Forget the other animals part two

You really can't call my family set-up conventional.

I have two half brothers - making far more than a whole one I must say; I have a very lovely half-sister who is more than enough of a sister for me and a step sister.

I have a step-mother and a step-father.

I have a Daddy and a distant father daughter relationship that we are working on.

And I have a Mummy, and I have had one of those tricky mother daughter relationships that has got less tricky as life goes on, and lets face it where my life goes my mummy kind of goes too.

What am I trying to say here?

Simply that while it may not be your nuclear family, it has a whole lot of love.

Forget the other animals this post is about my family

You know how cool it is to be surrounded by wonderful people who make you feel cool too?

I do.

I feel that way at all my family gatherings when I am surrounded by my cousins. Be it a happy or a sad occasion I love their company.

Last year my cousin Verity married the charming Owen and that very happy social occasion breathed life back into me.

Grandad passed away, and we drank far too much, slept in bunk beds and generally came together as a family.

Most recently my brother Ross and his lovely Mando married;they even took the brave step if having a two year old as a flower girl (luckily their other two flower girls were perfectly behaved) and the family danced again, as it seems only our family can. (My school friend was the Registrar - how grown up does that make me?)

Is it just that cousins is one of those relationships that demands nothing but means so much?

I can only hope that everyone feels this secure in their extended family as I do.

Mother's Day

This was my third Mother's day; on my first I came home from hospital with beautiful baby girl and my Mummy made sure I had a mother's day card.

Last year PD recreated a fantastic meal we had at Gaucho's.

This year he cooked me a lovely lunch too; he cracked a dish, set fire to a tea towel and himself, but he cooked me lunch and wanted to make it all special as a Mother's day should be.

I am very lucky with many of my relationships:

I wasn't there to make my Mummy's day special - her present hasn't even arrived yet - but I think my brother and sister did that, but that doesn't mean I don't love her, I love her very much.

And although PD and I aren't together, we are bound together by our little girl but we are friends too. Sometimes I guess we are a little too close for exes, but fretting about it and examining what is and what isn't doesn't help. All this confusion doesn't mean I don't love him dearly.

All this confusion doesn't mean we aren't a family; in fact, quite often I think we function better than many more 'traditional' families.

See, lucky lucky me.

I love to love

I love weddings, I love birthdays but I love weddings too.

I mean what’s not to love; peeps in their finery; beautiful princess brides; parties; eating; drinking; being merry… Not to mention all that LOVE. Even as a jaded singleton I love love.

So, when an invitation popped through my door a few months ago it took me only seconds to decide to sell the Camp Bestival tickets I had (I bought Bestival ones instead and added Camp Bestival to my ‘things to do next year list’) and head to Newbury instead.

It was a great wedding, but exhausting.

The church was beautiful and Isobel wasn’t struck by lightening on entry; obviously always a possibility as she had never been in a church before.



The bride, my cousin, Verity looked stunning and Isobel ran around.



The service was lovely, (I have had to order a copy of the Velveteen Rabbit now) and Isobel made piggy noises while reading a Squash and a Squeeze, thus reducing those in the pew behind us to tears of laughter. I hastily swapped the book for The Owl and the Pussy Cat feeling that ‘Twit-twoo’ may be less of a distraction.



Oh, and Isobel ran around. She was quiet, but very mobile.

I couldn’t believe how many of my family hadn’t met her before, some of my favourite people including the bride were introduced to my lovely girly and she to them, and she ran around.

We’d booked into the reception hotel for the night, so that I could enjoy the evening too. I tried to put up the travel cot and Isobel ran around, actually she climbed in the wardrobe and shouted to be released from the room so she could have more room to run around.

Don’t get me wrong, she was beautifully charming and loved (well I would say that) by all but she did not stay still. Too many people to smile at, too many stairs to climb…

The speeches were good but long, Isobel clapped and agreed in the right places while standing by the top table ready to absorb all the applause, even though she was by now in her PJs.

At 8:15pm Isobel stopped running around and I put her to bed, returning to see Verity trip the light fantastic in a Strictly Come Dancing Outfit that only she could carry off, to the strains of a big band.

No longer having Isobel to run after you’d think I’d sit down, but no, I spent the evening being twirled and swirled, so much so I ached the next day.

My aging and shrinking Grandparents danced, we all danced. We laughed, we drank, we admired and we loved. (Isobel loving my brother Ross over everyone else)



The next day we had a Full English. What more could a girl ask for?

(Someone else to do the running after perhaps?)

I’m afraid I was too busy running to take many pictures, if I see any family snaps I will post them later, if I get hold of the video of my Grandparents dancing be sure you’ll see that too.

Belated Father's Day Post

Sunday was not only midsummer's day but was father's day. To be honest it was a day I rather churlishly didn't feel like celebrating. What father is there to celebrate and does PD really deserve a celebration?


I did bake a cake, Isobel made a card but otherwise we made no fuss, but actually I do want to write a post about the 'father's' in my world.


Firstly, there is my Grandad. I had a Grandad and a Grandpa, not that either of them were particularly 'father figures'. But Grandpa afforded us a home we could never have had otherwise, and Grandad had just always been Grandad. I have lovely memories of Grandad: going up to the library roof to collect the weather stats for the paper; printing the racing results on the bottom of the paper; helping a tipsy Grandad welcome in the guard ship in the days when Sandown Bay Regatta seemed so glamorous; in fact tipsy and inappropriate but always there probably sum up my Grandad. He may, in so many ways, be half the man he was, but he's still my Grandad.


Then of course there is my Daddy. Mummy and Daddy divorced when I was very young and I actually don't think I have any family memories of us all together, and that makes me sad. My father remarried into a new family and even got himself a new daughter called Zoe, there wasn't much difference in our ages either. Add to that the fact that Daddy then worked abroad forever and you have a very estranged relationship, not in a malicious way, but I can't pretend we don't both have 'issues' because of it: me the typical abandonment unloveable ones and he, well I don't think it's been an easy path for him either. We haven't even managed to introduce him to his latest grandaughter yet.



I have a step-father too. But by the time my mummy had remarried I had left home, so he didn't get all that much opportunity to be a father to me, but he has to my younger brother and sister. He makes my mother happy and kind of completes our little family.


So, that leaves PD.


Someone to whom I will always be grateful to for Isobel.

He will, I'm sure, continue to support us financially for as long as he can or until I can be the independent girl I'm used to being. He will always want to be Isobel's daddy, she means the world to him.

Yes, he lives nearby and yes we were close, but as with all these things I feel we are drifting apart, I guess that's healthy in someways, for him and for me. But I don't want my daughter to have the same feelings I do, I want her to have a stable family and not to be the same muppet around men I can be.

And then that leaves me thinking about how would another father figure fit into our lives? I guess we'll have to wait and see what the future holds.

One week on and she's not a baby anymore

Isobel is now a fully fledged toddler, I'm threading the needle to sew on her walking badge as we speak.

In so many ways it's been a a very busy week. We have been to the Isle of Wight and come back with the following pieces of information:

Isobel can walk and walk and walk. She can even turn 360 degrees without falling down.

Bruises are easily come by but also relatively easy to go if you plaster them with Arnica and have very young skin. Scratches from playing peekaboo with a fence might be slightly more persistent.

Poor little girl suffers from car sickness, something we have discovered the hard way; I have washed the car seat twice in two days.

Isobel's feet have grown from a 3F to a 31/2G, and I had to order her shoes from Internet.

We have five new words: Bubbles - bubboos, again - gain, grandma - gamma, banana - nana, and my aunt is convinced she said Angela. (Yes, I have had a few more mummies too)

We have a book called 'Is this my nose' and I found Isobel sitting on the floor reading it and pointing to all the correct face parts - well if she were a Picasso painting.

Ice cream cones and key lime pie ice cream have been mastered. Yes, we had a 'hut day' at the seaside.

And most importantly of all, Isobel has spent time with her family, including her godmother.

Needless to say we had a lot to tell PD when we got back.

I cannot believe what a difference a week makes, I'm glad I didn't miss a minute of it.

A month of Sundays

(An excuse to post pictures and say little)

My Family and Other Animals

Isobel has been reunited with her Grandma, last seen when she was 3 days old

Her Uncle Dan forgave her for being the third neice and not a nephew

My sister, Auntie Amy, and Isobel's cousin Isla were pleased to see us

And cousin Hayley baked chocolate cakes

and wrote a card for her.

As for the other animals, well there is plenty of time for great dane riding.

(We also had a girly lunch with Godmother Jen, but Isobel slept through it)