It's green outside but the slight chill in the air tells me the time of year. In England and Christchurch autumn meant changes in the colour palette from cool green to warm oranges and reds. Here in Auckland I am surrounded by heavy bush that never loses its verdant intensity.
It's late o'clock and bedtime, but I'm remembering with fondness how often I wrote entries on here. If I write more will I get better at writing again and not find it so difficult? Will it retrain my brain to put words together into sentences and sentences into paragraphs and paragraphs into stories? I hope so.
The baby is no longer a baby. She tells us stories. She broke her arm last month while playing in the garden. She was running on the wooden bench and missed her footing, falling awkwardly on her hands. She's more fearless than Small. She got a plaster cast and then a bright red cast the same colour as the one I wore on my leg. It's gone now and she will go swimming again. I'm very glad we have the baby. She makes us happy when we're sad.
I'm pretty sure the baby goes through phases of development, and I don't mean in Piagetian stage theory terms. At any one time she seems to put her energy towards a suite of developments. When Nana was here in April, it was all kissing and waving and, most endearingly, saying "Mumma". In other words communicating with her world. Now she's got that under her belt we don't see her tricks very often. No new words. No waving to different people. No variations on kisses. She's moved on. She's moved on to getting on the move. Now it's all stretching and rolling and getting ready to go.
The baby used to hate lying on her stomach. But now it's not uncommon to find her lying face down of her own volition. On the carpet or even in her cot. Sometimes happily, but oftentimes in frustration as she tries to lift her legs into crawling position. She does manage it sometimes, and she's mastered the art of slowly and clumsily crawling backwards. She is adept at shuffling around in a circle, and on a smooth floor or in the bath she can manage forwards in a straight line. And then two days ago she managed hoisting herself up into a kneeling position by steadying herself on the footstool. We haven't quite reached the put her down in one place and find her in another stage, but it can't be long now.
We are listening to "Charlie and Lola's Favourite and Best Music Record" and the baby is bouncing in her door bouncer. "We've got a chicken, it lives on our farm!" The baby likes to bounce when she is in a bouncy mood. Sometimes she bounces while lying on her back on the floor. Sometimes she bounces while sitting up. Yesterday she bounced sitting up in the long grass at the allotment, looking like a little buddha, happy, laughing and smiling. And bouncing.
Yesterday was also the baby's first Mother's Day. I know she isn't a mother. But I am, and the baby gave me the present of sleeping in. I woke up to a lovely cooked breakfast. And a sparkly card with a peacock on it. It was a very sparkly peacock. Then we tidied up and went to the allotment. At the allotment we are surprisingly organised this year. The soil is getting better, with added manure. We have nice beds surrounded by carpet. And raised beds. And beds in tyres. I've kept at least 5 globe artichokes alive since last year.
Oh, the baby does like to be beside the seaside. It turned out not to be "spots". Thursday was warm and springlike so the baby grabbed her bucket and spade and headed for the beach. The spade is as big as the baby. So really it was Biggest who got the spade, and the baby was given a spoon. She dug in the sand. Then she stuck the spoon in her mouth. It didn't take the baby long to realise sand is not good eating. The baby was interested in the gulls. And she was interested in the dogs. On Friday I found I had a pocket full of sand.
On Friday the baby went to 'Dads and Wees' and played with half of the Georges. There are two. So she played with one. Apparently she is less chatty than the Georges. But she does an excellent smile. Today Biggest was called back to poo, so the baby and I went out. We saw a lot of people we know, and the baby smiled. The people all smiled back. Then we went shopping for baby clothes. The baby is too big for her old clothes. We bought bottoms at H&M and tops at Baby Gap. I almost bought a jumper for Small, but I found a hole in it. Then we went to lunch where there was no one we knew, and the baby smiled. The people we didn't know smiled back. The baby ate cream cheese and roasted red pepper on baguette for lunch. She's very cosmopolitan.
When we came home we found the bubble machine and made bubbles in the garden, until the baby distracted one of the neighbours from her gardening. Biggest was still shovelling poo.
The baby likes eating in the morning. She has a big bowl of muesli and fruit. This morning I made her muesli and nectarine. She ate half of it, but not as much as usual. She's been quite lethargic today, not very keen on eating and sleepy. Biggest said she fell asleep while holding her bear. Her temperature is normal so all we can do is wait, watch and see if the small red patches on her bottom become the dreaded "spots". "Spots" is doing the playgroup rounds, and Biggest comes home from Dads and Wees with handed-down myths. Apparently, in a family the second child who gets it, gets it worse; very young children don't get many spots; and, if a tree falls in a forest...no that's not right.
The baby and I are going to her Aunty's house for Sunday lunch. Biggest comes too because the poo is wet. He had been asked to collect manure for the allotment, but it rained all night and carried on until the morning. Wet poo is nasty. We drive listening to Small's mix CD and sing.
I had bought tarts for the Aunty's house. I forgot them and we stop at mini Waitrose and I buy a lemon meringue pie. But unfortunately the Aunty likes tarts and not pies. The baby sleeps in the car until we get to bits that are stop and start because of city traffic. Then she grumbles. But eventually we get to the Aunty's house and we have a nice cup of tea. We try to show off the baby's bouncing (in her door bouncer) but she's too interested in our cups of tea and biscuits and her Aunty. She sits on my knee and eats some nectarine. The Aunty has made her a woolly jumper and The Thing, which is blue and has green eyes. She has also bought her a pirate suit.
Later on we eat our roast dinner and the baby has some too. And then Biggest and I do the dishes while the baby and her Aunty play games. The Aunty gets some smiles and some giggles. We have another cup of tea and Biggest and I eat pie. Baby gets tired so we put her in the car and drive home. Somerset lasts too long, but suddenly it's Devon and almost home.
At home the baby plays with her electronic trumpet from Hamleys that is saying "playing on my trumpet - music to my eee-arrrs" over and over. I am cooking her dinner. It is broccoli and spinach soup. After bath she wears new yellow pajamas with grips on the soles of her feet. Biggest says she looks like a last century astronaut. I read her 'The Very Busy Spider' and she goes to sleep.
A baby who is one week off seven months can sit, and giggle, and make a toothy smile and squash a lot of different foods between her fingers. She can also get grumpy and squeak. She doesn't cry very often.
On Saturdays she forgets that it isn't the week and we don't need to get me to the train station, and wakes up at six o'clock anyway. But kindly today she has milk and promptly falls asleep again. When we get up properly she helps me plant seeds by sitting in the garden in her chair and making cute toothy grins at the neighbours. I plant two kinds of tomatoes (fat ones and thin ones), aubergines (Biggest's new favourite vegetable), courgettes and gherkins, some in trays and some in pots, but all in seed raising mix. And then after her sleep the blind collapses in the bedroom because of a broken bracket and makes holes that need filling.
She goes to the allotment. At the allotment is sun. The baby doesn't like sun in her eyes, but she likes watching robins. There are people at the allotment who we haven't seen all winter. Spring is when you see people again. I dig out broadleaf weeds. And Biggest wheels the wheelbarrow until it finally gives in to rust. We need a new wheelbarrow. The old one was bought for £3 from a car boot sale. The baby doesn't like sitting directly in the grass. She likes lying in the grass even less, but she likes sitting on the jacket I was wearing and tugging at the grass. She can sit up for quite a long time now. She sits while I turn the compost. Until I scream. There is a huge evil grey bug in the compost. Alarmingly big. Biggest picks it up and laughs. It's one of Small's grey plastic bugs.
There is a lot of fresh air at the allotment. It tires the baby and she falls asleep on the way to buy a new bracket for the broken blind. There are no new brackets. "All manufacturers make their own parts and we can't stock them all". We are supposed to throw out the blind with a broken bracket and buy a new one. We don't and Biggest fixes the blind to the bracket with some screws. The baby is awake for too long and gets grumpy. She has some sweet potato and a few sips of milk. The baby has a bath, goes to bed and falls asleep.
1. Name five things you can see without getting up:
My charity shop bag that I get a lot of compliments about (except the time someone at work told me their 14&11 year old daughters would love it) Clouds Unfinished knitting An ugly smock that is about the only thing that fits me New carpet
2. How many times have you changed your hairstyle in the past five years?:
Don't remember - it grows and grows and grows and then I get it cut. It's quite long at the moment.
3. What is your favourite article of clothing (that you own) and why?:
My red Ecco shoes that have rubber tire soles and are almost falling to pieces.
4. What's your favourite cartoon?:
This one:
Although it probably doesn't count because it's a music video. And there's an annoying advertisement at the beginning of it when you watch it on YouTube. There never used to be.
5. If you got a tattoo, what would it be of?:
I used to want a skull. I don't care for one now.
6. What's your favourite mystical creature?:
None - times have changed and I've lost my imagination.
7. What are you thinking about right now?:
I should go into my office and do some work. But I am too fat and lazy.
8. Write the first word that comes to mind:
Green
9. What musician is your favourite to see in concert?:
Wonderstuff - they made me dance and sing.
10. If you came across $2,000 (or other currency) would you keep it or turn it in?:
Turn it in. I suck at being dishonest.
11. What was the last thing that you bought?:
A wooden cot and changing unit from Marks and Spencer - it is dull and sensible but the delivery people will carry it up the stairs and assemble.
12. What other countries have you been to (if any)?:
Germany, France, Spain, Sweden, USA, Italy, Scotland, Wales, New Zealand, Australia, Fiji, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Austria, Switzerland...maybe more, I forget.
13. Do you have a favourite comedian and if yes, who?:
Omid Djalili - today he is anyway.
14. Last book you've read?:
Oh, something dull and sociological - more interesting is that I've just started Arthur & George by Julian Barnes.
15. What are you doing this weekend?:
Sleeping on the sofa or at the allotment, posting photos on Facebook groups and wishing I was in London.
16. What is your song of choice RIGHT NOW?:
Me and the Devil by Gil Scott Heron - not because of the song, but because of the music video. If I was a film maker (which I could have been - I went to art school to do film, but got sidetracked into sculpture because I was such a good drawer) I'd make films that looked like the video.
17. Favourite movie of the last six months?:
None.
18. Favourite season?:
Summer, but proper summer that involves swimming in rivers and lying under trees - not rainy, grey summer.
19. Which part of this year are you looking forward to the most?:
