Panic on the streets of London

Hurrah the Smiths are talking again!

Double hurrah Blur are doing two gigs in Hyde Park next year!

But really this song words title refers to the fact that we have only a few days before we leave for Australia and I have to:

Dig out summer clothes for all 3 of us
Check Olive's summer shoes still fit
Finish writing and sending Christmas cards
Finish buying and wrapping Christmas presents
Stand in line at the post office to post Christmas presents
Pack
Make Olive's nursery teachers' Christmas presents (note to self, this was not the year to get all crafty, should have visited SpaceNK like every other year)
Pack
With Olive write and distribute her Christmas cards
Pack
Clean and tidy house for friends who are staying here while we are away
Stop worrying that temperamental boiler will cause them havoc while we are away
Stop asking Matt "Have we definitely got a child's meal for Olive?" 3 or 4 times a day
Stop asking Matt "Can we check-in on-line all the way through to Adelaide?" 3 or 4 times a day
Stop asking Matt any other questions to do with our flight
Pack
Make lists of what we need to pack
Chase FedEx for delivery of new Charlie and Lola wheelie case for Olive AGAIN
Pack
Ad infinitum

Matt and I woke up this morning and decided that we would pack, sort out our list and be very organised so there is no last minute rushing around.

So what did we do?

Downloaded Christmas carols from iTunes, built a bear cave with Olive and ran around the house growling, then spent most of the afternoon in The Prince Arthur eating moules and drinking and laughing at Olive playing with her dinosaurs and her new found skill of mimicking people's voices. Then lit the fire and watched The Muppets Christmas Movie.

And what will I be doing tonight?

Sitting in front of a roaring fire with a glass of something fizzy watching the X Factor final.

There's going to be lots of last minute rushing around.

And Olive says that she will most definitely not be sleeping on the plane.

But here is a pic of an earlier industrious afternoon. Despite both of us being full of snot Olive potato stamped, then decorated a huge batch of Christmas cards. She looked at her labours and said "I do good work Mummy".


PS I need suggestions for books to read on the plane. Something light and relaxing as I'm not a good flyer. I spent my last long haul flight pregnant and worrying about the fact I couldn't help myself eating peanuts, and worrying about the fact that they sprayed insect repellent around the cabin when we touched down while reading a proof copy of Saturday by Ian McEwan.

Adelaide anyone?

We're off to Adelaide soon and are starting to plan our trip. We want to do lots of fun things for Olive and, as we'll have babysitters to hand, once Olive has settled in, Matt and I would like to have a few dinners and drinks out. Has anyone been to Adelaide recently? Got any suggestions of places to go and things to do that would make a 3 year old happy? And some lovely places to eat and drink that would make two 30 something parents happy?

On our list so far we have:

Cleland Wildlife Park to cuddle koalas and feed kangaroos
Victor Harbour to see the fairie penguins hop out of the sea at dusk
Horseshoe Bay Port Eliot to have fun on the beach and lunch at the Flying Fish Cafe
Central Markets to buy lots of lovely food
I read about a place called Bistrodom which looked good for dinner
Visit to Maggie Beer's

We also need to fit in some Christmas shopping.

Brick Lane

I watched this on DVD last night and was so disappointed. It's been a while since I read the book, but it felt like the screenplay just missed out or skipped over so many of the key elements of the story. It's such a good book, but I felt a bit 'so what?' by the end of the movie. I had to present this book at the annual sales conference to all the sales reps when I worked in publishing in Australia. It was pretty daunting, standing up there, on a stage with my Scottish accent trying to describe Banglatown!

It's such a dank and dreary day today. We've been stuck indoors all day and Olive is slowly climbing the walls! We've painted, made home made pizza and bread, drawn pictures of the rain, built, played with trains and now she is rolling around on the rug watching Dora and yelling Muuummmeee! O has a physio appointment at 6pm so we will have to venture out in the rain to Great Ormond Street, yuck!

Frequency and Volume

Olive and I went to see the Rafael Lozano-Hemmer exhibition in The Curve at the Barbican. He's turned it into a big interactive space where shadows are tuned to 48 different radio stations simultaneously. It's heaps of fun and great for children. Olive loved running around, making her shadow big and small and dancing to all the music she made.

The London Children's Film Festival

The programme for the London Children's Film Festival has launched. Check out the Barbican website for full details. We've booked to see the Moomins movie, can't wait!

Happy Halloween

Olive loved Halloween this year. I remember her first one, she was only a few weeks old and kept waking up every time the trick or treaters bashed on the door. Her second one I sat on my bed attempting to rock/breastfeed/sing her to sleep and again trick or treaters bashed on the door. Her third one she was terrified by a boy in a Scream mask as we opened the door en-route to bed. This year we embraced it a bit more fully. Milo, Freddie, Bobby and LouLou came over to make pumpkin lanterns and trace spooky stencils. We put decorations up and Olive donned her witches cape and hat. We got big bags of funsize treats and ordered pizza and Olive got to stay up late and answer the door and say Happy Halloween in a little quiet voice and handover a treat. Then as soon as the door was shut she yelled 'They were SCARY!' and giggled and laughed. It was fun.

The Gruffalo is coming!

The wonderful Gruffalo is appearing on stage again in London's West End for Christmas. It's on at the Duchess Theatre from 26th November to 4th January.

It snowed!

We woke up today to snow! Crazy! I thought to myself yesterday afternoon that it looked like a snowy sky. The air had that crisp lightness that you feel before snow but I ruled it out as I couldn't ever remember it snowing so early in the year before. Today is freezing!

The biggest thing around here has been Olive's 3rd birthday. I can't believe my little girl is 3 already. My parents came down from Scotland to stay which was so lovely and Olive was totally spoiled. Mum and Dad have just got back from a special holiday celebrating their Ruby Wedding Anniversary. And the sun shone on them in London too. We spent a wonderful afternoon in the sunshine in Victoria Park and then Matt and I cooked them a celebratory feast.

Strange that we were eating ice cream in the sun a few weeks ago and today we have snow!

On Olly's special day I decorated the house with birthday butterflies and we spent the afternoon baking and decorating cakes with Granny. Then we had a little birthday tea in the evening, Matt and Uncle Jason both left work early for the occasion and we all wore silly hats and ate our body weights in cake and Pom Bears.

Not a good photo of the parents, but the monkey looks pretty cute!

So many presents, but he's still her number one special boy

Then came the party extravaganza of the year - Olive and Milo's joint third birthday bash! There were over 30 children there so in the ensuing chaos I didn't manage to take many photos, but a good time was had by all. Rebecca's mum made some stunning tissue paper pom-poms in the theme colours of green and orange, and sadly I don't have any pictures of them! Strung up against the windows they glowed like jewels.

"I love parties Mama and I'm having sooo many parties!"

And now third birthday party madness has ensued. A staggering amount of Olive's friends are all October and November babies - 5 parties in the last few weeks and we still have 6 to go till the end of November! Even though I am all caked out already Olive will never tire of it. Please don't pass me any more - I've got to get into my swimsuit in December!

Crossword

Olive gave Matt a rapturous welcome when he walked in the door last night. It was just what he needed. She must have picked up on how tough his day had been. I poured him a glass of red, she climbed up on his lap to help him do the crossword. She said "Take our picture Mummy!' Matt won't like this shot as he does look shattered, but the monkey wanted to capture the moment for posterity! So I did. Then we all sat around the table and had sausages, sweet potato and potato mash and sauted cabbage for tea. The banking world collapses, but home life goes on thank goodness.

Monday Monday

Today Olive and I went to meet Matt for lunch in Spitalfields. He needed cheering up and to escape the horror of the office for a while. I feel so bad for him, all he can really do is cross his fingers and hope his desk rides the storm. But this little girl is more than capable of bringing a big smile to his face.


She's going to be three soon, can you tell? And she's currently sound asleep in her buggy, where she has been since we got back from lunch. I better go wake her, it's almost tea time! I can hear a cute little yawn, she's stirring!

PS edited to add Yesterday was the worst day in the markets in the history of the markets. Matt definitely needed cheering up

Lots been happening

We've all had colds. September always marks the beginning of the cold season in our house. First Matt, then Olive and finally me. I'm usually able to shake it off pretty quickly. But not this time, I felt awful and was knocked for six. I'm now downing zinc and vitamin C tablets like no-one's business. Hence the unplanned blogging break. I did start this entry weeks ago, so the date at the top is out of sync with what I'm writing about - it's now the end of Sept.

We've been puddle-jumping down on the farm.


All of a sudden Olive's squiggles and scribbles are starting to turn into recogniseable things and it's amazing! She did a portrait of me and Matt this week which was actually two little stick people! And has been drawing smiley faces! This made me feel amazingly proud! It's just wonderful to see this developmental shift happening. She's so cool!



Olive and Milo went to a party and had their faces painted. They are having a joint birthday party soon so Rebecca has turned this pic into a postcard for their invitations. It looks fab!



I had a birthday and we headed off to Copenhagen to celebrate. The challenge was to combine a romantic weekend with entertaining an almost three year old and I think we managed it. It did mean that instead of the Danish Design Museum and Louisana Gallery of Modern Art we ended up in Tivoli Gardens, but the sun shone, we walked loads, marvelled at how beautiful the Danish are, swooned at the gorgeous things on offer in Illums Bolighus and Illums and had a wonderful meal at Soren K in the National Library.

Me and Olive on my birthday in the Laundromat Cafe, Norrebro

On the carousel in Tivoli Gardens

Tivoli Gardens

My beautiful family

View from our room of the Royal Opera House

And the view at night

I've been reading lots. I was discussing books while down on the farm and was told that my reading material has really dumbed down of late. Which I guess is true. I was berated for not having read the new Coetzee, that Darkmans is still darkening my shelf and the only title from the Mann Booker Dozen I've read so far is The Clothes on Their Backs by Linda Grant, despite having worked on Michelle de Kretser's previous books while in Australia. I think motherhood has dumbed me down a bit. I'm aware of it, and it's perhaps why I have been thinking that I may look for some work in the New Year. I saw the last tv ad I did before I had Olive at the cinema (yes it was a dumbed down chick flick: Mama Mia) and it sorted of shocked me back into realising that I did have a different life before and maybe it would be nice to reignite that different life again. Only on a part-time basis, but there could be benefit for us all. But first I need to sort out what's happening at Olive's nursery. She just isn't settling into her new room, and it's not like her. I know they've had staffing issues, but she isn't bonding with her keyworker. I've given it almost a month and she's still not happy so I'm going to talk to the nursery manager this week and ask that they make some changes. Maybe with all of this on my mind it's no surprise my reading list is fairly lowbrow. But I've enjoyed each one of these books for their own different reasons: The Private Lives of Pippa Lee by Rebecca Miller, Exit Music by Ian Rankin, I Was Told There'd Be Cake by Sloane Crossley, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson and The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton.

While we are talking books I have to report how shocked I was on a recent trip to look for some books on Autumn for Olive. I was envisaging something with some lovely illustrations, autumn colours, hibernating animals etc etc. Our local Borders has a really large children's department but did they have a single book on Autumn or the seasons? No! Not one! Shocking! The bookseller did his best, and was pretty sheepish but all he could suggest was a new younger version of Narnia, or a Ladybird version of The Wind in the Willows, neither of which were what we had in mind. He said they don't stock books like this because they don't sell. One of Olive's nursery themes for the new term is Autumn, and I'm sure that pre-schoolers and early readers in the borough have similar themes. Surely a beautiful table on Autumn, with some in-store reading session and colouring-in comps would reap some rewards? It's so chock full of character books, and the non-fiction offering seems to consist of dinosaurs! Surely there is mileage in this sort of thing for the character books even? There are beautiful children's books out there, I know because we do find them, but it's so disappointing that something so simple, and so important is missing from a major bookstore? I know that independents are better at this sort of thing, but as it's such a simple topic, and as I didn't want to have to get on a bus with O and we were in the area doing some shopping anyway it didn't occur to me that they wouldn't even have a couple of suitable titles. So we headed to our local library where we were rewarded with an Usborne book on the seasons and an Alfie story about weather. I've since found some good stuff on Amazon, but any other suggestions are welcome! We'll be moving on to Winter in a bit so I guess I should do my research now!

Big school for my little big girl

This morning I dropped Olive off at her new nursery class "Big Playschool". It's a big change as it's not only a new classroom, with new carers, but a new building too up at the school. Because of this it feels quite momentous. She's going to be going swimming, having French lessons, lots of trips and excursions to the library and museums on top of the art and music they currently do. She's growing up so fast! I felt very nervous about this change, and even found myself tossing and turning last night thinking 'will she be ok in the pool with someone who isn't me, will they know what she means when she wants Dougie?' Olive has been very reticent about it, but she has spent the whole of August spending periods of time there to settle in, and although not excited about it, last week a switch flipped and she was sort of resigned to the fact she was going there and that she won't see Sarah there.

It was raining this moring and Olive was bouncing around the kitchen making the funny noise she makes when she's nervous. I can't really describe it, she used to make it as a baby when she was trying to soothe herself and now she does it when she's unsure. She seemed subdued when we were getting ready, but got excited when I reminded her that all her friends would be there too, and that they were going out to visit a soft play place today. When we got there, one of her friends was coming running down the road so they both ran in together which was really nice. Everyone seemed really friendly, and although a bit shy, Olive was happy. We found her new peg and hung up her spotty raincoat and put her new red wellies underneath. Then straight away she got stuck in to playing a cooking game in home corner. The staff said it's us parents who need to settle in now! I really hope she has a lovely day today, my little big girl.

The Tiger Who Came to Tea and the last day of summer

It really felt like summer had decided to muster all it's strength and go out with a bang on Saturday. We woke to blue skies, sunshine and hot, hot heat. A chance to give those summer frocks and sandals a last gasp before autumn boldly steps in. And what a lovely day we had.

We took Olive to see a production of the Judith Kerr book The Tiger Who Came to Tea at the Bloomsbury Theatre. This is one of my all time favourite children's books. I was given my copy by my aunt who was a primary school teacher and always brought us books, crayons etc whenever we saw her and who I inherited my love of books from. I just love the illustrations and the 'sing song ness' of the words. It's a much loved bedtime favourite of O's too so she was really looking forward to it. And it didn't disappoint. From the stage set to the costumes everything cleverly mirrored the style of Judith Kerr's illustrations. Even the tiger costume was like a real life version of the drawing. They faithfully followed the original story, just adding in a few devices to give context, for example they used a clock on the wall to show the day going past with the Mummy adjusting the hands and all the children in the audience counting the chimes. There was lots of singing, and a wonderful bit when the Tiger put the radio on and everyone got up to dance with him. And of course all the favourite lines were there "Once there was a little girl called Sophie, and she was having tea in the kitchen with her mummy" and "and he drank all of daddy's beer" (always makes me laugh!) At that wonderful bit at the end when they have bought a big tin of tiger food in case he should call again, Olive stood up and shouted out "But he never did!" Enchanting! Look out for it as I think it's touring.

We then went for lunch at the Peyton & Byrne cafe at the Wellcome Collection. I wish I had taken some pictures of the exquisite cupcakes on offer there, and of the beautiful eau de nil coloured packaging that we took some home in.

Then the rest of the day was spent at a birthday party at the Hackney City Farm where Olive enjoyed a treasure hunt in the woods and was captivated by a friendly calf who happily let her stroke her for ages.

When we got home we eked the day out for as long as possible, playing bubbles with Olive in the garden and drinking a bottle of pink fizz from our French holiday at the beginning of the summer.

And just as quickly as that hot summers day had arrived, it went. We woke to rain and a chill in the air on Sunday and it was as if Saturday's sunshine could not have been. So after a quick romp round Victoria Park and a purchase of a joint of beef from The Ginger Pig, we watched movies on the sofa and stayed indoors.

First day of autumn

Today is the first day of autumn. How did that happen? Summer seems to be getting shorter every year!

Goodbye summer fruits, ice cold rose, barbecued lamb, the smell of suntan lotion, bare legs and paddling pools.

Hello English apples, big reds, shepherd's pie, the smell of woodsmoke, woolie tights and kicking up leaves.

More new books for Olive

We caught up with Olive's uncle on the weekend and as usual he had some lovely gifts for her. She's really lucky, he takes his uncle duties very seriously and is always on the look out for books that she would like.

The Happy Lion by Louise Fatio and Roger Duvoisin.

This one is charming! A lovely story about a very happy lion who has lots of friends, until he finds the zoo gate open and decides to go for a walk. Wonderful illustrations. I think it's over 50 years old, and part of a series. Provoked lots of questions from Olive about why the villagers were afraid, and why the little boy wasn't.

The Biggest House in the World by Leo Lionni

Olive loves this book because she is The Snail Hunter, a little botanist in the making! She's obsessed with bugs, snails and spiders and likes nothing better than to hunt for snails in our garden. My mum recently sent her a bug glass which goes everywhere with her. This story is about a snail who wanted the biggest house in the world and what happened when it grew too big. I'm still very wary about telling Olive stories which have death or anything scary in them, but she seemed to handle this tale pretty well. I've been avoiding a lot of Hans Christian Andersen for this very reason, perhaps we'll give them a go, but maybe not at bedtime!

Hula dancer

Olive all dressed up for her Hawaiian summer party at nursery.

Happiness is:

An Amazon delivery for Olive:







With big thanks to We Heart Books for stopping by and providing lots of lovely inspiration!