September 2010

September 30, 2010

Feeling a bit worse for wear this morning, and also experiencing the anticlimax of finishing our team response. It’s likely to be a month or more, before they manage to prepare a written response to all the comments, so it’s more “business as usual” for the time being…Picked up Lyra from nursery with Adam, and went round to her classmate Greta’s house for a play and some lunch. Greta’s parents are very nice — the mother Katie is a painter, and the dad Howard works in children’s television. Actually, it turns out he was the managing director of Nickelodeon until a few months ago, and has 15 Baftas to his credit…

Adam went off to represent us at the new parents evening, while I juggled to do homework, piano, and Lyra’s bedtime. Nova and I are reading about the Ganges River at the moment, and poor Lyra’s bedtime story became the chapter on the middle Ganges. It was all about the pollution from tanning, dead bodies and raw sewage. “I’m going under the blankets so I don’t hear this horrible story any more!” Lyra huffed.

Once the girls were in bed and Adam was home, I went round to Pasc’s for a girls dinner with Alicia. Alicia provided the dinner, I brought dessert, and Pasc contributed the chairs… and the table…;-)

September 29, 2010

Spent all day fine tuning my team’s response, and it still came down to the wire… It was 4:51 (9 minutes from deadline) when I finally pressed the “send” button to submit what has become a 25-page response. The thought “You’ll never eat lunch in the NHS again” flashed through my mind as I did it…Actually, there seems to be a lot of opposition to the proposal across the organisation — most of the other directorates have written their own responses, the union has submitted 20 pages of member’s concerns, and the staff forum’s submission is pretty chunky as well. Not that it’s likely to make any difference…

Immediately went to the pub with the London members of my team. It was four gin and tonics later, before Adam managed to extract me. We ate dinner at a local hamburger place, then headed home. “I can tell your team are proud of you,” Adam said, and Ithink it’s true. It was a kick ass response — we’ll go down all guns blazing…

September 28, 2010

Worked from home on my team’s response to the consultation. Although it has been a joint effort, three of us have pretty much written it. And I have overall editoral control. Though I’m proud of what we’ve said, I am thoroughly sick of this document now. Tomorrow is the deadline for submitting and we have already seen comments that people made via the Union. It’s obvious a lot of people feel very strongly about this — it’s good not to be the lone voices… I hope other teams contribute responses as well. Had kichree for dinner, which is an unlikely melange of things that are somehow very satisfying.

September 27, 2010

I’m getting that feeling of dread on Monday mornings I haven’t felt in years. Tensions are rising, and the gloves coming off… We’re making some pretty blunt statements in our response to the consultation, which I’ll submit on Wednesday. I imagine things will only get worse from here…I was going to go for a swim after work, but there is always a lot to do with the girls in the evenings, and I got drawn into reading about the Ganges with Nova. She’s got to build a ‘pop-up’ representation of the Ganges over the next two weeks. I have no idea what a pop-up representation is, but she seems to have a vision. She keeps talking about pop-up cows and temples and half-built dams, so I look forward to seeing what she comes up with…

September 26, 2010

Went for a morning walk with Nova while Adam took Lyra to church. We headed down the private road to the Heath, carried along by the duck pond, and then back home via West Hill. Lots to chat about — Nova is such interesting company… Looking forward to our time together in Vienna…

September 25, 2010

Went for a run on the Heath this morning. Beautiful weather, bright and cool and perfect for running… Adam went to the Arsenal match, and I stayed home with the girls — plus Etta whose parents dropped her off with me for the day.Went to Sarah and Sam’s housewarming party in the evening. It was an open house thing that started at 3pm. I would have preferred to go then, but didn’t feel like going on my own with the three girls.

We got there about 9pm, having dropped our two for a semi-sleepover at Madonna’s. It felt like the party had peaked already — but open houses can be like that. They never seem to reach the critical mass needed to turn into a party. And from the host’s point of view, they go on too long… Sarah and Sam seemed to be spending most of their time clearing plates and loading the dishwasher. At one point, they even got the hoover out… I could sympathise — we had an open house party once years ago, and I wouldn’t do it again…

September 24, 2010

Today was my day with Lyra. We only have a few of these left before she starts attending school five days a week…:-( Spent the day playing games, doing ballet, gathering autumn leaves and cooking. That girl loves cooking — like Nova, she’s very keen on tasting, but also has a genuine enthusiasm for routine tasks like shelling chickpeas, and she loves to peek in the oven or watch food frying and boiling…We had the best family dinner ever this evening. Everyone ate their food with no fuss, and Nova entertained us all with the story she wrote at school about how she went back in time and saved the Titanic. Not to be bested, Lyra hopped up and did an impromptu princess puppet show, which was lovely.

For movie night we watched “The Lion in Winter”, which I’d mixed it up with A Man For All Seasons. Both featured English royalty, but there the similarity ended. I was happy enough to watch it, though Nova gave up half way through. Katherine Hepburn (who I seldom like) was magnificent as Eleanor of Aquitane.

September 23, 2010

Did my spinning class again this morning. No swim afterwards, as I went last night. Did some arm exercises instead. By the time I left the gym it was pelting with rain, which dampened my enthusiasm for the errands I have to do and for gardening. Stuck to indoor activities instead…Went on a tour of Channing School this afternoon. It seems like a really nice school, and I could picture Nova there. I thought the head teacher was great as well, which is important. Unfortunately, it costs £5000 a term — so it ought to be good…

Surprised to discover that Channing’s sixth form girls are doing four hours of schoolwork a night. Actually, Nova’s bloody rivers of the world homework seems to be taking about that long at the moment… This week’s task is to identify the craft used on each of her five rivers: the type of boats, where they stop, what they carry etc. I think we must be misinterpreting the question somehow, as it’s proving really hard to find the information she needs…

September 22, 2010

Woke with a terrible headache… Apparently, I was groaning so loudly in my sleep that I woke Adam. My eyes were locked in a squint, and I had to consciously force myself to open them properly.Called in sick and spent the morning in bed… Either the painkillers did their job or it finally eased up… Did some work in the afternoon, and an afternoon swim seemed to knock it on the head as it were.

Visited Hornsey School for Girls this evening — another local comprehensive. I really liked the head teacher. We went on a tour afterwards with a year 9 student, who was very sweet. All the teachers we met seemed enthusiastic and positive. But the quality of the work they had on display was pretty woeful. Apparently, there are 60 different first languages spoken at the school, and I think this showed in the written work.

There were a series of pages that 14-year-old art students had done on the Ndembele women of South Africa. Less than half of the students could spell the word “chalk”. Nova’s school seems to be about three years ahead in terms of the level of work they are doing. Came away feeling that the school is preparing young women for careers in the retail and catering industries. Not to malign those industries, but I don’t think it’s the right place for Nova…

September 21, 2010

Got my 2-mile (ish) run down to 19 minutes this morning, which isn’t bad for such a hilly course. It would be interesting to see how far I could go with that…Visited Henrietta Barnett — our local state selective school — this morning. I was overwhelmed by how terrific a fit it would be for Nova. I think she would absolutely love it there. Being such a quality school (and free) it is very much in demand — last year, one in twelve of the girls who sat the exam were offered a place. And those are the very brightest girls in North London in the first place. While it would be great if it happens, it’s best to look on it as the equivalent of getting one of Willy Wonka’s golden tickets…

Returned to the dentist for the second half of my root canal. In theory, it should have been less bad than the first half, but the way he hammered on my face to dislodge the temporary tooth wasn’t a great start. Nor was the fact he didn’t numb it first. When I objected, he said, “There’s no need to — you don’t have a nerve it that tooth any more.”

It seemed an unnecessary risk to take, and I had the dentist numb my gums before we went any further. At one point, he asked the hygenist for a lighter, which I assumed was some sort of dental flashlight, but he actually meant a Bic lighter. I heard the rasp of it being struck, then he applied the flame to the bottom of whatever he’d packed into the hole in my tooth canal. Dentistry is such a medieval profession for all they dress it up…

Ham soup for dinner, following mum’s recipe with pearl barley, carrot and celery — it always makes me think of her…

Fortismere school visit this evening — what a difference to this morning… If you didn’t know you were in a high school, you might have thought the head was talking about an open prison. Still, Fortismere is apparently as good as comprehensive schools get around here (and consequently, we no chance of getting a place). But it will be a benchmark to compare the ones we do have a shot at against. There must have been a thousand people at each of these events, such a colossal waste of time and resources. And this is just the beginning…

September 20, 2010

Had to make a presentation to the directorate on my development plans for the website this afternoon. A bit ridiculous — I felt like holding up a copy of the consultation and saying, “This is what we’ve been focusing on, and we aren’t likely to be doing anything in the months ahead,” but I went through the motions.Swam a mile this evening, which felt good. The pool water was very murky for some reason — it was almost like the ponds, where you couldn’t see three feet in front of you.They probably got the chlorine levels wrong — the Fort St John pool was always like that.

Adam found the duathlon results online today. I came 22nd out of the 34 women (time: 53:57), and Adam came 51th out of 75 (time: 46:44). Our team did not come last — we were 16th out of 19 teams. I’d like to improve on that effort next year, but I’m happy enough for a first go…

September 19, 2010

Had a home-oriented kind of day — tidying stuff, organising paperwork, getting groceries in. Made our standard vegetable tray soup — a weekend routine to make space for the coming week’s groceries.Dinner was sugar-baked ham, which was delicious. That is definitely the way I’m going to cook ham from now on. Series three of Merlin has started, much to Nova’s delight. It’s good to see the Brits celebrating their folklore this way, and modernising it too. It’s a load of tosh on one level, but good fun.

September 18, 2010

Happy birthday to me! 46… you can’t avoid the reality that 46 is a pretty crap age. In fact, I can’t think of an age between 1 and a 100 that sounds any worse. It’s the end of any pretence of youth, that’s for sure…That aside, I had a great day, starting with gifts in bed — an iPhone from Adam, a turquoise necklace from the girls, and a consultation to have my colours done — followed by breakfast in bed. Freddy and Beulah popped round with a nice mortar and pestle for me, after which we took the girls for lunch at PapaDels.

They run a shambolic operation these day — I have a lot of affection for that restaurant, but they are really losing the plot. They had only one cold beer in the whole place, they failed to register my pizza order, and didn’t think to question whether we each wanted a meal…

Pete and Pasc came round to babysit, and we headed into town for dinner at Richard Corrigan. It was a great meal, but there were no real home runs… To bed about midnight…

September 17, 2010

“Guess what I dreamed about?” Lyra said this morning. “I don’t know… what did you dream about?” I asked. “Nothing! I had to dream about nothing, because all the rest of the dreams were taken…” she said a bit sadly. 

Nova’s class had their first assembly this morning, where they made an amazing presentation about the Orinoco River. It was amazing what they managed to produce in a couple of weeks — working water turbines; flood warning system models with a light that lit when the water rose; helicopters with working propellers, 9-metre anaconda models; a school of 3D glittering pirahnas, jungle-inspired poems… It made me wish I was in grade five again, and it’s the first time anything I’ve seen at the school has made me feel like that. I so hope this is a good year for Nova — she’s had some underwhelming teachers in her years at the school, but I think Mr Ross should be a lot of fun…

Back to Ben’s again this afternoon, but as sous chef this time. I arrived about 1pm and helped him set up the dining room. The menu was the same as last week, which I was familiar with. Ben had already made one of the sorbets and the polenta, but we did the rest of the cooking together. Learning from last week’s experience, he made sure we stopped for a bite to eat before service got underway.

The evening went pretty smoothly, if I do say so myself. Most of the cooking had been done in advance, Ben and I plated each course together, and brought them to the guests, then he’d stay and introduce the food and get their initial feedback, while I cleared up and set up for the next course. I also cleared plates, served drinks, and kept track of wine sales. It was pretty full-on, and by the time the last course hit the table at 11pm I was bushed. Stayed for an hour or so of post-dinner socialising then caught a cab home…

September 16, 2010

Went to my spinning class for the first time in many moons. I know my bottom is going to be pretty sore tomorrow… I thought I’d have a swim afterwards, as I want to keep it up if possible. I assumed my arms would be fine, but they were pretty tired by the spinning. I suppose they got more of a workout than I thought. And I guess 45 minutes of mad cycling just generally tires you out…After a coffee with Pete, I spent a couple of hours gardening. I’ve agreed that I’ll take responsibility for it and that Carolyn will let her gardeners go. I can’t see how I will find more than the two hours the gardeners currently do, but I will focus more on the things Carolyn cares about, like keeping the wall clear of ivy and pulling the ground elder out of the rockery…

September 15, 2010

Had a birthday lunch with my team today for the two of us with birthday’s this week. Went to a Vietnamese caff that’s opened up on Theobald’s Road. I thought the food was great. Picked up cupcakes from Bea’s of Bloomsbury on the way back to have at our afternoon tea break.Adam was out at Arsenal this evening, so I was landed with the double bedtime, piano, homework whammy. It’s a tricky one to pull off. It requires giving Nova some attention, and there’s nothing that gets Lyra’s goat more… Her behaviour got worse and worse, and I ended up scooping her under my arm and depositing her shrieking and yelling in her bedroom. Of course that didn’t work either, and undoubtedly took more time and energy than just letting her have her way at the beginning. I don’t know what to do with this hurricane of a child sometimes — raising Nova was no preparation at all…

September 14, 2010

Did my short, fast run this morning — but felt a bit sluggish. Maybe down to the swimming the night before? Spent some time daydreaming about a the RA — a breakdown service for struggling runners. There would be some button I could push on my Garmin watch that would summon a Lycra-clad young man to strap my ankle, or offer a sports drink.Lyra’s first day of school! She has been so looking forward to this day, and was ready to go about an hour early. When we arrived, she marched straight into the classroom like she owned it. Her teacher had advised parents to stay for the first morning, but I could see that Lyra was going to be absolutely fine, and left after 45 minutes.

The only damper came when her friend Alice arrived. “Alice!” Lyra cried, running up to give her a hug. Alice just gave her a blank stare, and turned her back on her. Lyra tried to engage her a couple more times, before turning to me and saying in a hurt voice, “Why won’t Alice talk to me?” Good question…

Had a couple of tradesmen in this afternoon: a wasp guy who blasted poison into the wasp nest outside the livingroom window, and a blind guy to fix the runner that’s broken in the bedroom blind. Reminded me of that old joke:

It’s a blistering hot summer day, and a woman is doing the ironing in the nude. The doorbell rings. “Who is it?” she asks. “It’s the blind man,” is the reply. Not bothering to get dressed, the woman opens the door. “Nice tits!” the guy says. “You interested in buying some blinds?”

Anne’s 95th birthday party this evening. The usual collection of neighbours and relatives, cocktail sausages, sandwiches and champagne. Her granddaughter Katie and boyfriend Owen played some Bach and “Happy Birthday” which was a nice touch. People pay good money these days to see those two play…

September 13, 2010

Back to the dark, satanic guidance-producing mill with heavy heart… It’s been a long time since I’ve had that Monday morning dread about work, and I hate it…Went for a swim after work to generate some positive energy,then spent the evening helping Nova with her rivers of the world project.

September 12, 2010

Had poor Harvey’s funeral this morning. I found a nice little chocolate box, which I lined with velvet and placed his poor little body inside. Spent a lot of time picking the wood shavings out of his fur before closing him up. We found a nice little corner to bury him by the greenhouse. The girls gathered bouquets of flowers while Adam dug a little hole, I said a few words, Nova read her poem and we all took it in turn to cover her coffin. It was a sad moment, and we were all in tears over the loss of our little buddy. I don’t think you could have a nicer hamster — we’re sure going to miss him…

Adam wanted to check out the Thames festival — a free event organised by the mayor to celebrate the Thames — so we headed down to Waterloo around noon. Ate a dim sum lunch at Ping Pong before braving the crowds.

As always, these things would be so much better if half the people stayed away… It was gridlock in front of the Southbank, and we shuffled along in a herd much of the time. Separated from Adam who went off to find a bank machine, and spent the best part of an hour finding him again. Searching the crowd, I realised that I was scanning for bald heads a certain height above the ground. And there were a lot of them…

Things improved down by Gabriels Wharf. There were some wonderful sand castles on the little strip of beach (which I’ve never ventured down to before) and a great area for kids. Both girls loved the Scratch Patch, a paddling pool full of polished rocks where kids could sit and sift to their heart’s content, until they’d chosen three favourites. And House of Fairytale’s Travelling Art Circus could have kept them happy all afternoon with their craft projects, treasure hunts and unlikely water sculpture.

By the time we got home, the ham dinner I’d planned wasn’t an option… threw together two pasta suppers using tail ends of pasta: bolognese for the girls and salmon dill for us…

September 11, 2010

What a hangover… We had a lot of fun last night, but it’s hard to decide if it is worth feeling so rotten… I think I’m out of practice from all that healthy living in preparation for the duathlon… 

Ben called mid-morning to discuss the evening and go over our feedback sheet. Apparently we offered last night that one of us would go along next Friday to help him…

Slouched around most of the day. I managed to find the energy to make a pot of vegetable soup, and clean and disassemble Harvey’s cage. Bibimbap for dinner — I crave something stodgy and comforting like that when I’m feeling fragile…

September 10, 2010

Did my two mile short run in my fastest time ever this morning. Perhaps my legs are particularly well rested after a few days off?Lyra’s nursery school teachers came round to the house this afternoon for a home visit. There were a sheaf of forms for me to fill in, and they visited with Lyra while I did that. She was full of beans, and happily shared her opinions on all manner of topics. When asked if we had any pets, she said, “Yes! We have a cat and a hamster called Harvey — but he’s almost dead!”

I’ve been very worried about Harvey, who has looked lethargic over the last couple of days. I took the lid off his hide to check on him, and found I couldn’t rouse him. He was curled in a little ball, and although I could see he was breathing he didn’t look good…

Called the vet and took him down straightaway. When the vet lifted him up, I could see that he was worse than I realised. His face looked black around the muzzle, and he appeared to be in pain. I could see that the only option was to have him put down. Because hamsters are so small, the vet knocked him out with gas, then gave him an injection.

It was all quite sudden, and I was feeling very bad about it as I walked back up Southwood Lane with a dead hamster in my handbag. Bumped into Alicia coming home from school with her kids, and stopped at theirs for a glass of rosé and a toast to poor little Harvey. I’m going to miss that little guy…

When I told Lyra, she was momentarily shocked, then immediately said, “I want another hamster!” I went round to Fay’s to tell Nova as well. We’re out tonight and I didn’t want to drop the news on her and leave. She was much more upset than Lyra and had more questions, but it wasn’t long before her thoughts turned to funeral planning…

Had Elsie to babysit tonight so we could go to our friend Ben’s supper club. He’s doing two trial runs before he launches properly, and offered a £5 deal for friends willing to come round and help test the concept. There were ten guests, only one of which I knew already. The meal started with prosecco and an appetiser in the garden. The menu was as follows:

Crab-avocado crostini w/samphire & cress
Fig, pecorino & rocket salad
Polenta & piquillo pepper stack w/samphire & balsamic dressing
Fennel & dill soup
Pepper crusted tuna w/potatoes boulangere
Pear-vodka & apple-cinnamon sorbets
Chocolate-orange pots w/praline

Guests could bring their own wine, or buy his at £10/bottle or £3/glass. The food was lovely, as it always is at Ben’s, but the challenge of delivering a seven course dinner for dinner did have an impact. He had two friends to help — Francine who waitressed, and Jim who acted as wine steward. Jim got increasingly drunk as the evening went on, and eventually passed out in the bath. As the rest of us were all completely rat-assed by then it didn’t make a whole lot of difference to the proceedings…;-)

September 9, 2010

Adam got home shortly after I returned from dropping Nova at school. Quite a protracted excursion, as Lyra wanted to take her scooter. She’s a cautious scooterer, and we made pretty slow progress…Finished Lyra’s rabbit, and immediately started on… a piece of asparagus! The idea just popped into my head, and I couldn’t get it out again… I was surprised not to find a pattern on the web, but it was easy enough to work something out on the fly. I’m going to give it to our asparagus-mad friend Ben tomorrow, when we go round to his house for a trial run of his supper club.

Celebrated Rosh Hashanah with Adam’s family this evening. It’s not the actual day, which may be why Beulah didn’t prepare the traditional apples and honey. Instead, we had chicken noodle soup and challah; sauerbraten with roast potatoes, green beans, carrots and cauliflower; strawberries in raspberry coulis; and a lovely honey cake.

Adam dropped me at the tube station on the way home, and I took the train to Camden Town to see The Mountain Goats at Koko. There aren’t many bands I’d go out to see on my own on a Thursday night, but this was a “not to be missed” gig for me. It was well worth the effort — while they didn’t play many songs I knew, but immediately liked practically every song they played… Finale one was ‘No children’, but they returned for three encores before finally calling it a night. Home about 11:30pm…

September 8, 2010

Work is pretty dismal at the moment… Hard to muster the enthusiasm to respond to their poxy consultation when you know full well it’s a done deal…Adam is in Germany at the moment, so I spent the evening with the girls. I let Lyra stay up a bit later than usual and Nova too. Nova and I always have a girls’ sleepover when Adam is away, so I settled her in my bed, ate my dinner and watched a bit of telly before joining her.

About 2am Lyra came padding in to tell me she’d had a nightmare and clambered in on my other side. Spent the rest of the night between two restless little girls, which was lovely, but I didn’t manage to sleep much…

September 7, 2010

Ewa called in sick today, which was a bit of a pain as I had a dentist appointment. Fortunately I was able to arrange for Lyra to play at Alice’s house (which is likely what she would have been doing anyway)…My appointment was for a root canal on my capped front tooth. Before he replaces the permanent cap, the dentist wants to complete the root canal and ensure that it has been successful. I expected it would be done in one go, but today’s appointment was to remove the nerve and scrape all the pulp out of the tooth canal, then flush it with antiseptic to ensure there is no lingering infection. While it wasn’t exactly painful, it was certainly unpleasant… I now have to wait two weeks to have it permanently sealed in.

“I want an attic, right now!” Lyra announced at bedtime. “Why?” I asked. “Just for fun…” she replied. “You got lots of boxes of things in the attic.” Managed to half convince her that a garage is like a downstairs attic… She’s funny the was she gets ideas and wants to act on them straightaway. Like her demand the other day that I knit her a rabbit before bed…

September 6, 2010

The tube strike starts today, although the Northern line was still running okay when I went in to the office. It’s hard to feel motivated at work — even working on our response to the consultation feels like a waste of time…The strike started in earnest at 5pm, so I opted to leave at 4:45pm to avoid the worst of it, or at least get past Camden before the staff down tools. Lots of other passengers obviously had the same idea — it was like rush hour two hours earlier than normal, but I got home okay…

Hung out with the girls for a while then went for a swim. The was a young guy swimming in the lane next to me, and I gradually noticed that whenever we coincided he would pick up his pace and sort of ‘race’ me, which I really enjoyed. I find it difficult to push myself, especially on longer swims. We had a chat after I’d finished my mile and did a few sprints together to round off my workout.

Tried an interesting recipe this evening — a rocket cocktail, made by whizzing up rocket, gingerale and lemon sorbet in the blender… Surprisingly tasty!

September 5, 2010

Today is duathlon day — or the pondathon as we’ve taken to calling it… Woke up pretty early so that Adam had time to take the girls to his parents’ before we needed to set off. I spent a good half hour putting in my elastic shoelaces, faffing around with body glide in the trainers, and constructing an elaborate blister prevention system on my instep…Walked down together with Trish and her Adam. It’s always a bit discouraging when the walk to the starting line poops you out…;-) The sight of all the amazingly fit people who are participating in the event was pretty dispiriting as well. There were loads of those 0% body fat types who ran warm-up laps round the lido while we sat on our butts drinking tea from Trish’s flask. Of the 150 participants, I’d estimate there were only about five (aside from the five on our team) who didn’t look like proper athletes…

They’d divided the participants into three waves this year — the first fifty elite athletes were followed by two additional groups of fifty. Needless to say, we were in the last fifty, which was fine with me… Once the second group cleared the pool, we lowered ourselves into the unheated, freezing water and clung to the side until the gun went. Mad thrashing for 60m to the far end of the lido (which gets so shallow that people were walking the last ten metres), headed back against the crowds to the starting end, then a final lap to where we’d left our shoes.

I was one of the first out of the pool, but was overtaken by several people (including my Adam) on the first run to the men’s pond. This established the pattern for the rest of the event — I’d spend the swims passing people, only to be overtaken by them minutes later on a running stretch. The event broke down roughly like this:

It was funny how the whole business quickly became routine — running dripping wet between duck ponds, leaping in and swimming round them started to feel like what I do. “Ah, another pond! I’ll jump in and swim around it…” I think I took it a bit easy overall, but I wanted to conserve my resources for the whole event. I certainly could have swum a lot faster. Given my strength as a swimmer, if I was being really competitive I would have gone for it on those legs, instead of treating them as a bit of a rest…

Finished strong with a partial lap around the track. Came in third of the five on our team — my Adam was first, then Katherine the tennis coach, me, Trish several minutes later, then the other Adam was one of the last. With the staggered start, it’s impossible to tell how we’ve done until they publish the results, and we forgot to time ourselves either. I estimate it took somewhere between fifty minutes and an hour.

Ate a champagne breakfast at Trish’s then headed home for a lazy afternoon. Didn’t do much other than get Nova ready for her first day of school tomorrow. Watched an episode of Mad Men tonight, which contained an absolutely great line: “That’s life isn’t it? One minute you’re on top of the world, the next some secretary is running you over with a lawn mower.” Too true…

September 4, 2010

Nova headed off to Sadie’s birthday party after breakfast. Sadie is a former school friend whose family moved to Great Missenden over the summer. Fortunately, we were able to organise a ride for her with another family, as it would have taken up the whole day to drive her there, hang about and drive her back…Last week, Lyra came marching into my room on my work at home day insisting that I knit her a bunny “right now”. I wasn’t able to magic that particular rabbit out of a hat, but agreed that I would knit her a bunny very soon. I duly went online and found a promising looking pattern, which I’ve been plodding away at. Lyra is very anxious for me to finish it, but even though it’s small, it’s surprisingly fiddly. Have finished the tummy, arms and legs, but still have the head, face, tail and all the assembly…

Did a Costco/IKEA run this afternoon — our first in ages. Provided a very satisfying sense of lining our nest for the winter, stocking the garage with provisions… Made a lovely pasta dinner — pumpkin and sage linguine to load up on carbs, and headed to bed early…

September 3, 2010

Nova headed for Etta’s after breakfast, and I spent the day hanging with Lyra. We did the Waitrose shop, and spent a couple of hours gardening. Lyra proved to be a dedicated little weeder, with way more stick-to-it-ness than Nova had at her age. She worked away cheerfully clearing ferns and fumitory from the side wall, while I dug the more stubborn plants out of the paving stones. She also found a little frog, the first I’ve ever seen in our garden.Did some baking together in afternoon, making a Vienna plum cake. Dinner was a double potato (sweet and white) haloumi bake. The girls weren’t that keen, but I’d anticipated that and grilled them a few fish fingers as well.

Adam and Nova headed off to the England v Bulgaria match at Wembley. Lyra and I had a bath together, and read a couple of stories before lights out. I had quiet night with the telly, and was woken from my couch doze when they got in at 11:30pm…

September 2, 2010

Did my final duathlon workout with Trish this morning. Started with a swim in the ladies pond, ran to the mixed pond, did a lap there, ran to the lido, past the men’s pond and back to the ladies pond for a final lap.I tried covering the blister I developed last week with a special blister pad, but it didn’t last long. The blister was raw again by the time I was half way round. I’ll try something else on the day, but hard to avoid blisters when you’re running in wet shoes with no socks…

Spent the afternoon in town with Nova, one of our special girls’ days out. We started with school shopping at John Lewis — new school shoes, trainers, party shoes and school socks, which set me back £80. Caught the tube to the Royal Academy to see the Sargeant and the Sea exhibition. We both enjoyed it — it isn’t something I would have gone out of my way for, but having joined the RA so we could see the Van Gogh exhibition in the spring, I might as well get some value from my membership.

It is also nicely placed for dinner at the Wolseley…;-) I had the roast fish of the day, and Nova had chicken soup and half a salt beef sandwich. Unfortunately, they served it liberally spread with hot mustard, which rendered it inedible from Nova’s point of view. Filled up on blueberry gugelhopf and tea. Our celebrity spot was Paul Merton, who was eating with his family at the next table.

Next stop, Mamma Mia. It’s kid’s week, an annual summer event where you get free theatre tickets for children. Just as well, as the tickets were bloody expensive… It was good fun, and I enjoyed it more than the film. I’ve always found it offputting when people break into song in a movie. I only realised tonight how utterly the show is targeted at 40-something women — it’s a fairy tale for the middle-aged. The mum gets to turn back the clock and connect with her first love, hijacking her daughter’s wedding…

September 1, 2010

A day in the office, once again overtaken by the impact of the consultation. I suppose I should just consider the consultation to be my job now…Went for a swim after work, knocking off a mile without much difficulty. Dinner was Cuban black beans and rice, seasoned with a splash of rum. I thought twice about adding the rum, which was an optional ingredient, but it was a good addition…