This was meant to be a picture of little girl rocking the whole socks and sandals look, but we nearly missed the shoes.




-- Post From My iPhone

One of the reasons I haven't blogged much

I've been busy exercising my inner old lady.




-- Post From My iPhone

The nearly naked chef

-- Post From My iPhone

The great White

So spring is busy springing and summer is yet to come, but the end of the day a girl likes to take off her opaques.

So my legs have never been my best feature, and they are extremely pale not hairy but just a great white expanse, I certainly wasn't prepared for little girl's reaction:

'tights mummy. Pleeeeease mummy tights please'.


-- Post From My iPhone

Friday fings

These are things I have found myself uttering lately:

'You know you have been too long on the loo when your daughter comes and lays out a picnic.'

'yes, I know I have been having chest pains but do I honestly look like I'm having a heart attack. Ok, don't answer that.'

'I think what bothers me most, is that it bothers me'







-- Post From My iPhone

Outdoor games

In our house we don't seem to discriminate between indoor and outdoor games.

While I was busy trying to channel Charlie Dimmock, (yes I did try bra-less but it made moving between gardening and the trampoline somewhat eye-threatening,) Isobel was busy making money.











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Life and times of a blog post

Of late I have found that shine of blogging has somewhat died.

It isn't because of the hoo-ha over reviewing vs not reviewing etc of blogging war that took place last year; and it isn't because of the growth in numbers of lovely blogs out there now that I often feel I can't keep up with all; it's not because I don't like the competition or the pressure of maintaining a spot on the top 100 (something I am sure I have failed to do this month).

Or maybe it is.

I can't read blogs at work over my lunch like I used to and sad though it may seem my evenings have become somewhat 'crafty' of late. I just seem to be completely unable to keep up with crowd.

It's not that I don't think about posts, that's so not true. I write a million posts in my head but never seem to get round to putting it on paper - well virtual paper, you know what I mean.

For example on Tuesday I thought about writing a post about how we had come back from the Isle of Wight where we surrounded by lovely family and friends, and felt a little flat and a lotta lonely. Isobel had loved seeing Grandma and Grandpa and terrorising Jack the dog, but most of all she had loved seeing her cousins and they had loved seeing her. They played brilliantly, I have never heard so much joyous screaming in my life, it's just as well Mummy's house is detached or I am sure the police would have been called.

So on Tuesday it would have been a sad, lonely, woe-is-me single mum pity post.

But the Wednesday came and the post had kind of morphed into a 'cant-always-get-what-you-want-but-try-sometime-and-you-get-what-you-need' post. I'd commuted to work with lovely train pals and one of my newest bestest friends and had a good old chin-wag. The beautiful bells of St Pauls heralded my arrival at the office; the man in the coffee shop wrote me a lovely note on my fruit toast bag; and I was greeted in the office with 'hello pretty lady'.

What more could a girl need?

I have a lovely life.

I even had a man around who gave a great quote for relieving some of my claustrophobia - by knocking down a wall sillies - what did you think I meant?

I had texts and invitations - oh my I have a LIFE, well at least the potential of one if I could just find a babysitter, so all was good.

When I rewrote the post in my head on Friday, a third of the staff had been fired in the office, I'm a contractor I could be next...

You get the idea.

If I don't write the post it goes around and around in my head, it grows it shrinks and meanwhile my life moves on.

And I just don't manage to blog it.

What is the point of this? I have no idea, but hey it's a post.

(Oh and yes, despite my blogging angst I will be at Cyber Mummy)

This morning...

Two little girlies walked hand in hand to nursery.

One had skipped to catch up with the other.

As their bunches swung, the discussed how cold it was:

'obel hand cold' was greeted with 'hmm cold'

Two two year old little old ladies.




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Thankful-for-all-the-birthday-gifts Thursday

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Definately in the jeans

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It's in the jeans

I have just made a disturbing discovery: my daughter has more pairs of jeans than I do!

Maybe her need is greater but there is surely a principle here.

I mean, maybe I do manage to go more than half a day before I get a wet bum from a damp slide; roll in the mud; or get yellow paint on my knees while doing hand prints; and I do manage to wash my hands slightly less thoroughly, meaning I don't get wet to my toes doing so.

But, surely as the head of this households my jeans should dominate?







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More Wednesday words

As a management consultant I am paid to advise clients.

Today, prior to offering quite a maverick but obviously genius (and less work for me) system suggestion, I offered these words to my project manager:

You seem stressed; go home and do unspeakable things to your wife, or failing that get you chain saw out, cut something down and set fire to it.

I won't be expecting an update on that action tomorrow.

Always professional me.


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Wednesday words

I love Isobel's talking, I'm amazed at her use of the word 'too', she understands perfectly how to use it, her grasp of the possesive is amazing, never has 'mine' and 'yours' been weilded with such passion; her sentences grow daily.

This morning, in my bed, while watching 3rd and Bird, she proclaimed:

'silly 'Obel, button off birdie'

She had indeed accidentally pressed the button and turned off 3rd and Bird, although not before the tune had lodged itself in my head.

Silly obel!




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Watch out, watch out there's a Humphry about.

I must warn you that this post has been written in my head several times over the last few days, the story has evolved but now I am getting it out of my head it probably won't be that interesting.

I have given birth to a milk monster. Luckily she wasn't such a greedy guzzler when I was breastfeeding, but now she would gladly give up ALL consumption except that of milk, and especially milk served in her bottle.

The result of all this milk guzzling by one who is not a baby cow is runny nappies and dry skin. So I have now switched her to goats milk.

A switch which has coincidently come at the same time as the destruction of our last baby bottle; baby bottles are not designed for teeth, she bit right through the teat!

I made a big play of showing Isobel that is was broken and that we were throwing it away. I held my breath and waited for the drama and misery to unfold.

But, it didn't. She did peer in the bin a few times, but otherwise accepted the previously heartily rejected bottle/cup thingies.

If I'd written this post a few days ago I would be heartily patting myself on the back as her skin is better AND for getting her off the bottle, a battle I was saving until the words 'baby bottle' would upset her.

But I didn't write it then, I left it and now she will drink out of only one replacement bottle.




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Wordless wednesday

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Do you think we should have bought a garage?

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I'm afraid of the dark

There are a few things that scare me, but none more than these:

I'm afraid if anything happened to me now my little girl wouldn't remember me.

I'm scared that when the time comes there will be no one who loves me enough to share my pillow or to keep holding my hand until the very end.

Hmm, maybe I should just go back to posting trampoline videos.


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Improve your social life - get a trampoline

(considering how I phrased my last bouncy post that could have been: improve your social life - get an errection.)

So, the trampoline is not only drawing us out into the garden, it is also attracting the little people.

First it was the girls coming to put it up.

Last Saturday it was the nursery gang: children varying in braveness and bounciness; parents happy to drink coffee, eat fresh baked croissants and chat, rather than stand in the park.



Yesterday we had our first alfresco meal of the year and it was 'Vieve who came to play.
Although I'm not sure who got the most pleasure bouncing at the end of the garden - 'vieve or her daddy!



Me, I enjoyed watching my little girl exhaust herself while I had a glass of red wine in my hand.

I can feel the summer of 'trampline' love already!

Word from the wise: this will test your pelvic floor.


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Wordless Wednesday

Picture courtesy of Elif's daddy!

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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.