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!