October 2009

October 31, 2009

“Your eyes have all the colours of the French flag in them,” Nova said to me in what initally sounded like a complement. “Blue, white and a little bit bloodshot!” Such an observant child…;-)Slept in a bit this morning — at least Nova did… I was pleased to make it to 7am. By the time we’d showered and packed there wasn’t time to do much. Had some breakfast and did a bit of shopping before returning to the hotel to check out.

It’s been an excellent choice of hotel, and I’d happily return, perhaps with Adam next time. With Paris so close now — basically two hours — we should be visiting every year… Nova and I have decided we’d like to take a little trip together once a year, perhaps visiting a new European capital each time…

Zipped up to Gare du Nord on the metro, and by 12:15 we were gliding north through the Parisian suburbs. Because of the time change, we were back in London by 1:30…

Flew at the Halloween preparations the moment we got home. There was the door to decorate, candy cauldron to fill, jack-o-lantern to carve, costumes to assemble, faces to paint, and spooky tea to prepare…

There were four kids for tea — Nova and Fay (witches); Lyra (cat) and her little friend Vanessa (fairy witch). Once they’d scoffed their witches fingers, green beans, pumpkin soup and “blood” oranges — washed down with alien juice — it was time for trick-or-treating.

Pasc took the big girls round, while Adam and Kyle took the little ones. Lyra was very excited, and headed off chanting “Halloween! Halloween! Halloween!” I manned the door this year, and it was complete mayhem. Hordes of kids would arrive at a time, and I barely had time to sit down before the bell would ring again.

I;d bought enough candy for one hundred kids, and was pretty much out by 7:15pm. Fortunately, it tailed off sharply after that point. I gave the last three visitors a bag of crisps each, and brought the pumpkin indoors…

October 30, 2009

“How do you say ‘take it’ in French?” Nova asked me last night. “It depends what you mean by it,” I answered. It turns out she wants to be ready to give the change in her purse to the next rough sleeper who asks for money. There are a lot more people living on the streets of Paris than there are in London. A reminder of how much London has changed since I arrived fifteen years ago…Yesterday’s breakfast cost half what the hotel breakfast costs, and today’s was a quarter of what we could have spent. If we stay here much longer, people will be paying us to eat breakfast…;-)

Emerged from the metro to discover the top of the Eiffel Tower wreathed in fog. At least that meant the queues weren’t too long. There was no point going above the 2nd level though. Took a promenade around the observation deck then retreated inside for a hot drink before descending.

Next stop, the Musée d’Orsay… I was able to waltz in with my advance ticket, but again the queues didn’t seem too bad. Sat down with the floor plan and circled the rooms we wanted visit (about half) before mounting our assault. What an amazing collection of paintings! Among the works we saw were:

• Starry Night (Van Gogh)
• Déjeuner sur L’Herbe (Manet)
• Gare St Lazare (Monet)
• At the Moulin de la Galette (Renoir)
• The Cradle (Morisot)

The Morisot painting was the highlight for me. It was so touching I couldn’t look at it without welling up. So different to how it looks reproduced in books…

Next we caught the metro to Montmartre. After omelettes in a little bar, we walked to the top of the hill. Visited Sacre Coeur and Place de Tertre. Nova chose to spend the 20 euros Adam gave her on a pastel portrait of herself. It came out really nicely, but it doesn’t look like Nova to me. It made me wonder if a stranger can ever draw a picture of a loved one that looks right to you. Anyway, as I told Nova, it’s not like a photograph. It’s one artist’s impression of how she looks on that particular day.

I bought Nova a little miniature tea set on the way back down. She was thrilled with it, but unfortunately it fell out of her purse in the Tuileries. She realised within moments and went rushing back to search for it. Someone had already picked it up — we found the bag discarded on the ground. Nova was distraught, but managed to pull herself together by the time we reached the Orangerie. The incomparably beautiful circular Monet rooms seemed to work their calming magic on her…

Ate our last Parisian dinner at a bistro called Allard, a couple of blocks from the hotel. Once again, the tables were so close together it was as if we were dining with the two gentlemen next to us. I ordered the escargot and pepper steak, and a portion of the daube with carrots for Nova. By the time the escargo arrived, Nova had gone off the idea of trying them, but she managed one.

Her daube was delicious, but they gave her three great slabs of meat and she didn’t make much of a dent in it. For dessert, I ordered profiteroles and an eau de vie. I’d been drawn into conversation with René and Henri by this point. Initially charmed by Nova (everyone is charmed by Nova), we’d moved onto talking about Canada (“It’s not a country, it’s a dream of a country!” René proclaimed — I think…), the global recession, and the petroleum industry.

French words I hadn’t thought of in twenty-five years were finding their way to my tongue… Both originally from Provence, Henri is from the Marseilles side, and René from the Nice side. Apparently this has great significance, though they failed to communicate it to me…

The profiteroles never arrived… When I settled the bill, they gave me the brandy for my “dessert” and Nova’s food for nothing, which seemed fair compensation for a plate of profiteroles I hadn’t wanted. Bought Nova a chocolate biscuit from the Tunisian patisserie across from the hotel before heading up to our room.

October 29, 2009

Feel like I tossed and turned all night… That espresso at 11pm was likely a bad idea. It wasn’t coffee as I know it — not even espresso coffee. It was the hydroponic skunk of the coffee world…We were both awake by 6:30am… Spent a few hours hanging about in our room until it was time for breakfast. The hotel breakfast at 12 euros seemed a bit steep, so we found a café round the corner for coffee and a croissant (hot chocolate and toast).

Spent the morning at the Musée Marmottan. Originally a hunting lodge, it now houses a terrific collection of Monets and Morisots, as well as other Impressionist works. We also saw Monet’s spectacles (tinted green) and his palette, which was pretty cool.

The museum is in Passy, a part of Paris I’ve never visited. Ate lunch at a nearby restaurant — cream of lentil soup with ham and a grilled fillet of bream. Nova charmed a group of “vieux” dining at the next table. “Comme elle est jolie! Comme elle est aimable!” they exclaimed. Unless they were talking about me…;-)

I’d promised to buy Nova a new outfit in Paris, so we spent an hour trying on pretty much everything in her size in the St German D’Pam before settling for a dove gray sweater dress, slate blue spotted tights and a little gray embroidered bag. She’s pretty pleased with her new Parisian look…

I decided to walk down to St Placide to pick up advance tickets for the Musée d’Orsay to avoid queueing tomorrow. In retrospect, it might have been false economy. By the time we’d hoofed it down there, located the FNAC, and queued to buy a ticket, I don’t know how much time we’re likely to have saved…

Plus it meant we missed the Jardin du Luxembourg, which was just closing by the times we arrived. That’s the only deviation from the itinerary so far. Even my estimated times have proved accurate. Being so thoroughly prepared does lend a touch of déja vu to the proceedings…

Ate dinner at the Italian restaurant on the ground floor of our hotel. “Nothing special” is putting it mildly — “cynical, rip-off tourist trap” would be another way of describing it — but it was Nova’s turn to choose. Shared a bath in the enormous round tub, climbed into bed and read The Little Princess together until lights out.

I’m forever being asked for directions in French. On the one hand it’s flattering to be taken for a Parisian; on the other, I feel a bit embarrassed when I’m usually unable to help. It was quite gratifying to be able to direct an elderly French couple to the metro this afternoon.

October 28, 2009

It’ so much easier to get ready with Ewa around to keep Lyra occupied…
Nova and I set off for St Pancras after lunch. Check-in went smoothly, and boarding, and we departed to the minute.Nova spent much of the journey sketching in her new Moleskine notebook, while I read and did a bit of writing. Passing through the carriages en route to the buffet, I was struck by how everyone was looking at some sort of screen — laptops, Blackberrys, iPods, mobile phones, Gameboys… I even saw an electronic book. There was scarcely a newspaper or paperback in evidence…

The hotel is perfect for us! Just off the Boulevard St Michel, on a bustling Latin Quarter street, it has enough old world glamour to impress Nova while still fitting my budget. Our fifth floor room (with a tiny balcony) does have room to swing a cat (mental note: swing cat to deter carpet scratching…) and there’s a semi-circular tub in the bathroom.

Unpacked quickly and set off on foot for the Louvre. Walked along Ile St Louis by the twinkling Seine, then crossed at Pont Neuf. Stopped for a bit to admire the Eiffel Tower light show, which was pretty dazzling, before continuing along the Right Bank.

The Louvre courtyard is beautiful at night, with the facades and fountains lit up and the Great Pyramid glowing from within. Made our way to the Mona Lisa first, and spent some time admiring it. The colours are more subtle and pleasing than reproductions convey, and there is definitely a force to it. Once again, I was struck by the steady stream of people snapping photos. To show they’d seen it I suppose, though remarkably few seem to bother to actually look at it…

Spent another hour looking at the French paintings — David, Delacroix, Géricault, Ingrès, Delaroche — I love that stuff — and the marvellous Bernini sculptures. I’m awestruck at how sculptors can transform marble into anything — flesh, sinew, hair, lace, gauze — and how sculptures can be heavy and light as air at the same time. I’d also forgotten how beautiful the ceilings in the Louvre are — just as beautiful as the walls — you could easily go around with you neck cricked 90° the whole time…

We had a table booked at Au Pied du Cochon for 10pm. It was a warm evening and we decided to walk. I find I’m more security conscious when I’m out with Nova than when I’m alone (that mother bear thing) and I was dubious about the rundown sprawl of urban landscaping around Les Halles. It was fine, though we did walk through a “dormitory” of rough sleepers…

Au Pied du Cochon is a beautiful, old-style brasserie that specialises in pigs’ trotters. I ordered six oysters and the pig trotter terrine while Nova went for the steak-hâché and frites. The waiters were those career professionals who can seem brusque, but never miss a detail — like turning my oyster platter each time they passed to position the next one in front of me.

When my terrine didn’t arrive I put it down to a failure of my French. “Oh well, room for dessert,” I thought to myself. Just then the waiter arrived and placed an enormous breaded pig’s trotter in front of me. I suggested there had been a mistake; he informed me that ordering terrine was the mistake, and he’d corrected it for me. “OK,” I conceded. “It is very delicious,” he assured me, expertly slicing it lengthwise, and leaving me to it.

It was certainly an interesting experience. Tasty, fatty and full of oddly shaped, interlocking bones. There actually wasn’t that much meat to it. I wasn’t sure if you were meant to eat the skin, but I stashed mine under my bone pyramid. The waiter gave me an approving little nod as he cleared our plates — and he was right, I should have ordered the house speciality…;-)

October 27, 2009

Shenda had an interesting business idea: completely personalised travel guides based on a person’s preferences, interests, past holidays etc. With all the information collected about people online, it should be possible to use it to create the ideal itinerary for their visit to Paris, or Stockholm or whatever. One that takes into consideration the time of year they are visiting, the number of days they have, what’s on at the time etc…Interestingly enough, I’ve pretty much done that this evening. Spent far too long producing a Word document setting out our itinerary. I’ve embeded local maps, and included the addresses and phone numbers of the places I’ve found to eat.

It’s so comprehensive that I contemplated not even bring a guidebook, but have decided I’ll tuck a small one in, just in case we go off piste…

October 26, 2009

Lyra’s first dry night — what a little star! Toilet training is proving to be such a different experience this time round…Nova doesn’t have school this week, so we had a relaxed start to the day. Headed off about 9:15 and moseyed into work…

It was all go once I got there… Tina is away again, and with business planning, strategy writing and staff recruitment, I barely had time to eat my lunch… I’ve got to pick up on my resolution to get outside during the day at some point, especially now that it’s dark by the time I leave the building…

October 25, 2009

Daylight savings time ended this morning, though it’s hard to see what difference it makes around here. Lyra just troops in at 5:45am instead of 6:45am. Made the morning seem very long indeed…Adam B headed off this evening. He’s been an excellent house guest and I’m very impressed with how he comports himself. It can’t be easy being thirteen years old and so far away from your family. He doesn’t really know us all that well, but he slotted into our family life effortlessly. The house seems very quiet without him. It’s been a pleasure hearing him play the piano, though the endless scales got a bit wearing…

Roast chicken for dinner. I stuffed boursin cheese under the skin, which resulted in an absolutely delicious gravy, heightened with fresh tarragon.

“I don’t wear nappies anymore!” Lyra announced brightly at bedtime. “I wear knickers to bed now…” Fingers crossed…

October 24, 2009

Adam took Nova and Adam Jr to a Barnet match with his brother Doron and his two kids. Nova wasn’t that enthusiastic, but she did better than Marni who actually sobbed with misery throughout much of the match.I hung out with Lyra playing Wonder Pets. This involves building a fly boat out of cushions, foffies and toy eggs. We then sit in it and bellow out round after round of the Wonder Pets song:

Wonder Pets! Wonder Pets!
We’re on our way
To help the baby (kitten/camel/panda etc)
And save the day!
We’re not too big,
And we’re not too tough,
But when we work together
We’ve got the right stuff!
Go Wonder Pets! Yay!!!

Made a Japanese curry for dinner, which turned out nicely. Nova even liked it. When you make it at home from a packet it always tastes exactly the same as when you order it in a restaurant. I think they must use sauce mix as well…

October 23, 2009

Adam’s feeling better today thankfully. I half thought he might have swine flu — his school has been sending us regular bulletins on the subject — but it seems unlikely given his speedy recovery.Out again this evening, to see Inherit the Wind at the Old Vic theatre with Madonna and Laurence. We left a bit late, and had to make a mad dash through Waterloo Station, running up escalators like something out of a Jason Bourne film. We went for the wrong exit, which could have spelled disaster, if we hadn’t hopped into a waiting cab. It took us all of 500m, but it bought us the time we needed to slide into our seats with a minute to spare…

It was a good performance, but it never transported me. Kevin Spacey was very impressive as the elderly lawyer defending a science teacher jailed for teaching evolution. Dinner afterwards at the Waterloo Bar and Grill — fishcakes and Rioja, and a blueberry cheesecake split three ways. Home about 12:30…

October 22, 2009

I’m reading “A Little Princess” with Nova at the moment. What a great book! I don’t know why I didn’t come across Frances Hodgson Burnett as a little girl, but I wish I had — I love her stuff…Some incident in the book put Nova in mind of how Adam yelled at her a couple of mornings ago. “You don’t have ever have to get cross at me, mum,” she said, “because you can just go, ‘Adam! I need some swearing here!”

Adam B didn’t make an appearance all day. He’s been sleeping in by our standards, but he is a teenager. I think he works pretty hard at school — he said they get up at 7am to do an hour of practice before breakfast. I assume he likes some time on his own as well…

Adam Sr spoke to him midday and it turns out he was up half the night. Checked on him again in the late afternoon. He’s got some kind of virus, with a temperature, headache and stomach pains. He’s obviously feeling pretty sick, and I was concerned he might not telling be telling us something important, out of modesty or not wanting to be a problem. Felt better after he’d talked to his mum, and we’d chatted to her afterwards…

School quiz night. I helped behind the bar, uncorking bottles of wine, before things got underway. The ticket included a cold buffet, but wine was £10 a bottle…

My team were no rocket scientists… I think we did best on the “Get it wrong” round where you had to come up with the answer most people (inaccurately) believe. An example — Who shot JR? Most people would say “Sue Ellen”, but it was Kristen or whatever…

We were also pretty good at recognising artists from small segments of their paintings, and were one of only two teams to spell the head teachers’ vowel-free, double-barrelled Polish name correctly. In the Maths round, the men insisted on hogging the question sheet and worked them all out incorrectly. We were getting pretty drunk by this point and not really caring. Crashed at identifying all the countries of the EU by their outline. (Our team failed to notice they were in alphabetical order, which would have helped somewhat…)

At the end of the night we finished 8th out of 11, though there was a tranche of mid-table teams that we scored about the same…

October 21, 2009

Happy birthday, mum, you would have been 82 today…
I’m just not getting enough sleep at the moment. Lyra has woken up the last two nights. I heard her crying at 2am, and went in to see what was the matter. Her duvet was on the floor, and she was crying because she’d lost Daisy (her imaginary friend). She loses Daisy quite regularly and it seems to really upset her…Made coquille St Jacques for dinner in honour of mum. Adam was off doing something for Jackson’s Lane (quelle surprise) so had a little cocktail party with Adam Junior and Nova. Aqueous martinis for the younger guests, vodka tonic for me, crisps, cheese, mojito olives. I let Adam choose the music, so we ended up remembering mum to the Fun Loving Criminals…

As the years go by, I’ve found that I prefer to remember mum on her birthday rather than her deathday. (Is that a word? If not, it should be…) Of course I think of her on October 6, but I try to let it slide past if I can and keep the day that has always been hers…

October 20, 2009

It was a madhouse here today, with toddlers, schoolgirls, nannies, window cleaners, and pianists all roaming about the house. When we have house guests Adam and I both end up working in the bedroom on Tuesdays. Usually Lyra doesn’t bother us much, but she was in and out all day today (trying to escape the crowds perhaps…). When Nova’s friend Evelyn wandered in on us mid-afternoon and started playing with the cat I could have torn my hair in frustration…Cooked a nice dinner of tuna chowder, soda bread and apple crumble. Afterwards, the Adams headed off to see The Tempest at Jackson’s Lane. I did piano with Nova, which had its frustrations as well. She’ll be doing her grade one exam this year, and consequently is getting theory work alongside her pieces to practice. Basically, she can’t read music — and I can’t find a way to explain it to her. She’s a functional music illiterate, and learns her pieces by quickly memorising enough of them when her teacher plays them through.

Now that winter’s approaching, we’ve been attempting to get Lyra into some warmer clothes. Ewa dressed her in a little shrug this morning, but Lyra complained it made her arms “too trickly”, so that didn’t last long…

October 19, 2009

I’m wiped out today — I can’t imagine working full time anymore. It feels like I had no weekend at all…The recruitment continues to monopolise my time. Spent most of the morning filling out the necessary paperwork, and now need to start the recruitment to backfill the post. Oh joy…

My pad thai this evening was an object lesson in how to do it wrong: too much food in the wok, noodles not soaked enough, too much sauce added too early…

Fortunately teenage boys eat anything…;-) Adam has been a very appreciative audience for my cooking. Makes a welcome change from Lyra’s “Yuk! I don’t likes…” and Nova’s glacial pace at tackling most new foods.

October 18, 2009

“Mum! I’ve done a poo!” Lyra called from her bed this morning. No shit, Sherlock… Although she was wearig a nappy, it had mostly escaped into the bed — what a great start to the day…Made a double batch of muffins and had the three ladies up for breakfast. When Adam started his piano practice the jaws round the table dropped… Saw them off in a taxi this afternoon. And then there were five…

Watched “Up” this evening with the Franklyn family. Some pirate copy Alicia picked up in China this summer. The Russian signage that appeared in some of the scenes added a mysterious aspect to it…

October 17, 2009

Bought a deterrent cat spray to help with the carpet scratching. It makes the house smell disgusting, but we need to do something… Other possible options are cutting her claws short, kitty nail covers (what an adventure attaching those would be!), visiting a cat behaviourist, paw amputation…

Adam and Nova set off late afternoon to collect Adam B at Euston. Lyra and I walked up to Zizzi to meet them for a meal. Lyra was very intrigued to be out at night, and chattered away about stars and moons.

Had a very nice dinner — the food seems to be a notch up from Strada, our usual choice… Adam B was certainly pleased with it and ate a whopping dinner. He seems taller and thinner than when we saw him in August. I know teenagers shoot up like weeds, but he may not be eating so much now he’s living on school dinners. The cast likely adds a bit of height as well…

Adam’s on the sofabed for one night as Carolyn’s still in the flat. Her two travelling companions from the Italian leg of her holiday have rejoined her as well, so there are eight of us in the house this evening…

October 16, 2009

This morning at about 4:45 we heard Lyra in the hallway outside her room. Adam got up and shepherded her back to bed. This morning, she said, “I escaped, I opened the door, I did checking.” She hasn’t said what she was checking. But when Adam suggested that she was checking everything was ok and we were all fine, she agreed. 

Feeling rough this morning… I think it’s more the cold than the hangover. I’m glad my meeting was in the afternoon. Our candidate didn’t do a knockout second interview, but she was convincing enough to appoint — and she’s accepted — so that’s a relief.

Had to make the phone calls to all the unsuccessful candidates this evening. Could have done without that at the end of a long week, but I wanted to let people know before the weekend. Had a stiff vanilla vodka tonic afterwards…

Salmon rice broccoli for dinner, and “Wall-E” for movie night. Nova crashed out part way through, and I’m pretty sure I missed a few bits as well…

October 15, 2009

I’d offered our final candidate a video interview, but she preferred to travel down from Manchester a second time. It’s not ideal to spread interviews out the way we have, but fortunately we were able to reach a decision. One of the internal candidates is the strongest. However we still have some reservations, so I’ve arranged to have a second interview with her tomorrow…:-(Adam was out at Jackson’s Lane all morning. He dropped in for lunch before heading off to his doctors appointment. His tongue is still giving him problems. He’s been prescribed antibiotics for the infection and will have a follow-up appointment.

Drinks with Pasc, Alicia, Trish and Sarah this evening. Sarah has recently moved back to the UK from New York and she hosted, even cooking a bit of dinner for everyone.

Things were a bit edgy between Pasc and me all evening. She is a real gossip and terribly indiscreet, which can be fun, but tonight she was repeating a nasty piece of playground gossip about one of Trish’s children moments before Trish arrived. I’d been with Trish this afternoon and seen the boy in question. I said that he was really lovely with Lyra and that I thought that spoke well of him. We ended up arguing about his character, of which I know next to nothing, when actually I should have just challenged her behaviour.

Adam’s mum Patty finally got in touch… They’ve been having email problems, and were moving house over the last few days, so were completely out of touch…

October 14, 2009

Adam Boeker (our “ward”) is coming from his music school in Manchester on Saturday to stay with us for a week. Got a call from the school this afternoon informing me that he’s broken his ankle and has his leg in plaster. No one has been able to reach his parents, but this is what we’ve signed on for… In a series of phone calls, I gave permission for him to be given painkillers, authorised the purchase of a more expensive train ticket and arranged for my colleague Donna to travel down with Adam if necessary to help him with his bags and so on…Went to a piano recital this evening with Carolyn. It was at King’s Place, a new arts venue on the canal by King’s Cross. I walked up after work. I’m still not feeling great, but took the drugs necessary to keep me going. Ate dinner first at their Rotunda restaurant — smoked haddock on a bed of spinach.

The pianist performed a piece by Webern and another by Schubert. I was interested that he need to follow the music for the Webern (a quite short, but completely random — to my ear — piece that sounded like one of Lyra’s efforts) but not for the Schubert, which was much longer and more complex.

Caught the bus home afterwards. Had a glass of wine before bed — probably a bad idea but I needed it. I have to go in to work tomorrow. It’s not a day I normally work, but my final interview has been arranged for the morning.

October 13, 2009

Happy 70th birthday, Margo!
Found the story of our fire on the internet… The building was still closed this morning although it opened later in the day.I seem to have caught Carolyn’s cold. Annoying… it’s been ages since I’ve had a cold…

October 12, 2009

Interviewing all day today. I did a bit of prep last night, but still needed to get in early to ensure everything was in place. We’re seeing five candidates, two of which are internal.Half way through the fourth interview, a piercing siren started up. It wasn’t our usual fire drill sound, but we were interviewing on a different floor of the building. I poked my head out the door and saw people running, and decided we’d better leave.

We were all herded up to Red Lion Square where we milled about for the next hour. It was a bit awkward having the interview candidate in tow. The only thing we had in common was the one subject we shouldn’t be talking about…

People were soon sharing mobile phone photos of smoke and flames coming from building, and fire engines kept tearing past. It became obvious we weren’t getting back into the building any time soon. As the candidate had travelled from Manchester, I gave him the option of carrying on with the interview rather than rescheduling. Bought a notepad from a newsagents, and finished the interview at Itsu. We’d memorised the questions by this point in the day, so it was consistent with other interviews, but not ideal…

As my coat was in the office — and I was staying in town for the evening — looked at coats in a few shops, but there was nothing I liked. Met Jemima at the Southbank Centre, and went to see John Irving speak. I love John Irving, and have read practically everything he’s written. Turns out he speaks like he writes — deliberately, expansively, slowly… He only answered seven questions in two hours. He read a passage from his new novel as well, which was a treat…

I was pretty chilly by the time I got home. I think I’m getting Carolyn’s cold…

October 11, 2009

I’ve been trying to stop the cat from tearing up the carpet, and it’s especially important now that Carolyn is visiting. Cleo is a cat on a mission — neglecting her scratching post, she gleefully rips up little mountains of carpet tufts each day. It is starting to be noticable, especially along the walls…My emergency tactics involve doubling her rations — Christmas has come early for Cleo — hoping she’ll be too bloated to scratch. I’m also leaving our bedroom door ajar, so she doesn’t try to burrow through the floor to gain access. She was less pesky last night than on the first, but I’ll need turtleneck pyjamas to defend myself from the neck sucking if this carries on…

Cleo is achieving the impossible and actually making me dislike cats. If anyone asks me what my favourite animal is in future, I’m going to say hamsters…

Made fish pie for dinner. I like fish pie, but it is too much damn work. It’s always the same — I think I’ve finally done it, then realise that I still need to make the béchamel. I think its the seasoned milk step that fools me (though it’s worth doing). Nova was pleased with my efforts, but not Lyra. “Fish pie does not taste nice!” she informed me. “Little girls do not like fish pie!”

October 10, 2009

My morning run felt great. I’m glad the week off doesn’t seem to have set me back much…Nova’s hair is full of nits again. I gave her a thorough comb-through after her morning bath and stopped counting when I hit 50…”They like me ‘cos I’ve got long hair,” Nova said, adding “‘Lots of room for everybody!'” in a squeaky little louse voice.

Speaking of 50, we wet to Adam’s cousin Simon’s 50th birthday tea this afternoon. I like Simon, but whenever I attend on of these wider Garfunkel family functions, I’m reminded of the life Adam dodged by marrying out of the faith. All the disdainful, vacuous Jewish wives with their hair extensions and Chanel handbags and tight jeans tucked into their fringed, spike-heeled boots. The accountants, the lapdogs, the fake tan, the herring…

The older generation are generally pretty nice, and our girls were fussed over. “Isn’t she cute!” one old dear said of Lyra. “I NOT!” Lyra replied stoutly.

Carolyn offered to babysit this evening, so we took the opportunity to go to the cinema. We saw “Julie and Julia” with Meryl Streep. I always forget just how good an actor she is, and am impressed anew each time.

I enjoyed the film, aside from one real howler. Julie was cooking a beef dish and added a generous splash of red wine. She immediately tasted it and said, “Ah yes — now it is perfect!” Petty but irritating in a film about great cooking…

October 9, 2009

Feeling pretty rough… I’m generally quite puritanical about hangovers, especially my own. I got up with Lyra before 6am, sent Nova off to school and generally went about my day as best I could with a head that felt like it had been kicked around like a football…Took Lyra to the village mid-morning for a bacon sandwich (me) and an enormous cupcake (her). For this outing, she donned a fairy dress, pink trench coat, bobble hat, boa scarf and Crocs. She’s an original…

Carolyn arrived this afternoon. She’s very pleased with the kitchen — it is beautiful. She’s picked up a rotten cold during her week in Italy, so I sorted her out with menthol inhaling crystals, Lemsip, Viks etc…

Carolyn joined us for chickpea pasta soup when the girls returned from swimming then retired to bed. Watched Coraline for movie night. My friend Mike has made a copy for Nova, and it was like one of those anti-piracy ads at the start of children’s dvds — “Mum! It’s not working!!” Good film though…

October 8, 2009

I’m sleeping really badly at the moment… four, five hours a night is pretty standard. Blew off my spinning class this morning, as I was just too damn tired…Visited the library looking for Monet books for Nova’s homework. No luck, but picked up a couple of good ones at the Oxfam shop for a few pounds each.

Class drinks this evening. As class reps, Wendy, Kiran and I felt obliged to get there at 8pm. Sat there like lemons for an hour before people started arriving, but there was a good turn out in the end.

At the table behind us, a drunken couple were snogging as if their lives depended on it. “I haven’t seen snogging like that in a pub in ages!” said Wendy. “Or at home either…” said another mum wistfully. The guy had her bent almost flat on the bench seat by this time, and a moment later she let out a piercing shriek. Somehow she’d managed to dislocate her kneecap in their passion. An ambulance was called and furniture shoved aside so she could be stretchered away. “We may be old, but at least we’re still standing,” Gilda commented tartly.

October 7, 2009

Made up a little song the other day in honour or my recent birthday. Sung to the tune of Jingle Bells, it goes like this:

Forty five, fat and old,
And I’m turning gray,
Pretty soon I’ll lie in bed
And eat bonbons all day! Hey!

It was an instant hit with Nova, who’s taken to sing it to me at the most inappropriate times…

October 6, 2009

The anniversary of mum’s death — six years without her…
Working from home, I had to share the bedroom work space with Adam as we’re having the kitchen in the flat redone this week in advance of Carolyn’s arrival.Lyra has an imaginary friend called Daisy. Actually Daisy seems to cover a lot of bases — alter ego, friend, sister, brother… And she seems to be an important aspect in how Lyra interprets the world. Most experiences are filtered through Daisy. If I give her a balloon for example, thirty seconds later it’s “Daisy gave me this balloon!” If she loses her foffy in the playground, that happens to Daisy too.

This afternoon she suddenly burst into tears. “I’ve lost Daisy!” she sobbed. A bit of a crisis… How does one find a lost imaginary friend? Fortunately Adam had the bright idea of called Daisy on the phone so she could tell us where she was…

October 5, 2009

Greeted with the usual mountain of email after my week away, plus I’m shortlisting for a new post. Spent the morning rigorously scoring candidates against the selection criteria before meeting up with my manager to discuss our results. Unsurprisingly, she’d briefly glanced at the application forms before picking the ones that she liked.Actually both approaches produced pretty much the same results, but in the public sector you need that track record if people want to find out why they weren’t interviewed or whatever…

October 4, 2009

Feeling a little better today, but I’m just not sleeping at the moment… I often suffer from insomnia this time of year…

October 3, 2009

…three hours drunken sleep (on the sofa) later, Shenda woke me up at 5:30am. Managed to pack before the taxi I ordered yesterday showed up on time…At the airport, we staggered off to check in with our respective airlines. We’d assumed we’d meet up again after security, but we were fed straight to our departure gates (that German efficiency again…) so there was no opportunity to say goodbye.

The flight was a bit of a blur… I dozed off and on… I remember it being pretty blustery and not giving a shit…

My taxi driver was waiting when I stumbled into the arrivals hall. A chatty Irish guy, it took all my concentration to carry on a conversation, and his frequent jokes were completely beyond me. I would have much preferred to slump in the corner…

The girls ran out to meet me. “Did you miss me?” I asked Lyra. “No I did not!” she said. I noticed she kept a pretty close eye on me all day though, and gave me frequent little hugs.

Feeling pretty grim, I managed to unpack, make lunch, and compose the weekly grocery list and menu plan. When Nova and Adam headed off to Waitrose, I turned the telly on for Lyra and stretched out on the sofa.

No chance of a snooze though… Whenever I closed my eyes, Lyra would prod me saying, “I’m helping you stay awake mummy!”

October 2, 2009

The last full day of our holiday… Started off with a yoga class at a Kreuzberg studio (another one of Shenda’s ideas). “Do you speak any German?” the instructor asked doubtfully. Yoga is a type of international language we thought, over optimistically it turned out…The instructor went out of her way to throw in the odd bit of slightly cryptic English instruction — and who knows, her German instructions may have been cryptic as well. At any rate, it was impossible to follow along without constantly referring to the student next to me.

Being German, the instructor couldn’t allow me do my sun salutation in a non-Germanic fashion. Apparently the whole touch down from my first downward facing dog is not right, nor am I bringing my arms up Germanically at the end. All in all, it was good fun, and there were a couple of exercise sequences I’d benefit from remembering. , Also, I learned that “kreuz” means “cross”…

Went into town to see the giant puppets who are moving through the streets of Berlin this weekend. Came across the “little girl” napping in Buchplatz, snoring gently…

We’d intended to head back to Kreuzberg for a relaxing afternoon, but got distracted by the sock department in Gallery Lafayette. Factoring in a mid-afternoon beer, the little girl was on the move again. We saw her make her way into Gendarmenmarkt and reunite with the boat. (There’s a whole story associated with their movements that I’m ignorant of.) It was fascinating to see how they manipulated her. It takes dozens of people, each pulling their individual ropes…

It was pissing with rain when we emerged at our metro stop, which provided an excuse for another beer (of the “swift half” variety). Back at the flat, we discovered that the Shy Chef had bailed on us due to illness, and we had the evening at our disposal. Headed back to Destille to do Oktoberfest…

Ein mass (a litre of beer), ein half mass, another half mass, an oompah band… the evening quickly picked up momentum and kept on going… Even the bartenders were going for it — dressed in lederhosen teeshirts and silly hats, they regularly knocked back the rounds of schnapps patrons bought them, and Rudi would set all the hanging brass lamps swinging each time he passed…

Moved onto the hazelnut schnapps… dangerous stuff… I lost track of the number of those I sunk… We did manage to eat a weisswurst and pretzel at some point, thankfully. Uwe, Rudi, Karsten and Perry were our new best friends, not to mention the two guys we got talking to. The fact that mine spoke no English at all was only a minor impediment to the conversation…

According to Shenda it had gone 2am by the time we got back to the flat, have to take her word for it…

October 1, 2009

Did a bike tour along the former Wall this morning. Setting off from Prenzlauer Berg, it was raining lightly, and we were the only people on the tour, but it cleared up as we set off. They were lovely bikes, very comfortable and upright. I was a little worried about all the tram tracks, but they weren’t an issue. Freja was our guide. A Finnish woman who lived in Berlin for seven years, she has definitely acquired that German earnestness if she didn’t bring it from Finland with her…What a misplaced waste of resources and energy that bloody Wall was… It must have crippled the East German state economically. And how German to persist with it, refining and improving it to the point of insanity… Stopped at a former guard tower on the Spree River. It is run by a man called Jurgen Liftin as a memorial to his brother, who was one of the first people killed trying to cross the Wall.

Another currywurst lunch — this one at Konnepke’s, which is meant to be the best in the city. I preferred it to our local one, but Shenda wasn’t convinced…

Alexanderplatz is a beautiful tube station, with blue green tiles and generous walkways. It is also ground zero for the Fernseturm, which has been regularly popping up in unlikely vistas as we’ve navigated the city. Some people refer to it as a “golf ball on a knitting needle”, but I love it, and really enjoyed standing underneath it looking straight up.

Headed on to Friedrichshain and the self-described “department store of cool” where I bought Adam a Fernseturm teeshirt. Strolled down the broad Karl Marx Allee before cutting down to the river. Walked along the East Side Gallery, a one kilometre stretch of Wall that has been turned into an open-air art installation.

The modern dance thing was great. In spite of the opaque entry rituals that meant we were the last people to take a seat, we found places in the front row. (I had a moment of anxiety that there might be some audience participation aspect to the performance that we were oblivious to, and other people were avoiding…) Spent the next hour watching beautiful bodies do impossible things. No idea what it all meant — I don’t speak dance — but it was mesmerising.

Stopped off for a drink in our neighbourhood before calling it a night. The tinfoil-covered gay bar we’d clocked yesterday was too smoky, and we ended up in a place called Destille. With its great beer, wall of schnapps, Octoberfest celebrations and UEFA Cup football on the big screen we were very happy campers…