OK, I need some help from somebody who knows. I thought my grasp of science was quite firm but I find it shaken to its foundations by tricky questions from Maggie (who, incidentally has been in and out and in and out of school like a tee-to-tum* this past week; we have no idea what is going on except she’s a bit poorly. Sometimes.) We’ve been touching on evolution a little since our visit to the Natural History Museum in the summer, but it is all a bit confused. What can I say, ask me about molecules!

She declares she doesn’t believe in dinosaurs because it doesn’t seem very likely, does it. Well no it doesn’t – and how to explain that they are not like fairies or, you know, dragons, or something that you can choose to believe in a bit if you like but really we all know they are not true. Or Santa – and we’ve had some interesting chats about the juxtaposition of him and Jesus, also, thanks to the church school she is attending.  The Christmas when Jesus was born was indeed the first Christmas, after a fashion, but was it the first time Santa brought presents? And if not, why not?

So. We established rather reluctantly that dinosaurs had existed a long time ago (we saw the skeletons, remember). But – here’s the science bit – did the monkey things** evolve from the dinosaurs? Or did they evolve from the other mammally things that were around at the same time (I think), mammoths and, um, sabre-toothed tigers and suchlike? And if that is the case, did they share a common ancestor? I am pretty firm on birds (and I imagine reptiles) evolving from dinosaurs, but didn’t some fishy thing crawl out of the swamp on its fins at some point? Was the pre-dinosaur, and did that then evolve into us or into birds?

*A thing that goes in and out a lot. No idea; ask my mum.
**She’s fairly unquestioningly happy about us having evolved from monkey things, and I am reasonably happy about hominids and Lucy and missing links. I think. We haven’t got into that in depth yet.

And yes, it is only Wednesday. Morning. After a very productive weekend (damson gin, plum wine, 3 loaves of bread), Sunday night was mostly spent listening to Tamsin cry with earache. Cameron sloped off to the spare room but I don’t think any of us got much rest. Irritatingly, the next day she was perky and bright while I moped about waiting for bedtime and wondering whether the day would ever end. One night of proper sleep then the school rang at Tuesday lunchtime for me to go and pick up a very poorly M. White, hot, headache…so I spent last night listening to her breathing, which didn’t sound very good. Occupying one child who wants to lie all sad and cuddled on the sofa at the same time as another who is rapidly developing cabin fever is something of a challenge – and C is away – and I have a stinking cold, did I mention that?

Moan moan whinge whinge.

First “hypnobirthing” session today. Mostly comprised sitting all quiet and comfy with my eyes shut for half an hour (nothing wrong with that) while the…hmm…not sure what to call her; hypnotist conjures images of gold watches and yooou are feeeeling sleeeepy while hypnotherapist suggests I have Issues. Anyway. She did a kind of guided relaxation, of the type that I am rubbish at after yoga classes. Bodily relaxation fine; stopping my brain from making endless to-do lists, not so good. Oh and I imagined I was in a beautiful garden a bit. Can’t honestly see how it is going to help but I am quite willing to give it a go: can’t hurt, can it.

OK so I haven’t quite been here as much as I intended.  Part two of our hol has not yet appeared. Today: a new term, a new school year. And boy are we back to normal: Mag loved school of course, despite a small wibble when we went in to her new classroom, saying goodbye to Ruby (different class this year) and not knowing where her drawer was. But apparently her new school shoes were brilliant. Tamsin and I zipped into town on the bus to visit the market for 2 kg of plums – I have an unexplained urge to make wine – and some damsons for gin, then she went off to preschool. Cameron has gone to Italy via London (he is showing some press people round Ferrari, how horrible for him) and I am home alone in the rain with a short deadline. And actually rather enjoying being on my own for the first time since July!

I haven’t set foot on the allotment since being kicked off: am going to have to stop being sad and embarrassed and get myself down there. There’s a sandpit and two raised beds (and some lovely veg, and a rhubarb crown that I know they have been coveting) that I will not leave for the next person. It’s raining though; did I mention that?

I’ve been reading…not that I am ever without a book, but I’ve been getting through them at a better rate (we’ll see what happens now it is term-time again). One of my reads was not on the label, an interesting book in the same vein as tescopoly or fast food nation. It wasn’t full of surprises but has reinforced a lot of the things I was trying to do anyway – so I am back baking bread, which had slipped over the holidays (and early pregnancy too, don’t forget – a pretty damn good excuse if you ask me) and stepping back from the meat-centric diet we had drifted towards. (This is complicated by Tamsin being almost exclusively carnivorous.) I have dug out my excellent river cottage bread book and today attempted english muffins (that’s them in the picture); bagels are next on the hit list. I am unsure about prawns, the farmed fish/wild fish thing continues to confuse me, but I feel quietly smug (and lucky) to have an organic farm shop in the next village that competes with the supermarkets price-wise and stocks about 95% of things I want.

I am so sad – we have been evicted from our allotment. For weeds, which to be fair are out of control, and because (pointed look at my midriff) you are not going to be able to do anything for 3 years are you. Which also might be fair enough but is not for them to say, and from past experience it is the period from 18 months – 2 1/2 that is the problem: newborn babies are quite happy on an allotment. I suspect the reality is that nearly all the other plots are dug by a gang of old boys, and one of their friends wants on.

On a purely selfish personal level, I am utterly gutted as this is my escape; somewhere I can pop to for a few hours in the evenings, weekends, or when the children are at school/nursery. Without it my day to day life will consist almost entirely of house stuff and mumming – I spend too much time here as it is. Conversely I am sad for the children who love coming down with me: Maggie has been in tears (why don’t they want us? and I just want our allotment back) and Tamsin gets ridiculously excited about digging potatoes from the ground, and is made happier by a fresh raw from-the-pod pea than almost anything else. I am also cross that my parsnips, squash and artichokes will be lost.

I am really annoyed that there was no warning whatsoever, beyond one of the plot-holders yesterday suggesting that there had been “whispers” about me (and she was only telling me because I am so nice. Huh.) Surely “sort your weeds or you are off” would have been only polite? And I don’t want to see any of them, so will have to go after dark to dig up all those potatoes, retrieve raised beds and sandpit, and remove all the other plants that I can hopefully find a home for here.

Train travel with small children – fantastic in that they are not strapped into a seat, they can colour and draw as they have a table, can get up to go to the loo and there are interesting things to look at out of the window. Drawbacks? They are not strapped into their seats (!) and I have a horror of impinging on other people’s peace and quiet.

We travelled from Chester to London, arriving around lunchtime – dumped our bags at the hotel and made our way to the Natural History museum. Brilliant, but unfortunately the entire under-13 population of London had chosen the same day to visit so although we spent time in the fascinating geology section and saw the whales, some of the mammals and some ichthyosaurs, there was a huge queue for the dinosaurs. Of course, with hindsight and post-disney, a 45-minute wait is nothing and we should have just queued and looked on it as good practice and getting our eye in.

The next morning saw us trundling cases to board the Disney Express!

[more…]

Week 1 was spent at my parents’, mostly sitting on my bum drinking endless cups of tea (all made for me) while they catered and entertained the children. Lovely and restful and rejuvenative, and C (who commuted into london every day, which I think he rather enjoyed; change good as rest and all that) & I even managed a meal out. Together. Caught up with a selection of friends and mostly the sun shone.

This week has been sunshine and heavy heavy showers, and nicely busy. So lovely getting up in a normal way in the mornings; no rushing about shrieking SHOES! On Monday we went to Chatsworth to meet a whole forum of ladies with babies born in November 2006 (so Tamsin’s age). Having “known” them for over 3 years, I was still surprised that they were all as imagined; not a hairy middleaged trucker to be seen. We had a really lovely day and I hope we will see them again! Tuesday, predictably, we were knackered so did very little apart from a friend’s “barbeque” (cooked under brolly, eaten indoors) in the evening – a late night for the children saw Maggie sleep in past 8 the next morning! Garden centre to meet anther new online friend yesterday morning then a jolly trip to Costco in the afternoon. Very interesting for me, never having been before, but rather less so for the hooligans. And this morning Tamsin is at nursery. Maggie and I have had such a nice quality time together! Went into town on the bus (it felt just like the old days, when I was expecting T and we used to take the bus in to go to the library), popped to Starbucks and the toy shop at a  leisurely pace (shopping with Tamsin is just not fun), pottered in and out of various other shops, and wandered home again.

An updatey sort of a post. In bullets, because that is the sort of focused and efficient mind I have.

• We survived M’s first year of school! Relatively unscathed: she’s reading beautifully and seems so grown up. Am extremely glad to have 6 lovely weeks of not spending 10 minutes every morning shouting shoes! bag! coat! shoes! SHOES!*
• Anomaly scan on Friday showed no problems with new baby. Girls behaved beautifully and were very interested (sonographer had a student in so explained very well, and was really nice to the children too).  Tamsin was slightly anxious – held my hand throughout and was very worried about the gel “it’s all gluey“. Midwife completely thrown by my non-standard notes and made me explain why I hadn’t had a dating scan and justify why I was using an IM this time. Interestingly, the hospital printouts contain “EDD by dating scan” so I have no idea where that has come from.
• Had C’s parents down this weekend – walked at Loggerheads yesterday. Rain held off until we got to our picnic – and we walked 3 miles to the Devil’s Gorge and back, even the children** – though the sandwiches got a bit soggy. Some sort of iron-age reconstruction people were there, which was quite interesting – I am always intrigued by the re-enactors, how do they pick their era? What makes them think yes, I will devote my life to being a Pict goodness me I would hate to be a Roman/Medieval person/Sealed Knot type? (Though having done a bit of wiki investigation, I find they don’t necessarily devote their lives: there is apparently 3 categories, ranging from “farbs” who might – gasp – wear polyester or trainers – to “stitch counters” who are very hardcore. Hmm.)

*We will just overlook the shouting that has already happened, 1 hour into the holiday, because I have no patience for the two of them screeching at each other.

**T was carried for half of it.

This is from my diary from when we first relocated to Japan – pre-blog. Other entries can be found here.

Busy busy – work is manic. Did little but, last week – C was out every night except Thurs so I just worked. Friday night I had bad cabin fever so we went to Fujimamas for dinner – no wait despite not being able to book. Then on Satuday we went to Hakone. Plan was to walk but it was a bit late to start by the time we got there, so we abandoned (postponed!) the plan and went to the open-air museum instead – basically a sculpture park, it was fantastic! Spent much longer than we expected to, what a great place! Up on a mountainside, hot and sunny too so we had a great afternoon. Then we headed to our ryokan, which I’d booked online. It was fine – nothing special, but fine. I like the outdoor onsen, although it was not quite as outdoors as I had envisaged. Can’t beat a good soak in scalding water after an afternoon of tramping about on a mountain! After dinner (much “what do you think that is?” and “I’m not eating that, it’s a funny colour!”) we went to the bar, where we were the only people for a while – not surprised at ¥1000 a drink! – until a group of men came in and entertained us with their karaoke. The barlady was quite annoying, applauding after every single line and shaking her tambourine, and unfortunately we left before the men got sufficiently into it to join in with their own tambourines and squeaky toys, which they had with them. The bar snacks looked like cat treats.

The next morning when I was lying in my futon waiting for C to get back from his bath, the staff came and told me to get up and go for breakfast – not entirely sure what that was about, but we were not allowed to wait until 8.20, as we had planned.

Toyed with the idea of doing the walk, but decided we probably should use our free passes so we did the circuit: train, funicular, bus (cablecar out of order), look at the smelly sulfur springs and Mt Fuji (just! through the haze), cablecar, boat, walk, bus. Extraordinarily hot and sunny, I am still feeling quite burnt; then when we got home there was a fantastic thunderstorm. Had to buy an umbrella at the convenience store by the station.

What am I supposed to do with this? It’s Maggie’s First Ever sports day this afternoon: she’s been looking forward to it and practising for it (and quietly worrying what if I don’t win my race?) for weeks. I need to go. Only Tamsin is poorly on the sofa: sore ear, disgusting runny nose, sporadic vomit (though not for a few hours, touch wood). Cameron is in London, where he doesn’t answer his phone – and realistically, even if he did answer his phone (it is a good job it is not a real emergency), he can’t do much from there.

I think I have to bundle T into the buggy and we have to go to sports day. While hoping she doesn’t have anything wildly contagious and that I am not being horribly irresponsible. This is only going to get worse when there are three of them, isn’t it?

In other news, while I am keen that this blog doesn’t become a “cute things about my kids” thing, I have two things to share. The first, Maggie trying to decide what everybody’s hobbies are* – mine, apparently, are knitting, cooking, gardening, and getting things off high shelves.

The second, and this makes me so proud, is this piece of work she brought home from school yesterday. I assume she did it herself in the writing corner, rather than it being a teacher-supervised activity, as it reads: The monsturus** monster had a willey. The pig had a willey. The pig had a wee and a poo. The Watson had a car***.

*It is rather like being back in Japan, where everybody who remembered their school English inquired “what is your hobby?”

**Good use of adjectives.

***No idea.