Crouch End. I had just enough time to have a quick shower, get us both dressed, throw a load of laundry on, and stock my pockets with tissues before they came by to pick us up. I’m operating a complicated tissue system at the moment: front left pocket for my left eye, front right pocket for my right, back left pocket for Nova’s nose, and back right pocket for mine. I’d hate to mix any of those up…

Banner’s is a family friendly place and the food was really good. Jemima and I had kedgeree with a fried duck egg (and a few cups of coffee to help back up for my rotten night’s sleep), Rob had the salt fish with ackee and spoonbread, which was delicious (I’ll definitely have that next time) and the little girls had fish fingers and chips with apple juice, and strawberry ice cream to follow. Rob insisted on picking up the tab as well, so it was a double treat…

We went back to their house afterwards. The kids played nicely with playdough while we sat and chatted. It was about 2pm by the time we left. It’s been pouring with rain all day, and we meandered home from puddle to puddle so Nova could have a good splash with her wellies.

When I opened the front door, a torrent of water ran over my shoes. The foyer was an inch and a half deep in water, and the laundry room was even worse. While Nova had a great time splashing in the hallway, I waded into investigate. It turns out that the rubber lining in the washing machine door had come loose and water was pouring out from under the door. I started mopping and squeezing water into a bucket, then tried sweeping it straight out the door. I could see that either method was going to take ages. By this point Nova had removed her wellies and started splashing about in her sock feet. Honestly, my life has become some kind of black comedy… I would laugh if it wasn’t so fucking depressing…

In the middle of all this, our neighbour Jenny showed up at the front door. She rolled up her sleeves and started moving things out of the laundry room, then went back to her house for an armful of old towels to mop up the water (embarrassingly, her old towels turned out to be better than most of our good towels…) We managed to drain the washing machine, and even reattach the door lining. She took my sodden laundry home to spin dry and arranged to come over after Nova has gone down for the night with dinner and a bottle of wine.

We took a little while to regroup, change socks etc, then headed over to Freddy and Beulah’s for a visit. When Beulah invited us yesterday, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to drive, the state my eye was in, but my vision is clearer today. We had a nice visit, Nova is quite comfortable there, and played with toy cars, demolished a few coffee cakes and cups of juice, threw herself about on the furniture, hid in the curtains, removed her dress and otherwise made herself at home.

Jenny came round about 8:30, dressed in her pajamas and armed with provisions: Bombay gin, tonic water, crisps, olives, a bottle of champagne, a big squash stuffed with rice and veggies, and a bag of salad… We had a couple of G&Ts each, and demolished the snacks, then polished off the champagne with the squash. We talked for hours and it was almost 2am by the time she left. Made sure I set the alarm before I went to bed…

November 21, 2003
I had a terrible dream where Adam had died, and woke up sobbing… I was on the verge of tears all day. And not welling up type tears, but sobbing your heart out tears. I could see that poor little Nova was getting pretty worried, and tried to stop, but it was almost as if I was watching myself from the outside.

The vision in my sore eye was blurrier than usual, and it felt like there was something in it. When I looked at it in the mirror, there appeared to be a crumpled film or membrane lying across the centre of my iris. I tried to push it gently aside, but it seemed to be attached to the inside of my eyelid.

I got a bit panicky thinking maybe my cornea was torn, and called the GP. They wouldn’t know if they had any appointments until 1:30pm, and suggested I go to A&E. I put Nova in the pushchair and walked down to the Whittington — there no way I could have driven. By the time I got there things felt like they had blinked back into place.

A&E was the usual little glimpse of hell — surly admissions staff, overstretched nurses, reeking, argumentative drunks… The wait so long, and Nova so unmanagable that had to give it up. I made a appointment with a duty doctor for 3:30pm. He couldn’t see a tear in the cornea, and thought maybe it was a piece of loose skin that had come detached from inside my eyelid. Reassuring, I guess…

I made Nova a ham and cheese sandwich for dinner. I think she was thrown a little off balance by not having the usual attractively presented plate of protein and veggies to reject. She ate the whole sandwich at any rate, and half an apple as well… When she declined my offer of a bath, I moved straight into bed routine. Once she was down, I made myself a fishfinger sandwich and settled down to watch Law and Order.

Lying in bed waiting for Adam to call, I mindless rubbing my sore eye, and then without thinking, rubbed the right one as well. I immediately realised what I’d done, and leapt up and rinsed both eyes, but within about half an hour I could feel the infection starting in my previously good eye…

November 20, 2003
Adam set off on a three night business trip to Washington DC first thing this morning, so it’s girls home alone for the next little while…

My eye is awful — it’s not getting any better. I guess it must be viral conjunctivitis, unless it’s something different altogether. I’m going to go back to the doctor tomorrow unless it starts showing some improvement. I had an unfortunate stretch where I caught conjunctivitis three or four times in a year, and this feels quite different. This is almost a muscular sort of pain, and less of the ground glass under the eyelid. Maybe I’ve sprained my eye crying…;-)

In the afternoon Freddy stopped by for a visit, and Rob dropped Ruby off. I’d agreed to look after her while he took part in the anti-Bush demonstration. I would have liked to have gone myself, but it wasn’t really an option with Adam away…

The next four hours were a pretty intense: we played games, made cookies (Nova cut out cats, Ruby cut out dogs), drew pictures, had dinner, played in the tent, had a tea party, made popcorn, and read endless stories. When it got to Ruby’s bedtime, I got her into her pajamas and started on her bedtime routine, thinking Rob would be back any minute. After brushing her teeth, Ruby marched straight into Nova’s room and climbed into her bed. She granted Nova a little strip on the edge, and I read another dozen or so stories before Rob arrived to collect her. I spent another half hour or so with Nova, giving her some personal attention, before saying goodnight.

Spent the evening finishing Brick Lane by Monica Ali, which won this year’s Booker Prize. It was pretty good but not a patch on Rohinton Mistry who’s always being nominated and never winning.

November 19, 2003
Couldn’t sleep last night. My eye was streaming and stinging, and the surrounding eye muscles almost feel like they’ve seized up in a permanent cramp. I could tell that Nova was awake at times, but she didn’t seem unhappy, and there was nothing to be gained by going in to her. So I just lay there in the dark, listening to the BBC World Service. Sometimes when I can’t sleep I go upstairs and read or watch TV or work on the computer, but I thought the radio would be easier on the eyes. I fell asleep sometime after 2:30am and made it through ’til 5:30am, then managed another hour somewhere before Nova woke up at 7:30am…

I had a really important work meeting in the afternoon, and was of half a mind to go, in spite of the state of eye. Adam took Nova to nursery. She wasn’t keen, but we thought she’d settle in once she got there. Wrong…

The nursery was on the phone by 11am asking if we could come pick Nova up, because she’d been tearful and clingy the whole time, and actually refused a biscuit… that was the clincher, I think. We drove down to get her, and when I walked in, she flung herself into my arms. That sunk any notions of going to my away day. Adam had work to do before his trip to Washington tomorrow so I kept Nova entertained in our bedroom for the rest of the day.

I made penne carbonara for dinner, which is usually a hit with Nova, but she ate about four pieces of pasta, before claiming she was “done dinner”. Adam spent the whole meal on the phone… Sometimes you wonder why you bother…

November 18, 2003
Nova’s still sick and inevitably now I’m sick too… One of my eyes is bright red and streaming, and kind of scrunched up looking. I managed to get a doctor’s appointment, and had my suspicion that I’ve come down with conjunctivitis confirmed. The doctor gave me antibiotic eye drops, but if the conjunctivitis is viral, they won’t be any use.

Adam set off when I got back, and didn’t get back until after 9pm. I’d already had two gin and tonics and a big bowl of popcorn for dinner by this point, but joined him in a pizza delivery (that oughta fix me right up…)

Nova was restless this evening, and had endless fits of coughing. We gave her some cough medicine at about 11:30pm, and I lay down with her until she settled a bit.

November 17, 2003
Nova was too sick for nursery today. Adam stayed home with her in the morning, while I went in for a half day. I got home about 1:30pm and we swapped shifts. She’s not really sick, but she’s definitely not feeling herself. She’s not really eating, and doesn’t seem to have much energy. All she wanted to do was lie on the couch with mommy watching Winnie the Pooh. There are worse ways to spend an afternoon…

Her temperature was up and down all day, and I gave her a dose of Calpol before bed to help her sleep. I was still up with her a couple of times in the night, poor little thing… I hate it when she’s sick — it makes me feel even more inadequate at parenting than I already feel…

I can only hope it doesn’t look that way from her perspective… When I was ill as a kid, I remember how safe I always felt. Growing up, there were two types of illness in our house. The first was a kind of “mental health” day where you allowed to stay home from school, but were expected to help make beds, or maybe clean out the gerbil cage. The other kind was when you were really sick, and mom brought you your food on a lovely tray — things like thin soup and dry toast and jello and usually a flower — where your bed was remade while you were in it, and you had extra pillows and maybe the humidifier humming nearby.

I was never scared when I was sick as a child because I had complete confidence that my parents knew exactly what they were doing and would take good care of me. (In contrast, my brother Wade was always very afraid of illness. Whenever he was unwell would cry “Call the doctor!”) Now that I’m responsible for my own health I’m much less secure that I’m in good hands…

November 16, 2003
We’re aiming to do most of our Hannukah/Christmas shopping online this year. I’m not much of a shopper at the best of times… We made some good inroads this morning — as long as everything show up on schedule.

Much of the day was devoted to housework — ironing, changing beds, the endless loads of laundry… I was sorting out a big heap of bed linen, when Nova came over to me, put her hand on my arm and said, “Mommy is my best friend!” I was so sweet — it made me cry.

In the afternoon Adam took Nova out to buy some computer cables. I got a phone call a couple of hours later. The two of them were in the bar at Alexandra Palace drinking juice and eating Black Forest cake. It sounded like a nice outing, but it was kind of strange to hear your two-year-old say, “I’m in the bar, mommy!”

Nova’s health seemed to flag again in the evening — her temperature was up, and her nose was running like a tap. It was hard work getting a meal into her — I spoon fed her some chicken broccoli with rice and a bit of apple crumble, but she didn’t have much appetite. She fell asleep on the couch almost immediately afterwards…

November 15, 2003
Did a Waitrose run in the morning, then stopped for fish and chips at the Two Brothers on the way home. Nova definitely isn’t feeling very well — we don’t usually have to cajole her into eating her chips…

Spent the afternoon trying to get Adam’s laptop working properly. First Internet Explorer kept crashing. When we re-installed it, Word and Excel stopped working. We spent ages turning off extensions, looking for conflicts, and finally got things back to Explorer crashing again. Computers can be so incredibly frustrating…

In the afternoon, we went round to Doron and Antonia’s for a visit. We had tea and crumpets, and the kids ate chilli and rice. Nova was feeling feverish, and it was a struggle to get her to eat any dinner at all. She was tearful and clingy while I was getting her ready for bed, and we gave her a dose of Medised to bring her temperature down and keep her from coughing herself awake in the night.

We had a quiet Saturday night in. I tested the chicken broccoli recipe and Adam tested the apple crumble recipe for the cookbook. Fell asleep watching Law and Order in bed…

November 14, 2003
Happy 34th birthday, Wade!
Nova fell out of bed last night and hit her face on her bucket. Her cheek was looking a little swollen and red this morning…

Went to St. Michael’s and Highgate Primary to pick up nursery place applications for Nova. The government guarantees a free nursery place for every three-year-old, but while the places in the schools may be free, they are only half day slots, which aren’t much use to me with my current work arrangements. I figure we might as well apply and keep our options open though…

Adam and Jemima took the girls to Highgate Woods in the morning. We were going to take Nova to see ‘Saving Nemo’ at the cinema in the afternoon, but she seemed a little under the weather, so we scrapped that plan. Apparently the shark scene scared Ruby so much that they had to walk out…

November 13, 2003
Antonia phoned me this afternoon. It’s the first time I’ve heard from her since mom died, and I’ve been feeling pretty upset about that. They may be in-laws, but they’re the only family I have over here, and I just cannot understand why they would wait almost six weeks to contact me. I just asked her straight out and told her that I was feeling very hurt. We had a long talk about it, and while I feel better for telling her how I feel, it’s not the sort of thing that can be undone…

At bedtime tonight, Nova grabbed her bucket of balls and climbed into bed with them. She’s often taken odd things to bed with her, but nothing quite so unfeasible as a large bucket of balls. “How are you going to sleep with a bucket of balls in your bed, Nova?” I asked her. In response, she wrapped her arm around the bucket, closed her eyes and began snoring loudly. It was pretty funny…

Once the girls were in bed, Jemima and I went out for a pizza and Pappadels and then on to see a film at the Phoenix. It was a Canadian-Spanish production, called ‘My Life Without Me’. It’s about a young mom who discovers that she has weeks to live, and decides not to tell her family about it. I’d wondered about choosing such an obvious tear-jerker, but then thought, “Why not? I cry most days anyway…” In fact, it was such an unflinching look at life and death, that I didn’t find it all that sad…

November 12, 2003
Well, that’s my first full week of work in about a month and it felt pretty long… Things have changed quite a bit in the time I’ve been away. The new organisational structure is in place, and I’m now line managing my colleague Mike. We had our first team meeting, and it was quite amusing to watch everyone jockeying for position. I still feel a bit removed from the whole thing. They’ll be advertising the head position externally in the next couple of weeks, and I kind of doubt that I’ll apply for it…|

November 11, 2003
Remembrance Day today. It isn’t a holiday in Britain — they have their parade and ceremony on the weekend before the 11th. In the last few years, a two minute silence at 11am has been gaining in popularity, and we observed it at the office.

The Stillman’s new boiler has finally arrived, and they moved back home yesterday. They came round to babysit this evening by way of thanks. Once Nova was settled for the night Adam and I headed off to a restaurant in Tuffnell Park for a nice meal. I had the vegetarian starter selection, followed by a confit of duck on rosti potatoes and red cabbage. We had a terrific bottle of Australian shiraz merlot as well, and after a couple of drinks we both got a bit tearful talking about mom. I could see the waiter looking anxiously our way — he probably thought we were breaking up and Adam would be wearing my confit of duck any moment…

November 10, 2003
Dylan came round this evening to sort out our home computing situation. The new Mac has come back from the doctors, and there was memory and software to install in both laptops, the new printer to get working and the downstairs computer to upgrade. It was a pretty full agenda, and he didn’t get through that much of it. We’ll have to have him back again soon. I made an awesome pumpkin soup for dinner which we ate with toast and an apple for dessert.

November 9, 2003
I had my first unbroken night’s sleep in about two months. Counting the hours I put in on the couch, I think I slept about 9 hours…

Adam made pancakes from scratch for breakfast, testing out the family pancake recipe I’ve included in the cookbook. Dave came over at 11:30am, and we drove north to Stanmore on the outskirts of London to go for a 3-mile pub walk. We started with the pub lunch at a pub called “The Case Is Altered”. Unfortunately, the pub had been altered since the book was printed in 1996, and the food was pretty mediocre at best.

The walk itself was lovely — and even though it was quite a gray day the trees were ablaze with colour. Nova was happy in the backpack, and even dozed for awhile. At one point, the path skirted a deer park, with a number of deer grazing peacefully. We passed Bentley Priory, from where the Battle of Britain was commanded. The walk also took us past WS Gilbert’s home (of Gilbert and Sullivan fame). In fact, he’s buried in the Stanmore churchyard, but it would have been a bit of a detour from the path to visit his grave.

Crossing some open grazing land, we were startled by a bloody great green parrot that zoomed by in front of us. It settled in a nearby tree, but within moments a gang of magpies chased it out of there. It must be an escaped pet, and I hope somebody finds it soon, because it won’t fare very well out there…

Back home, Dave stayed for dinner — pad thai and a chocolate bread and butter pudding I made from one of those massive, dry Italian cakes that someone gave us. It turned out pretty well, but I’m sure it’ll be better the next day — bread and butter pudding always is.

November 8, 2003
I had a reasonable night’s sleep for a change, and feel much better for it…
When I woke up I could tell that the room was light. “Hey,” I thought, “I’ve actually managed to sleep through until morning!” before opening my eyes to discover that Adam had fallen asleep with his reading light on, and it was actually 3am… I fell asleep again quite quickly though, which is what made the difference…

Took Nova to a little kiddie show at Jackson’s Lane Community Centre. Nova was quite badly behaved — but in her defense the show was pretty dull. Some convoluted tale about a magical fruit tree in Africa, and all the animals that were trying to find it. It involved a frazzled middle-aged actress in a muumuu stamping around on stage with bits of rope that were supposed to be turtles or snakes, saying “Aah-room-baaa, mon-BON-go!” every few minutes. There was a reasonably good elephant mask (at least Nova could recognise what it was supposed to be) and a wicker hyena that made her laugh, but it was a pretty long 45 minutes for all of us…

In the afternoon, Adam and Nova went grocery shopping while I worked on the cookbook. Wendy emailed me lots of recipes, which I added in. The master file now has 90 of 150 recipes transcribed. There are still a lot to come from Dad…

I made a big pan of kedgeree for dinner, and we settled down for an evening in front of the telly. That was the plan, at any rate, but I was flaked out on the couch by 9pm…

November 7, 2003
Adam took care of Nova this morning, which gave me a bit of time to myself. I didn’t get up to anything very exciting… had a shower, did some ironing, finished my novel, and picked our crop of apples. It’s been such a hot summer, we’ve had a bumper crop. I’ll lay some down in the garage, but plan to make some apple chutney with the windfalls.

Nova and I went round to Pascale’s for a ladies lunch. It’s the first proper visit I’ve had with Pasc since getting back. Nova tucked away a healthy pile of food (so did I) and promptly filled her nappy. I’d forgotten to bring the change kit, so I put her jeans on over her bare bum. I said, “Nova, if you need to do peepee tell mommy and you can go peepee toilet.” Needless to say, that didn’t happen… On the plus side, Nova scored a nice pair of velour bell bottoms that Fay has grown out of…

We all sat down for dinner together for a change. I made spaghetti — Nova had hers with broccoli and parmesan, while Adam and I had a simple garlic, oil and chilli sauce. It’s a good recipe to remember when there’s no groceries/no time/no inclination to make something more complicated.

After dinner, Adam went off to a housewarming party at Jane and Nick’s new flat in Dalston, but I didn’t fancy it. Opted for a quiet night in with my mystery novel instead…

November 6, 2003
Hard to believe that a month has already gone by since mom died…
I’ve been finding it hard being over here on my own. When you are with others who are experiencing the same loss, you’re partly thinking about yourself, and partly thinking about how they are feeling. In London, there’s nothing to focus on except my own feelings. I think the news that Ed and David may be coming for Christmas has given me a bit of a lift though, because I’m feeling quite positive today.

This afternoon Nova came running up to me, saying, “I want magic water on my face!” I had no idea what she was on about, but took her to the sink and splashed a few handfuls of water in her face. “There!” I said setting her down. She looked up at me with a puzzled expression, and said, “Mommy dry my face.” Don’t think I got that one right somehow…

Our phone has finally been reconnected, after almost a week without service… It wasn’t as much of a headache as it would have been without our mobile phones, but still…

November 5, 2003
I received a copy of “Marathon: You Can Do It!” from Wendy’s sister Gail in the post today — thanks, Gail! Wendy has committed to running the Victoria Marathon next Thanksgiving weekend, and I’m giving it some serious thought as well. I had a look at the beginner’s programmes and they don’t sound that daunting. Not for the first few weeks anyway…

It was my first day back in the office. I didn’t get a lot done, aside from clearing 400+ emails from my inbox. (Actually, I didn’t clear them all — but at least I read them…) Everyone was very sympathetic and I received a big bunch of flowers, cards, and a coupon for a manicure, which was really lovely. I was pleased to discover that the time I’ve taken off was counted as compassionate leave, so my annual leave allowance is still intact.

I left about an hour early and picked up Nova. She nearly passed out from happiness at seeing me, which made me feel pretty good. Our neighbour Jenny had organised a fireworks evening on the little patch of green in the close. Nova was very focussed on the sausages I’d told her about, and didn’t let up until the food was finally served. She found the fireworks a bit loud, and we left after about a half an hour, as she was getting upset.

Adam was out at an Arsenal game with his brother, so I had a quiet evening home alone. When I checked my email, there was a message from David telling me that he and Ed have tentatively booked to come to London for Christmas, which is great news!!!