The Gallery - Food

This horrible photo (which I love) is my entry for The Gallery this week:


Freyja chomping on a massive chicken leg at a BBQ when we were on holiday visiting my family in Dubai this Easter. Yum.

Wine, please

We went to Cafe Prov in Herne Hill for dinner tonight. It is a great place to go with kids - they have a room at the back of the restaurant which is geared up for children, and we were sat on these lovely wooden seats with big cushions, right under a bookshelf packed full of childrens' books.

The waitress was extremely lovely and when she came to take our order she asked the kids what they would like to drink. Freyja asked for an orange juice. Theo looked up at her, all big brown eyes, and said 'do you have any wine?'

The Gallery - A Smile

I've posted it before, but there really was only one entry for me for the Gallery this week:

This is what we used to get everytime we asked him to smile. He doesn't do it so much anymore. And I miss it a little bit.

A letter to my brother, whose wife is dying

Your wife is dying. She has had ovarian cancer for some years now. She has fought it so hard, but she is nearing the end now.

And it's been so quick. Almost overnight she has gone from being someone who, if you didn't know better seems completely well, to someone who is dying.

I spoke to her yesterday and she told me how you have turned into Supermum, looking after the boys and the house. Always so strong and so capable taking it all in your stride. When we ask you how you are you always say 'fine'.

But how angry you must be that this was Anna's path and that you were to walk it with her. It's one of those awful things that you always think happen to other people. How many times you must ask yourself 'Why us? Why me?'

You keep so strong in the face of all this. But I wonder what is it like when you are alone with your thoughts. So seldom do you let anyone in to see. A glimpse occasionally - I remember at the wedding we went to last month, how you commented at the end that you had been cursing throughout the service, bitter that your marriage vows were to be cut so short. You've barely got started, and now you have so little time left.

How unfair life can be. Those plans you made. Those dreams you dreamed. You were going to return to the UK and live in a cottage. I imagined our children seeing more of each other. You both went for a drive when we were all in Devon last month and afterwards said you had found Anna's house - a stone cottage with a walled garden. Except it never will be Anna's house and we all know that.

I remember how I felt when I first heard the news. Like I was choking on the shock and the grief. It felt inescapable, like being trapped, or drowning. And with that was the awful knowledge that whatever I was feeling was nothing - nothing at all - compared to what you and your wife were going through. And that was quite terrifying.

I can't do anything to make things better. I can't take away what is happening to you. But I want you to know that although there is no way I can understand what it is really like for you, I think of you all the time.

I send you love and strength to help you get through these next few weeks, months and years - and with help from us all I hope you are, or at least one day will be, 'fine'.

The Gallery - A Celebration

Nothing says A celebration like fairy wings and pink balloons!



Taken at a 10th wedding anniversary party full of good friends who had been to the wedding, and who all now came to celebrate the milestone, this time with our children in tow.

First week - complete!

We have completed the first full week of school: 9am - 3pm, 5 days. Freyja has loved it. I've found it an eternity!

I've missed her a lot and 5 days just feels like forever.


Theo has settled quickly into 'playgloop', as he calls it. It feels like life has undergone a big change and we've moved onto the next stage of parenthood.

Bugs

I have begun to notice a pattern.

When my children have a bit of time off from their usual routine - which involves their childminder, playgroup and now also school - they get sick when they first go back.

Theo has been sick. It seems that he came down with it in the time it took me to walk from his playgroup back to our house. I ignored it at first and even sent him to his childminder the next day. But on Tuesday night it was obvious that he really was ill. So I had to make The Call. The one where I feel guilty and explain in way too much detail that I won't be coming to work because one of my children is sick. I'm lucky in that I have a very flexible and understanding employer about these things, but I still hate doing it. And Theo missed his second day of playgroup.

I'm just really hoping that Freyja doesn't come down with it because her school is uber strict about attendance and although it would be genuine I would still feel terrible and be all apologetic and unnecessarily guilty about it.

So I told her to wash her hands a lot and asked her and Theo to try not to kiss for a bit. He tried to lean in for one yesterday afternoon and I heard her saying 'No, Theo, don't give me a kiss'.

Except I thought she said 'No, Theo, I don't give a shit'.

Anyway she didn't say that, and Theo is now on the mend so I am keeping my fingers crossed that Freyja (and the rest of us) have escaped it.

Theo's First Day

Freyja starting school isn't the only new thing going on around here. Today Theo started playgroup. He is going to the one that Freyja was at and I have to admit that I've hardly given it a second thought.

Partly because I'm so used to that playgroup and also because Theo has been dropping off and picking up Freyja from there for the last year or so and is very familiar with it. Also, he is just so confident and out-going that I find I don't really worry about him so much.

He is 2 years and 4 months old but people often think he is nearer 3 because he talks a lot and he talks very clearly. Recently he has been driving me slightly mad with typical toddler behaviour and it has made me think that perhaps sometimes I expect too much from him - because he talks so well I just expect him to keep up with Freyja and the things we are doing and to behave appropriately. But he is only 2. I mustn't forget that.

Ah Good The Sea

When I was a student at York University there was an an alleyway that you could cut down to get from campus to town that little bit faster.

On one of the walls were graffitied the words 'Ah Good the Sea'. I don't know why it was there or what it was supposed to mean but it's one of those things that has just stayed in my memory.

And when I took this photo of my children running over the rock pools at Bexhill this weekend, it immediately sprung to mind.

Tears today

I could see that she wasn't happy from the minute she woke up. And after my shower this morning, Freyja walked into the bathroom and said through her tears 'I don't want to go to school today'.

I guess I should have expected it after the excitement of the first day. But of course it was all fine. I picked her up at 1.30 and peeked through the classroom door to see her sitting on the mat, with all the other children. She was happy to see me and again said that she wasn't quite ready to leave!

I was a bit sad today too. I really missed her. And I felt a bit awkward standing at the school gates and wished that some of my friends were there with me. As much as I like the school and the teacher, my feelings are still that I will move her to my 1st choice if a place comes up this term.

School Days

I am no longer the mum of two pre-schoolers. Freyja had her first day today - well, first two hours anyway, they break them in gently.

She has been very excited about it - somehow I succeeded in bigging it up just the right amount and she was really looking forward to it and was fine that none of her friends would be there.

Adrian and I dropped her off at 9am, she did a quick round of the classroom and said 'okay, you can go now'. So we did. No fuss, no tears, I didn't feel at all sad.

I picked her up at 11am. On the way home she told me that she had felt a little bit sad. 'When Daddy and I left?', I asked her. 'No', she replied, 'When I saw you picking me up. I didn't want to go yet'.