Last weekend we hosted a Finch gathering. Louise had arranged to visit us for a long weekend and all of Tony's sisters came to meet up with her, with their respective husband/boyfriends in tow. We had a late celebration of Charles's birthday and a current celebration of Sarah's new job after a few months out of work. Most of the work fell on Tony and Louise because I was still getting over the flu, but it all seemed to go fairly well. Charles was delighted in the attention from "all my aunties" and it was great to see everyone and catch up a bit.

As always, the sheer quantity of food a gathering of 10 adults can eat is a bit disconcerting when you are used to catering for two-and-a-bit. The booze consumption likewise - we went through something like 20 bottles of wine, 2 bottles of fizz-for-toasting and about 20 bottles of lager among 10 adults (one of whom, me, drank about 1 glass of wine total).

Possibly as a result, Sunday was rather subdued - the two couples who'd been in the B&B got their own fryup and Simon cooked for those of us in the house. Sarah and Paul left first and the rest of us took Charles to the playground for a while and then pottered down to the Carlton for a late Sunday lunch (we tried the Ranch but they were being unhelpful about food - at 2:30pm the Sunday menu had mostly run out but they wouldn't take orders for the main menu before 3pm). Then the Sheffield contingent had to go and I got an early night.

On Monday I went back to work for a half-day before joining Tony and Louise for a Chinese lunch and a bit of Christmas shopping. We took Charles for his flu jab (which was a palaver and a half, but that's another story) and by the time we got home after that we were all tired and in need of tea. Louise made fabulous carrot soup and we enjoyed a quiet evening together. The next morning Louise's taxi came shortly before I left for work and Charles waved her off a bit sadly.

Yesterday we had a nice wander around Bristol city centre in mild drizzle, looking at things, letting Charles chase birds, being amused by Charles watching some Parkour perpetrators and trying to emulate them on a much smaller scale.

This morning while I stumped around a race track, Tony took Charles to "Explore @Bristol", what used to be the Exploratorium when Tony and I were young (er). Apparently it was fabulous and Tony "had nearly as much fun as Charles". I think some visits to the South Kensington museums are making their way onto my to-do list ...

We bought Charles a balance bike at the end of July: a small bike without pedals or stabilisers, designed to teach small children about the balance that goes with bike riding. Within a month he has got quite proficient at propelling himself along on it, and can now go fast enough that I now insist he wears his helmet. This week we experimented with taking him to his childminder on his bike rather than his buggy and so far it seems successful: when he's fast we have to run to keep up, and even when he's slow, it's usually for less time and less irritating than when he was entirely on foot. The downside is we can't load everything on the buggy, but the upside is faster journeys, less distraction, more exercise for Charles and less temptation for me to catch the bus home (so more exercise for me).

10 days in France, staying with Tony's mother Louise, accompanied by:
my mother Ruth & stepfather Mick
my youngest brother Matt
my stepbrother Daniel and his daughter Sophie (for 7 of the 10 days)
my stepsister Rebecca (for 7 of the 10 days)

Jonny was supposed to come too but backed out at the last minute in hopes of a job interview.

Me, Tony, Charles & Sophie stayed in the house, everyone else was housed in two of Louise's gites. james_r stopped by for the last couple of days but had to camp on a spare bit of lawn (camping is not usually offered by Louise, but we'd run out of beds).

The weather was warm through to dangerously hot and back to warm again: we swam almost every day and ate outside together every evening. Charles and his step-cousin were adorable together, and Charles learned to cope with two excitable young dogs very well indeed (from abject terror on the first evening, to chasing them around by the time we left).

We got back yesterday evening and today we had a new lodger arrive (another Microsoft intern) and the gasman cameth to do the annual safety check (everything passed, but the oven is wearing out, as well as the boiler).

I am not as rested by the holiday as I'd hoped for: large-group holidays are a bit too stressful for me I think. Luckily I have the long weekend so I can potter around at home and be an antisocial hermit before going back to work next week.

And longer post.
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I'm all excited. We've just booked a short break at Easter to coincide with our childminder's holiday. We're going to stay in Borth, a tiny seaside town on the railway line between Machynlleth and Aberystwyth with a really long and lovely beach. I spent lots of childhood holidays visiting my aunt Alison who lives in the area, and it's all really familiar to me and one of my favourite places in the UK if not the world.

We're going by train and will do what getting around we do on train and foot. Hopefully we'll be able to meet up with Ali while we're there, but more importantly we'll have some time together as a family. And Charles will finally see the sea (norovirus put paid to our planned seaside holiday last summer).

There is a temporary outdoor icerink on Parker's Piece at the moment, and they have parent+toddler sessions in the mornings 3 times a week. Tony has taken advantage of his later start time to take Charles a couple of times (who has loved it from the very first), and the very first time james_r joined them.

I couldn't help wondering how many people thought what a lovely modern family they were ;)

I have tomorrow morning off so I can join Tony and Charles for another session. My legs are already protesting the new walking regime and I haven't skated in years and years, so I expect to be in pain Friday afternoon/Saturday morning.

[random conversation round the lunch table]

Rachel: Maybe Charles will learn bellringing when he's older.
Tony: He'd have to be at least 10 or so.
Jonny: You need to make sure you teach him guitar at the same time.

*everyone looks at Jonny*

Jonny: So he can play the guitar just like he rings a bell!
Rachel: *dies laughing*

---

Today has been a bit fraught as Charles woke us at 3am by being sick, and continued at intervals during the morning. My father and his stepdaughter were visiting, and we had been planning a Birthday Tea with a few friends this afternoon. Luckily (so far) no-one else seems to be getting ill and I was able to get hold of all the guests to cancel the Tea. We did some present-opening and the obligatory cake-with-candles before Dad + A had to leave, and sang to Charles, who pretended to be shy. He has seemed apparently well for the last few hours, but I still have bitter memories of the Norovirus Incident earlier this year and won't be able to relax properly until at least Tuesday.

We spotted a nasty gash on Paris's leg on Monday evening. On Tuesday I took him to the vet, who kept him in to be operated on. I got him back Tuesday evening, nicely recovered from the anaesthetic, with a load of stitches in the leg, a course of antibiotics and instructions to bring him back Friday for a vet nurse assessment and the following Friday to have the stitches removed. We have to keep him indoors until the stitches are out, and pill him twice a day.

Keeping Paris indoors means (mostly) keeping Indy indoors so we have two rather unhappy cats. The catflap is blocked up by means of a spare IVAR shelf and a lot of heavy things in front of it. Paris has always been less keen on running outside than Indy, so we've been letting Indy in and out the front door several times a day, making sure Paris is well out of the way and unlikely to escape. Coming in from outside involves carefully opening the door a crack and hissing if Paris looks likely to run out between one's legs. We're also less able to set the door wide to let visitors in, and have to frantically explain through a narrow gap before hustling them inside!


Plea for help:
We are all (me, Tony, Charles, Jonny) supposed to be going away Friday afternoon for a long-weekend family gathering for my brother Matt's birthday, and an early celebration of Charles's birthday. We can't take Paris with us[1] and Charles can't go without me[2] so our options are:

1. Leave Tony behind, in which case he could really do with someone to help him pill Paris twice a day! It usually takes at least 3 hands to do properly.

2. Find a kind person or persons willing to catsit and pill Paris twice a day, and not let him escape, and feed him, and let Indy in and out, and get on with our remaining lodger, thus allowing Tony to come with us.

1 is the minimal solution that will work and still allow me and Charles to join the family celebration.



[1] My mother's house is far less secure than ours, and my stepfather has cat allergies, even if I wanted to lug cat, litter tray, food, et al on the train.

[2] Well, technically he could but we'd all be unhappy.

Gloriously sunny weather, lots of open space, a widespread tolerance of children being children that startled me (unused as I am to 'family-oriented activities', see rants passim), really good quality, variety and value-for-money food and drink, enough shade, portaloos mostly bearable, showers a godsend. Lovely mellow time with arnhem & L, emperor & atreic, and occasionally my father and members of my stepfamily.

Oh yeah, and good music too. I went primarily to see Show of Hands, on Friday night, who were utterly brilliant. The Peter Gabriel cover was the 'low' point, but the new song Keys of Canterbury made me shiver. Also I nearly cried during The Dive, because it's about a son nearly dying, and Steve Knightley made reference to his own sick son and I cuddled my own sleeping son and blinked away the tears as I danced.

I was nearly hoarse by the end of that set singing along. I listened to quite a lot of Little Feat who followed, but by then Charles was fairly deeply asleep and I had the wrong sling for carrying him long-term asleep. So I took him up to the tent to sleep, and then he did the clingy-baby routine and I couldn't face faffing back down again, so I listened to the Peatbog Faeries from the tent.

Saturday and Sunday were rather more disorganised, following unstoppable toddler from stage to stage and band to band. I heard lots of good music - if anything I did better finding "stuff I like" in Stage 3 than Stage 1 - but none for very long :)

I nearly got dehydrated on Saturday but recovered; on Sunday I was much better at drinking water and sticking to the shade where possible, despite being more on-my-own than the previous day (emperor & atreic having left; arnhem & L doing family things). On Sunday evening, it started pouring just as we were thinking about going to get food and listen to more music, and eventually arnhem and I agreed to just pack up and come home before several hundred people had driven through the mud and we'd had a night under rain-on-canvas after not really hearing any more music anyway.

The drive itself was very straightforward, and Charles slept the whole way bar a couple of intervals of vague complaint dissolving back to sleep again. OH HOW NICE it was to sleep on a proper bed - I have bruises on both hips from sleeping on the floor of the tent.

The tent is now on the line drying out, a load of laundry is in the washing machine and I have an unexpected day at home with Charles, rather than a day slogging home by train (or car).

Why do none of the local parent+baby activities take place outside normal office hours? (With the sole exception of Saturdads.) Why are the vast majority of those activities actually mother+baby in practice?

Why are fathers-as-carers so little valued that there is felt to be a need for Saturdads?

How many fathers get quizzed as to how they will juggle their career and their family?

Why do we know no other families[1] where a father has taken a significant (if temporary) cut in working hours in order to share the childcare? I can't believe Tony is extreme among fathers in his love for Charles; I can't believe I am extreme among mothers in my love of my job. I suppose I can believe that the university is extreme in actually putting its money where its policies of work-life balance are.

[1] Ok, we sort-of know ONE local stay-at-home dad, in a very casual-acquaintance way.

There are biological limits on how long a mother can work into pregnancy, and how soon she can go back to work afterwards, no denying, but this is usually a matter of a few months, not years. Breastfeeding isn't a barrier to working, if the employer will allow pumping breaks (a matter of 20 minutes every few hours, and somewhere clean and private to do so).

Fundamentally, why is childcare seen as a "women's issue" rather than a "parent's issue"? I can't help feeling this is at the root of a lot of casual sexism. In an ideal world, fathers would be as likely as mothers to take reduced hours or time off for their children. (There may be a separate discussion as to just what concessions should be made to working parents versus working non-parents, but I think it is a disservice to both men and women to confuse "parents" with "mothers".)

Charles decided to help us start celebrating early by having a Mystery Nightime Tantrum at 3am.

There's this idea being promoted that washing at 30°C rather than 40°C will help reduce power consumption. I am dubious about whether things will be cleaned well enough, especially given the advice "It is however recommended that towels, underwear, sportswear, baby clothes, all bedding, and heavily stained items still be washed at higher temperatures to ensure they get completely clean."

Currently I'm working my way through the draft of Sustainable Energy - Without the Hot Air, a book on sustainable energy by Professor David MacKay of the Department of Physics in Cambridge. It is an excellent facts-and-numbers-driven analysis. His debunking of the mobile-phone charger myth inspired me to do some calculation on "washing at 30".

The manual for our washing machine states that it uses 59 litres of water for a standard wash, and 0.5kWh of electricity. It is plumbed into both hot and cold mains, and for wash temperatures up to ~65°C it uses the house hot water rather than doing any heating itself. As a household, we do a nappy and a non-nappy wash most days of the week, nappies at 60°C and everything else at 40°C.

Non-nappy washes
For the sake of easy calculation, I'll call it 6 washes a week currently at 40°C, and 60 litres of water per wash. The specific heat capacity of water is 4.2 kJ/kg/K and water is handily 1kg/l.

60 kg x 4.2 kJ/kg/°K x 10°K = 2.52MJ per wash, so 15.12MJ per week.

Our water is heated by gas and we are billed for gas in kWh. 1kWh = 1000 J/s x 3600s = 3.6MJ.

15.12/3.6 = 4.2kWh per week. We are currently charged 2.574p/kWh inc VAT, so the saving would be a grand total of 11p per week, or £5.72 per year.

Either there is something wrong with my calculation or this is a fairly minimal effect on energy consumption.


Nappy washes
We wash the nappies at 60°C but strictly speaking, only the soiled nappies need to go at 60, the rest could go at 40 with the non-nappy washes. Without worrying too much about implementation, we could cut from 6 x 60°C washes per week to 3 x 60°C washes, and 2 x 40°C washes (we could probably eliminate one wash a week by mixing the wet-only nappies with other laundry).

Pleasingly, 3 x 60 x 4.2 x 20 is the same as 6 x 60 x 4.2 x 10, so we know that part of the answer already. What about saving 1 washload a week? If we assume the water is heated from mains cold at 10°C to 40°C then we have 1 x 60 x 4.2 x 30, which is half the previous answer. Plus we save the 0.5kWh of electricity which costs just under 11p/kWh.

So in total, we could save 22p per week by separating out the soiled nappies, and we could only do this by continuing to wash at 40 most of the time, so it's not additional to the 11p per week above.


Showers
Showers are also usually taken at about 40°C. Some quick experimentation with a measuring jug and the shower tells me that our shower flows at about 8 litres per minute. So if we shower for 7.5 minutes that's the same as one non-nappy washload. My guesstimate from our morning routine is that I spend 5-10 minutes in the shower and Tony spends 10-15 minutes. Plus Jason and Jonny take showers every day in the other bathroom, but I don't observe for how long. Our showers are both fed from the hot water tank and do no additional heating of their own.

If we assume an average of 10 minutes per adult per shower per day, that's 280 minutes of showers a week, equivalent to 37 washes at 40. The energy used by heating water for a wash at 60 is 5/3 that for a wash at 40 (heating from 10 to 60 rather than 10 to 40), so our current laundry is equivalent to 6 x 8/3 = 16 washes at 40 (16x5.5p=88p/week), less than half of the cost of showering. Without the nappy washes, it would be less than one-sixth (6x5.5p=33p/week).

Baby costs
Jonny asked just now "so how much does Charles cost then?" to which the answer is 6 nappy washes and 1 non-nappy wash per week.
Water heating is (6x5/3 + 1) x 5.5p = 60.5p/week.
Running the washing machine is 7 x 0.5kWh x 11p/kWh = 38.5p/week.
A total of 99p/week on baby laundry energy costs. Detergent costs are left as an exercise for the reader.

Today was spent going to London in order to attend the funeral of my grandmother's cousin Pierce. He did not quite make it to his 99th birthday and leaves a widow and two daughters. He was doing things like learn to sail at an age that some people never reach, and attended my and Tony's wedding, despite finally getting rather frail.

There was a large turnout for the service, and the event was probably the least upsetting funeral I have ever been to - perhaps a sense that this life at least was not ended untimely. Charles and I were introduced to some of our more distant cousins. Tony couldn't get the day off work due to me failing to remind him to but Jonny came along to play tag-team childcare. In fact he spent most of the actual funeral service outside with the noisy toddler who, typically, was apparently somnolent right up until the service started, when he suddenly turned furiously active.

We accepted an invitation to go back to the house for a family tea, where Charles was very active and rather noisy, but nothing got broken and we managed to distract a lot of the noises. He fell asleep in the buggy as we walked down to the local station, and has been so since.

On Saturday my father rang me mid-morning to say he needed to move all of jdc39's belongings out of his house urgently and as Jonny was already living with me, did I have room somewhere. I thought a bit and said, probably if we tidied the junk room a bit. So he arrived about 2 hours after that and helped me finish emergency junk room clearance, and then he and Jonny unloaded, we fed him and he went home again. We dumped some stuff for the tip in James's car, all the IVAR and everything for Freecycle in Charles's room (putting that project back by a few more weeks at least), and I filled up a few charity bags. We also filled 3 carrier bags mostly from the floor and my desk, with rubbish, paper and card respectively, which I then disposed of in the appropriate bins/boxes. Charles refused to be held by his granddad.

Also on Saturday there was an alt.fan.pratchett meet - with the house tidying and then Charles falling asleep around 4, we didn't go to the afternoon part of it, but Charles and I made it to the Carlton for the evening part. Tony had fallen asleep! I was pleased to see people, but was rather peripatetic following Charles and attempting to keep him out of trouble. He strongly resisted going in the sling at any point in the pub but OF COURSE fell asleep within minutes once we were walking home.

On Sunday there was an "open house" at Shaun & Linda's. We went by bus and met Rosie & Ian on the bus, which then passed Ben on the way. Charles clung to me for about the first hour and then decided that actually it would be lots of fun to get down and charge around. We caught the penultimate bus home and had a mellow evening.

On Monday there should have been a music class but Charles was deeply asleep on the bed and I didn't want to move him. He eventually woke just before the class would have been over and was then completely manic for the rest of the day and refused to go to sleep until gone 10pm. We went out to the library and to get some food shopping done, but neither of these encouraged him to sleep.

On Tuesday we had a release at work so I was in at 7:15 in case anything went wrong (nothing did). After picking up Charles we took James's car to get new tyres, which went really well once I'd found the garage we were actually booked into. Charles slept throughout the whole operation, and during the trip to the tip afterwards, and only woke when I put him in a supermarket trolley. We got home with just enough time to unload the shopping before collecting Lois, and there followed a very pleasant evening with Lois, Patrick, Sally & Jonny. I fed everyone, Tony turned up in time for dessert, and Charles zonked out shortly after everyone had left.

On Wednesday I went into town after collecting Charles, paid in a cheque, got some loyalty points from a receipt put on my Boots card, and failed to like any of their baby clothes enough to buy. Some time after we got back home, Bridget came around and we had tea and chat during the afternoon.

On Thursday there was a FreeBSDish meal at Teri-Aki in the evening. Jonny was kind enough to babysit so I could join Tony there. Yum.

On Friday was Charles's swimming class. After the very-late-buses faff two weeks ago, and as part of my "do more exercise" plan, we cycled. Charles was bundled up in many layers, the top one a lovely washable waterproof, and mittens held on by velcroing the waterproof sleeves tight over the mitten wrists. Even so, he was a bit chilly when we got to the pool, but perked up once we were in, with lots of splashing and jumping in and hanging on to the side. On the way home he kept trying to fall asleep on my arm, but of course once arrived he was full of beans and somewhat screechy for tea with Verity. Not long after she had left, he had a big feed and went to sleep.

We have nothing booked this weekend, which I feel is useful.

Another migraine started brewing Saturday afternoon, and though I drugged it into oblivion, I was shattered for the rest of Saturday and all of Sunday and most of today. I had a lie down between breakfast and going to work and another one between fetching Charles and going to music class, and another one after music class. Charles helpfully went to sleep for two hours, allowing me to doze and cook and register for childcare vouchers

Going to bed soon, as part of the Get Enough Sleep project.

I did a lot of reading over Saturday afternoon and Sunday, about a year's worth of Cycle Campaign newsletters and all the easy-to-deal-with home email - the end-of-day average is now ~50, but they're all the slightly awkward ones. I will try to make myself do one a day or something.

We had Mum & Mick to stay over the weekend, though they were in London all day Saturday and I had crashed before they arrived back. Sunday was very relaxed, and if it was rather enforced on me, it seemed to go down well with our guests. My meal-planning appeared to work ok, though fanf produced all the actual meals over the weekend. I think I will leave him more leeway next weekend to use his own creativity. This week has got off reasonably well although I amended my planned meal for tonight as Charles was asleep when I needed to obtain onions. Lots of leftover ping, and more filling than I expected. Bonus. crazyscot's rice recipe worked perfectly so I will use that again.

Yesterday we went up to Leeds and back to have a seasonal meal with Mum, Mick and assorted offspring. The meal was lovely, the company excellent and nothing beats 2 toddlers in one house for entertainment. Just lovely to sit and catch up a little with people too. jdc39 came up with us but stayed overnight to sort out some of his stuff, and he and Matt should be arriving in Cambridge at some point this evening.

The car journey up was rather trying with large amounts of inconsolable baby screaming. He was intensely clingy to me once we had arrived, needing a good 10 minutes of Mummy Time before he was up to socialising. He slept all the way home however, so I only had to manage the driving. We were in the car about 6.5 hours yesterday, and it was much harder than the 10-hour journey home on Thursday. I think I need to seriously consider ruling out long car journeys with Charles in future.

Eurostar check-in at Lille was deeply tedious. An enormous slow-moving queue, bottleneck apparently the metal-detectors. If I wanted to stand in queues for ages I'd fly. Then there was the rather scary incident when a group of stupid people stopped moving as soon as they got off the immensely crowded escalator. Following a large chorus of KEEP MOVING, DON'T STOP! from everyone on the escalator, they finally shifted themselves, but not before I'd been propelled into the wobbly old lady in front of me by pressure of people coming down behind. I think we were about 30 seconds away from something very nasty. Perhaps I should write a stroppy letter of complaint.

Letter of complaint number 2 will be to St Pancras station management, about the signs which direct you to King's Cross bringing you out on a busy road with no pedestrian crossing within 100 metres in either direction, and a helpful temporary barrier blocking the opposite side for about 20 metres. So you have to cross this busy road diagonally from where you've been brought, or massively detour.

On a happier note, we had a very comfortable and restful Christmas, and it was great to have some real quality time with the family. I have a lot of photos of Charles opening presents to sort through. He had a great second Christmas Day, totally got into it, charged around the place until late in the evening and generally had a whale of a time. We got many board books for him, plus a trolley of blocks and some nice clothes. I think Tony and I got some DVDs and booze as well. We left money with Louise to package and ship what we couldn't fit in the suitcase.

Christmas Dinner was a turkey, raised on a local smallholding. It was the hugest turkey I have ever seen - 11.6kg apparently (25 lbs in old money) - and after 9 adults had attacked it and had plentiful seconds, there was still more than half of it left. It was also extremely tasty (as were the various accompaniments), so more turkey for Boxing Day meals and sandwiches today was in fact lovely rather than boring.

We watched a lot of Hornblower, though as I kept getting distracted/drawn away by a certain small person, I'll have to do something about watching it properly. I've never actually got around to reading the books, but what I saw of the tv adaptations was exactly my kind of escapist drama.

We are with louise_e_f for Christmas, along with Tony's younger two sisters, Izzy & Lucy, Lucy's boyfriend Simon and Tony's father Conrad. Also many cats, mostly kittenish, and an aged dog. It's vital to check chairs before sitting down.

The journey down on Friday was fairly good, though travelling with an active, noisy toddler of firm opinions was always going to be something of an endurance exercise. We changed at Lille rather than Paris to avoid the horror of Montparnasse metro station, and were very strict with baggage limits - 1 baby in a sling, 1 nappy bag, 1 rolling suitcase and 1 carrier bag for food & magazines. Lucy had her own suitcase and then we were met at St Pancras to take Simon's bag of presents that he couldn't take on the plane. We couldn't have done it with the buggy as well.

The new tunnel under London is amazing. We got on the incredibly-full Eurostar, had barely left when I had to change Charles, and by the time we came out, we were practically at Ebbsfleet, on the M25.

Our change at Lille was only 15 minutes, and I was twitchy about it - we loaded up early and were by the door, second in line behind another mother and baby, 10 minutes before arriving in Lille. We efficiently and quickly departed the train with luggage ready to find staircases, looked around and went "oh, this is our train on the other platform ... and this is our carriage right here". So that was rather easier than expected! On the way home we have a 2 hour change there instead - I will get to decide which I prefer for next time.

3 adults to 1 toddler is a good ratio for no-one being completely exhausted. The entire next carriage and half of our subdivided area were one large party who started breaking out fizz and cakes once we passed Paris, and were delightfully tolerant, even welcoming, of small child repeatedly exploring.

Since arriving we have proceeded to chill out, eat too much, and spread the child-watching among 7 adults. I am probably having the most free time I can remember since he was born and am mostly spending it reading. Today we had Sunday lunch at the local hotel - a mere 2 miles away so the younger half of the adult party walked there while the older ones drove with the baby, and I persuaded Tony to join us on the return journey while I carried Charles. The mist was only just rising as we set off, but the walk back was glorious - sunny and crisp, on a country road winding between fields. Charles is really incapable of sitting still for anywhere near the length of a 3-course meal though, which was the only strain on proceedings. The walk helped settle us both down, in his case to sleep.

The tree is decorated, the kittens have been stealing decorations and killing them, or playing with ribbons on presents. Tomorrow we get the last few things to be ready for Christmas Day.

I have just been reminded of this story.

When I was about 4 years old, my parents took me and my baby brother Daniel to Santa Monica, to visit my father's uncles who were living there at the time. My great-uncle Theo and his lifelong partner Bob held a party. Bob noticed me staring intently at him and said "why are you staring?", to which I replied "you're really old!" (he would have been in his late 50s/early 60s I think). Bob said "yes, I am old, but one day you will be old too". I thought about this for a bit and then replied "but when I am old, you will be DEAD".

Bob told me this story when I was 22 and accompanying my grandmother on a visit to the USA and Canada, a "last hurrah" before the Alzheimer's really took hold of her. He found my reaction hilarious (a mixture of amusement and deep embarrassment). He was dying of cancer at the time, and died within months of our visit. He was a kind and generous host to us, and my great regret is that I forgot to take a photograph to remember him by.

I am still not old.

I rang and they didn't have it in lost property, but this was because it was still in the feeding room. The chap I spoke to found it and put it in lost property for me to collect.

Extreme logistical faff turned into reasonable logistics with the cancellation of babysitting, so Charles and I walked Tony into town to retrieve the bag. I dropped into our GP surgery on the way back to establish that I need to see a doctor in order to get sumatriptan and domperidone on repeat prescription; as I am down to the last sumatriptan we promptly arranged an appointment for next week. I also established that they have a letter about Charles's hospital admission on their system and should be able to request a copy from the doctor when I see her.

I could do with spending a weekend in bed, but we are busy until Christmas. Tomorrow we go to visit my dad for the weekend and see my stepmother perform in South Pacific. I haven't seen Dad since his brief visit to move Jonny out and before then it was a short meal with him and Lisa at the end of July. I'm struggling now to remember when I last saw my stepsibs.

Just over 6 months old, but I have finally put up some photos from our trip to France in April, with separate collections for the signposted tumulus we stopped to explore, and the valley of monkeys.

As usual, most of the photos are of Charles.

Last weekend:

We all developed the plague nasty colds following the return from Leeds. I lasted until Thursday evening before succumbing, but had to have Friday off work. louise_e_f arrived Thursday night. Friday was spent quietly with everyone but our guest being ill. Saturday we went to Beaconsfield for Nadia's birthday party and baby Chloe's blessing celebrations. Pub lunch spoiled by nasty incident with rude landlord (for the avoidance of doubt, I don't object in any way to being asked to take my noisy baby outside, but there are ways and ways of asking), had to be smoothed over as our hostess has to live next door to him. Party in the evening, lots of people, Charles very shy at first then loosening up after a while. Sunday, pre-booked large family lunch at the same pub. I opted to sit on picnic tables outside, joined by about half the party. Cake and admiring of Chloe, and then home. M25 usual horror.

Last week:
Very busy at work, trying to not get ill again at home. Started trying Charles out with short walks (e.g. to local shops), with mixed success. Need more patience.

Yesterday: Tony & Charles went to local NCT "Saturdads" morning group for dads and babies, and seemed to have fun. I managed to tackle some paperwork, including the travel insurance claim from August's cancelled holiday to France. Watched a Bond movie, chilled out. Updated my present list and made one for Charles, as people are already asking about Christmas.

Today: Chilling out, maybe pub lunch, maybe more paperwork.

Next week: More very busy work days and resting enough outside work to not get ill. Charles is now pretty much over the cold so I can book his 12-month vaccinations.

My mother has just written up the interrail holiday she took last month with her partner and my youngest brother.

Conrad (Tony's father) arrived on Thursday evening and we had a pub meal but flaked out early. Douglas moved out on Friday, just in time for us to turn the room around for Lucy to stay in over the weekend. Today has been very lazy, with a venture out to the local recreation ground for Charles to play on everything. His favourite thing by far is the zip slide: we very carefully let him ride on it with both me and Lucy there to catch him, and he was very reluctantly detached, and then spent the next 5 minutes walking back and forth following the zip slide as other children played on it.

Tomorrow Sarah & Paul are visiting for the day. The plan is to have a family barbecue (try not to roast the baby).

We are having an ELOBBBBHBB from 3pm today at our house, a brilliant idea which occurred to me about an hour ago. Ring me for directions/queries.

We should probably get dressed ...

Yesterday we went to London for lusercop's birthday picnic in Hyde Park. We also made tentative arrangements to meet my father and stepmother in London, as it's roughly "halfway" by train between Cambridge and Chippenham.

The picnic was fun, and despite being late we were in at the start. Mobile phones make "whereabouts in this large area of grass and trees are you" a lot easier. Dad made a flying visit to the picnic and then we arranged to meet him and Lisa for pre-theatre dinner later. Lots of other people turned up, and there was the occasional bit of juggling, and surprising "oh, you know X" conversations.

Charles had fun, including doing his party trick of entirely emptying a bag of crisps onto the picnic blanket. He met another baby and was allowed to play with his stacking buckets, a favour he repaid by weeing on that family's blanket :( My fault for taking advantage of a warm day and letting him run around naked for a bit, and then not watching him closely enough.

We left around 4:30 and managed to find the right theatre just in time to meet Dad and Lisa coming out of Little Shop of Horrors. As Lisa had a sprained ankle, we settled at the first reasonable eating place nearby, and ate at an outdoor table, watching the world go by at Cambridge Circus. The food was reasonable if not brilliant (but what do you expect for tourist-trap areas), and they were astonished at our honesty when we pointed out that they'd missed most of the drinks off our bill, and insisted on paying for them.

All too soon it was time to say goodbye and go. We timed things very well at King's Cross, arriving just enough time before the train to a) not have to wait b) not have to run. Charles explored the carriage thoroughly and made friends with two more children who had a baby brother only a little younger than Charles. Keeping an eye on his explorations made the train journey seem astonishingly quick. By the time we got home around 9pm, it was raining gently, and I took him upstairs to feed and after a lot of rumbunctious clambering around while doing so, he finally fell asleep. And so did I.

Work was manic and stressful and there was a crisis erupting as I had to leave on Friday. I did enjoy some of it though, I'm sure. Trying to feel positive about tomorrow.

I spent the afternoons either resting or running around doing urgent errands. The treading-water feeling is quite strong as I just keep up with the deadlines and demands on us.

Charles walked 6 steps unaided on Tuesday but seems to be concentrating on consolidating his walking-with-aid skills, including traversing furniture. He's just started crawling as well, more on hands-and-feet than hands-and-knees, and not very far at a time.

I got a hire car on Friday afternoon. Keith bravely babysat for an hour while I was gone. Enterprise staff were all being very nice to me, and I felt slightly bad when I had to reject the first car they presented me (Vauxhall Vectra) as being correct in size but not able to fit a baby seat in the centre rear seat. They found me another one that did fit the seat (Renault Megane Scenic), said it was the same class so I didn't need to upgrade and apologised for it not being cleaned yet even though it was only a bit dusty.

Matt arrived on Friday night on a badly-delayed train from London, and I drove him, Jonny, Tony & Charles up to my aunt and uncle's home in Lincolnshire for a huge family party celebrating my mother's engagement to Mick. The weather was very hot and the food excellent and I enjoyed introducing Charles to lots of people. He got quite shy and tired. We also discovered tooth number 7 had just emerged on the way there.

The journey home was ok, but we had to stop at Peterborough for a nappy change and a drink for me. The moment I parked the car at home and walked into the house I noticed I had a migraine (it had probably been coming on for a while but I was concentrating on driving) so dropped everything and went to bed for about 12 hours. Just to help, Charles was very fussy during the night, running a mild temperature. Today he kept refusing to drink for ages though I think he is now caught up, but he's been fragile and frequently weepy and generally exhausting.

We took Matt to lunch at the Carlton and Jonny met us there. I had to dive out and get Matt to his train (and half the short-stay carpark was coned off, so dropping him was a bit hairy) and then returned to collect Tony for an exciting foray to the shops on Newmarket Road. I hate driving there. We found a fireguard in B&Q (on Saturday morning I took my eye off Charles for a couple of minutes and found him dismantling the fake coals from the gas fire) and a wipe-clean tablecloth in Homebase, for putting under Charles's chair and catching the debris at mealtimes. Babies R Us has mutated into Toys R Us and has very little of use to us any more.

Then we came home and flopped. Charles has finally gone to sleep in my arms and I'm hoping he'll stay that way - he's missed at least two of his usual naps today.

Yesterday we made a day trip to visit Mum and Mick for a vast Christmas dinner with many people. Daniel finally got to meet his nephew. I re-met Rebecca and Daniel (Mick's children) and Rebecca and I got on really well again. I must try to keep in touch. We got home shortly before 10, rather exhausted.

Today I've been tired and slightly headachey all day, in a sub-migraine kind of way. Charles has likewise seemed very tired, waking up only to eat and fuss a little and then sleeping again. Tony has stayed in bed, and if I didn't have to feed myself and Charles I'd have stayed there too.

I feel like I have a vast amorphous mass of undone tasks. I need to find and update my to-do list, then at least I'll know what it is I'm failing to do. On the good side the cats are fed, we are caught up on laundry and the kitchen is only 20 minutes or so away from tidiness.

Yesterday Charles was 12 weeks old. According to my leaflet from the physiotherapy people, I should now be healed enough to ride horses. I'll take that as meaning rock-climbing is no longer medically inadvisable (just logistically difficult). Also I can now join buggyfit and other post-natal exercise classes.

Friday night got fraught because Charles didn't want to be put down while I packed to go away for the weekend or did any of the other jobs that needed doing. Heartrending sobs while I hung out washing and changed the cat litter and so on. Instead of picking up Tony around 7pm we did so around 8:30pm and ended up reaching my dad's house at midnight.

We had a pleasant, Coleman-style-chaotic day with my dad and stepmother, and then drove to Coventry for emperor's and atreic's housewarming. Much fun. We stayed in a Premier Travel Inn nearby, which worked well (family friendly budget hotels are good) and headed home late Sunday morning. Later it transpired we had left Tony's wallet and an appointment card for Charles in Coventry, but this was fixable.

Despite getting home soon after noon I got very little done yesterday apart from feeding Charles and reading LJ. Annoying when that happens. I put Charles to bed with the bath-feed-bed routine we've been trying and it seemed to work really well, until he woke up again an hour later just as I was falling asleep. I soothed him back to sleep fairly easily but he woke up again as soon as he was put down in the moses basket, and I was too tired to keep trying, so he just spent the night in bed with us. There I think he only woke up once, and I fed him back to sleep with minimum effort.

Two Christmas fairs in two days. Yesterday's was bigger and we spent rather longer there so that Louise could do a stint on the stall from her English-French association (she made scones to sell on it, they seemed to be popular). The fairs are a rather eccentric mix: we had fancy breads, handmade jewellery, the youth club waffle stand, a couple of random hippy-clothing stalls, posh wine stalls, the man with 10 different flavours of honey, ugly artificial flowers, handmade soaps of different smells and all sorts of other food and drink and craft type things.

We bought some rather nice booze from one of the local producer stands yesterday, and the lady selling to us was very impressed with Charles's sling. She called him a "petit grenouille" which proves it's not just me who calls him "frog". In fact lots of people seem to like the sling and Louise was kept busy introducing her petit fils.

Today the sun is shining so I should run around with the camera for a bit and capture the place as it is now, for "before and after" shots.

Mostly il pleut. Louise's new place is a great rambling farmhouse with lots of outbuildings which include a pair of rather natty gites, and another gite in the progress of conversion. We walked around it all today, being given the full plans of what will be done to which bits. There's a swimming pool, currently drained and covered for the winter, but will be great fun when we visit in warmer times. The pool is completely surrounded (with some nice grassy area and a barbecue) with a childproof fence and gate.

We're being very lazy. Tomorrow and Sunday there are local fairs so we shall be out and about more, so far the biggest expedition has been to the supermarket. The baby clothes there are rather nicer than anything in Tesco/ASDA/Boots back home. So far I have resisted splurging, but we have a couple of money-off vouchers that Louise and I might just go spend.

Charles and Louise are bonding beautifully and it's a delight to watch. Tonight she is taking a lot of expressed milk and him to give us a night off. We hope she won't be too exhausted in the morning but I can drive the car if so.

Last Tuesday I saw Casino Royale with Andrew, Matthew & Duncan. We had dinner in the Zebra beforehand. I left expressed milk in the fridge and Sue & Tony managed well between them. Tomorrow Sue is very kindly babysitting so that Tony & I can go out together. We will have a meal in the sort of restaurant where you can't take a baby, and have some time together as a couple rather than as parents. I have already started stockpiling the milk in the fridge ...

I'm coming strongly to the conclusion that I am not cut out to be a full-time mother. I love Charles utterly but I do get fed up spending all day every day in charge of him, and sometimes have to work quite hard not to get grumpy with Tony for not instantly relieving me the moment he gets home from work. I am impatient to get back to my own job, and need to start hounding my bosses for a decision on my request to return part-time. If they say no, I need to hunt up childcare, and that's such a horrible task I'm not doing it unless I have to. Ideally I want to return in mid-January but this requires me to submit paperwork by mid-December, and time's running out for doing so.

My scar got better for a while last week so I didn't bother to see the doctor, only then it got worse again a day or two after I'd finished the course antibiotics. So I really ought to ring for another appointment. Also this week, we have a followup cardiac appointment for Charles on Wednesday, the health visitor on Thursday, and a mega-appointment at the GP on Friday for checkups of both of us and his first immunisation.

We went to visit my mother and her partner at the weekend. Some inconsiderate git jumped in front of a train near Biggleswade and held up all the trains for about 2 hours, and then when we did get on a train it turned out to be the wrong one, only we didn't realise until we pulled into York instead of Leeds. An entertaining departure ensued, involving detaching baby mid-feed in order to grab half our belongings and jump off the train while Tony followed with the other half. We eventually arrived safely and had an enjoyable nearly-24-hours with them. Our attempts to find somewhere for Sunday lunch were a bit jinxed: the first place we tried (non-smoking, German and Belgian beers) said "no children's licence, go away", the next two places were unexpectedly closed, and so we went into Leeds centre and ate in Pizzamania. All-you-can-eat pizza and pasta buffet with music a couple of notches louder than I really like, but it did prevent sound travelling between tables so when Charles was fussing no-one glared at us. And the food was ok and even my giant appetite was sated.

Transporting the baby by train was fairly straightfoward. We kept baggage down to three small bags and the pushchair and had seats on every train. Nappy changing in the train toilets varied considerably in the amount of acrobatics required. I had enough room in every seat to feed him on demand, plus we could walk him up and down when he fussed. He enjoyed lying down and kicking a lot - once on a table and once on a spare seat. Even the lengthy wait at Peterborough didn't bother him nearly as much as it did us.

Last night Charles uncharacteristically cried a great deal and today he's been all lethargic and low appetite, waking up for very short periods to eat miniscule amounts and then cry some more. From the noises I suspect some kind of tummy upset and I've had a touch of indigestion myself. Hopefully he'll feel better soon. Keith rearranged the living room while we were gone and I approve the new layout. A side effect was to tidy a lot of my tat into the study, so I spent a fair amount of time today clearing a path to my desk. All sorting out that needed doing, but I'm glad that it coincided with a day when I did actually have some spare time to devote to it.

I am back. It's been an exhausting five days, but everything is done: the funeral went well, the housemove happened on time and the wedding took place (although the theme of the day would be "it all happened ... eventually!"). I would not have stayed sane without Tony's arrival on Friday, and the housemove in particular would not have succeeded without my aunt Alison and my brother Jonny helping out above and beyond the call of duty. I was confined to light duties and errand-running but am happy that I was useful. I'm also very happy to now have a stepbrother, stepsister and stepmother. Hurray for weddings!

For my own reference, longer notes behind the cut.
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After so long immersed in my family, I need to get my head back into Cambridge in time for tomorrow's work. Another short (but very busy) week ahead of me before we go to Cheltenham for another wedding.

I'm very glad we went, and I did feel we were useful. We didn't do much more than chat for a bit on Friday evening, but on Saturday morning I got Dad to produce a to-do list. He talked and I scribbled and we both rambled a bit, but at the end of it we had a fairly comprehensive list, and over the day we managed to work through most of the items.

The children were taking part in a workshop called Stagecoach, at which Lisa was teaching, and parents were encouraged to participate. So Dad had to be there for the afternoon, and I decided that I would drive him there with Tony. Tony got up and produced a light lunch on remarkably short notice before we did this. We inflicted some Bill Bailey on Dad thanks to the magic of iPod and iTrip, and he mostly seemed to like it. At some point I would love to sit him down and show him the DVD but getting him to sit still for that long without falling asleep would be a minor miracle.

From Swindon we drove to the crematorium near Melksham, so that I'd know where it was for Wednesday, and to do one of the to-do list items which was finding a venue for the post-funeral meal. We took a scenic route through Avebury and Devizes, found the crematorium without much difficulty and then went on to check out the recommended pub in the nearby village. It turned out to be very nice indeed, and is clearly used to catering for funeral groups - a separate space, a standard buffet with unlimited tea + coffee, access to the bar and an extensive menu of meals and snacks if people want something different. Tony approved of the beer on offer and I liked the atmosphere, so I booked the buffet and gave my dad's details.

After that we drove back to Chippenham via the station so I could time the journey (<20 minutes) and then flopped out a bit at the house until everybody got back around 6. After a lot of chatter (and some phone calls) we went out for a meal, though Dad and Lisa had to go to the supermarket beforehand to stock up for food for Lisa's brother and his family who were arriving from Australia the next morning. We went to the local chain family restaurant which has a supervised children's play area, so Tony & I organised the children into that and had drinks while waiting for Dad and Lisa to do the shopping. We then ordered once everyone had arrived, and had a pleasant if rather drawn-out meal (too much talking!). It was really quite late when we left and drove back home in convoy.

I slept badly thanks to baby kicking and squashed-hip pains and full bladder, and when the Australian cousins arrived and all four children were excitedly and noisily playing together I gave up after a bit and just got up, followed by Tony. It was nice to meet the step-relatives-to-be and there was an impressive array of breakfast, but I was really quite tired and grouchy and struggled a bit to stay sociable. I opted not to go to church but instead flopped out a bit with Tony and we amused ourselves reading the Argos catalogue (cute baby things!). By the time Dad, Lisa and the children returned I was a bit more together but even so we had a bit of stress and argument with people (especially me) getting too hot and hungry and overreacting. I had a good cry on Tony's shoulder in private and then he went off to sort lunch out and I spent some time calming down and by the time we left it all seemed to be ok again.

Sunday evening I spent catching up on email and LJ and making phone calls and booking things on the internet to sort out various bits of logistics around the funeral on Wednesday, and the following days. Another longish call to my dad this morning and I think we are pretty much there. I am picking up a car from outside the station on arrival in Chippenham so I can drive myself and jdc39 down to the funeral, and I'm keeping it for the duration of my stay in Chippenham, for extra freedom of movement, and also because driving is one thing I can definitely do without getting too tired out. (My whole family and step-family-to-be seem to be keen on reminding me not to overdo things at the moment.)

Today was Too Hot to go to the office (forecast 33°C - I can manage up to about 27°C in the office) so I didn't even try, but instead worked from home. It was usefully productive and I ended the day quite pleased with my progress. The forecast for tomorrow is about the same, so I should probably do the same again. I do end up feeling quite cut off from normal office life though, especially with only working two days this week. I'm a bit nervous about the funeral being in the heat of the day on Wednesday (also forecast hot). Here's hoping the car I get on Wednesday is airconditioned.

Last night I tried sleeping on top of a duvet, to see if the extra cushioning helped the crunchy-hips feeling. I certainly slept better than Friday or Saturday nights and was rested, but I still woke up about 3 or 4 times. If I have another exhausting night I'll probably ring my midwife, who at least can tell me if this is Just Another Fun Pregnancy Thing or something I can actually do something about. The baby has been dancing around all day and doing what feels like headbutting my ribcage and bouncing on my bladder at regular intervals. 11 weeks to go ...

The funeral is Wednesday.

I've talked to my boss and asked for Wednesday and Thursday next week, and he seems ok with that. I've sent him an email stating the dates, the reasons and that I have no unbooked annual leave remaining. As far as I am concerned they can give it me unpaid or as compassionate leave: I've better things to spend energy on than pushing for the latter and I can afford the former. (At some point I'm going to have to work out how disastrous it is to lose 2 days from my already-tight project schedule, but I wouldn't be in a fit state to do anything useful on Thursday if I did come back, so there's no point worrying too much about it now.)

I've rearranged the midwife appointment on Wednesday to the following week.

I've booked a train ticket for Wednesday morning so I can get to the funeral with minimum time away from Tony. The weirdo book-in-advance singles mean I got a Leisure 1st for not much more than the Leisure Std that was available. Tony is teaching at the Exim course next week so will come down on our original tickets on Friday and we'll go into the B&B booked for the wedding then. Not sure where I'll be Wednesday or Thursday night but we can probably sort that out as we go.

Dad's official moving day looks like being Thursday. I'll not be doing anything very physical but I can probably help out with light duties like walking the children to and from school, and making sure everybody's fed. My aunt Alison will be around that day too as it's even less worth her trying to go home between the two events, and I'm looking forward to seeing her.

I'm about to get picked up for my hire car, and working at home this afternoon. Unless I'm too tired to drive safely, Tony and I will head over to Wiltshire tonight, aiming to get there about 10pm. Lucinda is heading home today so there'll be no argument about who gets the couch.

My grandmother died this morning.

I rang the home to ask when would be a good time to visit at the weekend, and was passed to one of the senior carers who said "your aunt Lucinda is here" so I said "oh, I'll get her to talk to me". Anyway, I sent her a text message asking her to let me know when was a good time, and about an hour or two later she did, so I rang her, and that was the first I realised why the care home people had been so careful with me.

Lucinda and jdc39 both saw her yesterday. She wasn't responsive and had morphine to the end, so I suppose as deaths go it was quiet and peaceful and painless. Lu arrived this morning just after she had died, and is full of praise for the staff in the home. We talked for a while and I decided to implement my plan of working from home in the afternoon (originally for pregnancy-related discomfort) immediately - easier to handle things without a noisy open-plan office around me. I've spent bits of time trying to get hold of my brothers and let them know, and my father has just rung me and then had to ring off because someone is ringing him. The usual Coleman organisation (noisy discussion, decision, implementation) seems to be happening with Lucinda's help, and it looks likely the funeral will be next Wednesday. I will have to do some negotiation with work as I've no paid leave left this academic year, but I think I may not come back between then and the Friday I already have booked off for travelling to the wedding. Need to work out what Tony does as well.

I think I'll still travel down to see my father this weekend - I can be generally useful and I want to be with family. And the car is booked anyway. I'll talk to him about details when he can call me back.

I regret that I didn't get to say goodbye, but I don't think I'd change my decisions about where to spend my time this week even if I'd known. I am essentially ok and managing, now I've got past the initial shock.

http://www.arc-conference.com/

An exhibition + concert + charitable auction being held on Sunday 17th September to raise funds for autism research. All the artists and musicians involved have an autistic spectrum disorder, some have been diagnosed for years, some only recently diagnosed. I read an interesting newspaper article about one of the artists recently. Not cheap, but I think worth it.

The following day is an Autism Research Conference. It is also coincidentally the first day of my maternity leave. Again not cheap (and incurs a late booking fee for booking after 31st May), but could be very interesting indeed.

Both events have cheaper tickets for autistic people and their families, which I could claim. I guess I should see if anyone else in the family is interested in either or both events.

We are going to drive, because trains/buses are awkward for getting to and from the care home. I have booked a small cheap car for the weekend and we will go late Saturday morning, stay overnight and come back early afternoon on Sunday. I'll drive cross country (Bedford, Milton Keynes, Oxford, Swindon, Chippenham) as, compared to the motorway route, it provides more frequent and more pleasant opportunities for stopping in case of loo or just needing to move around a bit. It'll probably use less fuel too, being less distance and generally slower speed, and from experience will take about the same time.

I haven't yet booked somewhere to stay - a message is on my dad's answerphone asking for recommendations as he's just researched all this for the wedding next weekend. Edit: there is apparently a spare double bed at Dad's, which is cool.

My dad asked if I can reproduce a printed diary with photographs I made for Cecillie about our trip together in 1999. It's been damaged, possibly destroyed, since she lost sufficient understanding to take care of it. I managed to find the APS films from the trip with only a bit of rummaging around the bedroom, but all my hunting on my PC hard drive failed to turn up the Word document in which I typeset it. The original source material was a bunch of long letters I wrote to bofhcam during the trip. Amazingly he not only still has them, but was willing and able to find them and hand them over to me this morning.

Last time I printed it out on high-quality paper, hand-set the photographs in the right place and got it comb-bound, but this time I may try the Photobooks offered by Photobox. I think the format will change - I remember the original being quite wordy, but I think I'll focus more on the photographs this time and keep the words to dates and times and places.

Tony had to work late last night, and while waiting for him I found myself intently clearing a backlog of email, including one which had been blocking me feeling able to post to Freecycle. I am feeling increasingly more urge to sort out the piles of Stuff around the house, so this is good.

It seems likely that my grandmother is dying. Her GP thinks she has "days or weeks" left, and it is not worth the disruption of moving her to a nursing home. I am figuring out logistics for going to see her this weekend: whether to go by train or hire a car, whether to stay overnight or not, when and how to meet up with my father and Lisa. She is not very responsive, so I don't expect the kind of goodbye I was able to have with my other grandmother, but if I don't take the chance to visit her while I can, I know I will regret it. I also want to give my father what support I can - this is coming on top of house-moving stress and imminent wedding.

I really hoped she would get to see her great-grandson, but it doesn't now seem likely.

Mum and Mick and Matt all arrived on Friday evening, Matt travelling separately. We had a minor logistics crisis because Mum & Mick couldn't get a place to stay nearer than Bar Hill (apparently due to the film festival) and the bus service is reasonable but doesn't run Sundays or after 6:20 on Mon-Sat. However james_r was a complete star and lent me his car to aid logistics. This proved to be very useful when Matt didn't recognise where he should get off the Citi 7 bus and ended up in Cottenham.

After rescuing Matt and collecting Mum and Mick, we had a pleasant evening in the Carlton for food and beer, and then spent an hour or so at home talking over peche royales (for the non-pregnant adults). I dropped them back to the hotel and returned to the house to find Tony on the phone to his sister, who then wanted to talk to me. By the time I got to bed I was very very sleepy indeed.

Yesterday morning I pottered around sleepily when I couldn't stay in bed any longer (see imminent separate pregnancy whinge) and Matt had fun watching tv, and Mum and Mick slept in very late and managed to arrive just as I had my head next to a very loud Dyson trying to figure out why it had stopped sucking (I had blocked the hose). Some minor chaos passed and then we settled down to a lovely buffet lunch mostly put together by Tony, with a contribution of salad mostly-from-Keith's-garden from me. I flopped out completely after that while Tony cleaned up and Mum hung some washing out on the patio and after everyone had done their various sorting out, we watched Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl because Mum hadn't seen it yet.

We then had an hour or so occupied by collective pottering around (reading, spodding, decluttering clothing) before Doctor Who, after which we walked to Thanh Binh and had a lovely meal. By the time we'd walked back I was very ready for bed and I stayed up only slightly longer than it took for their taxi to arrive.

Today the plan is Sunday Lunch at Carlton, then cinema to see PotC: Dead Man's Chest, then probably pottering back through Cambridge to home and another buffet meal before they attempt to get an early night before heading back to Leeds tomorrow.

My mother and her partner are visiting this weekend, and my youngest brother Matt is travelling from our dad's house today to meet up with us and them. Mick is severely allergic to cats, so they aren't staying with me, but I need to arrange for the living room at least to be cat-free and vacuumed tonight.

I just rang up my dad to check on logistics and he was a bit frazzled. His wedding is in a fortnight. He and Lisa and her two children and Matt are frantically moving stuff out of her house and camping out in his while waiting for a moving date for the house they are buying together. And his mother has suddenly got much more ill and needs to be moved out of the care home where she currently lives into a proper nursing home.

Cecillie is my only living grandparent, and the only living great-grandparent of my child. She has dementia, but when I told her at Easter that I was pregnant, she focused suddenly, looked straight at me and said "it doesn't show very much yet". She then drifted out again and I was never sure if she'd actually understood or was just lucky in her timing.

I was planning to see her when we go for the wedding, and talk about the baby, as babies and her descendants were always a topic close to her heart, something that should still reach her if anything can. Seven years ago, when she was only slightly mad, I escorted her on a three-week visit to the USA and Canada, to visit relatives and old friends. We had a number of conversations more than once, but her favourite was "why you should have babies as soon as possible because you have good genes". I love her very much. I am going to get some prints of recent "bump pics" of me and send them to my father. I don't know if they'll make sense to her, but it feels better than nothing.

Friday: Met the neighbours, they seem very pleasant and friendly which is a good start. Shopping arrived from Waitrose, the main bathroom toilet had a fault I couldn't fix but could workaround and I zonked out quite early.

Saturday: Went to see Louise for Izzy's birthday, except Izzy wasn't there. We arrived in time for a late lunch, bringing West Cornwall Pasty Company goodies with us. Far too hot, but if anything Tony was more bothered by it on the journey than I was. Louise and I talked lots about her plans to move to France, and also about the baby, and all of us lazed in the heat until the evening when there was a barbecue with the neighbours and friend and Sarah was persuaded to join us.

Sunday: Went through Louise's trunk of baby and children's clothes. We sorted out a bagful of useful stuff for the new baby to come to Cambridge, the rest of the usable stuff to go with Louise to France for baby to use on visits there, and the usable children's clothes put away until later. I need to ask indigopeony about courier duties again. The bag includes a sling which seems to fit Tony quite well as far as we can tell without a test baby. It doesn't fit me at all because of the bump. The bag also includes a tiny hat and matching mittens which were crocheted by Louise for Tony and which he wore on his first ever day in the world.

Then I left Tony to spend time with his mother and joined clanwilliam, angua, mrscosmopilite and daughter for an afternoon's sari shopping in Southall. I had vague hopes of finding something workable for the two weddings in July, but managed in the end to find three beautiful salwar kameez in giant size for really not huge sums of money. The shop concerned claims to specialise in larger sizes. If I have a complaint, it is that I only got occasion-wear and could really do with some simple large cotton kameez for work in this weather. Obviously we have to go again sometime ...

I managed ok in the heat, drinking plenty of fluids, but I was really very tired by the time we got back to Cambridge. Tony met up with Karen and I at King's Cross and saraphale was so kind as to pick up Karen, and dropped me and Tony home while at it, which was very much appreciated. A happy hour or so with my feet up, catching up with Dad and Lisa by telephone, helped a great deal, and now I'm caught up with LJ and have glanced through email, it must be bedtime.

Between the heat and the pregnancy my feet are ballooning. They look vaguely normal in the morning but by evening they are giant mutant feet on equally mutant ankles. Hurrah for my Teva sandals with 3 independently-adjustable straps.

jdc39 got a First from Brunel.

Back from France after a few days visiting fanf's father. The break was lovely and we return with expanded waistlines, mild sunburn, 12 bottles of good wine, and greatly reduced stress levels in me (Tony wasn't that stressed when we went out!). Trains are the civilised way to travel, although the Eurostar terminal staff were approaching irritating queue lengths on the way out - we think because one of the screening machines was out of use. Which reminds me: in future, don't wear steel-toecapped shoes when walking through metal detectors.

We took travel Scrabble, which proved a hit. Photos will be online at some point.

I am officially stressed. Be nice to me, and be patient with my whining, please.
( cut to save effort for the impatient )

I had a nice long phone conversation with my mum yesterday. Some of it was administrative: she has what sounds like a lovely dress on order for the wedding, I let her know about the impending cats (she is mildy allergic, Mick very much so), and we talked about holiday ideas for the boys and I enthused madly about Scotland after my trip there three years ago. We are both working like mad things, and as a result, we probably aren't going to be able to have any lengthy time together before the wedding. So part of the conversation was her telling me useful and intelligent things that she could think of about marriage and life and relationships. I'd wanted to go away together to talk about it and we'd talked about talking, and as we can't go away, she's thought over what I wanted to know and has answered it. I appreciated that part very much. Some of it is still sinking in and worth thinking over and talking over with Tony in the next few weeks.

My mother is wonderful.

Completely changing the subject, I've noticed a new Punt & Dennis radio 4 comedy show starts tonight in the usual 6:30pm slot: "The Party Line: Topical sitcom by Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis, recorded just before transmission. Frustrated backbench MP Duncan Stonebridge believes his career is going nowhere, ever since he fell off the stage on Question Time. Duncan is a man trapped in limbo, struggling to deal on a local level with the edicts handed down from Westminster. Starring: James Fleet, Simon Greenall". So I'll be listening to that before I head to the beer festival :)

( Weekend friends and family )
Sunday evening I was incredibly useful and sorted out lots of stuff that had been lurking in my inbox for ages ... with the notable exception of anything wedding related. That's the first time in a while I've caught myself productively procrastinating. Among other things I checked through our phone bills for the first time in a year and decided the quarterly call costs weren't worth chasing lodgers for. I also realised just how cheap it can be to ring my parents these days, and as my main reluctance to do so on the landline has been the quality of our handset, I bought a new handset. And an answerphone, so that my parents can ring me at home and be able to leave messages.

Monday was busy at work and I was feeling a bit tired and under the weather for the beer festival, so finished my second read-through of Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow instead.

Yesterday continued busy at work. I went to the beer festival afterward and had a very enjoyable time, running into several sets of people during the evening. Tony & I have now joined CAMRA because the joint membership is a bargain compared to single memberships (21 and 18 pounds respectively). I started off with Holden's Black Country Mild (on the North Bar) which is rather lighter and easier to drink than most milds and I approve. My next choice was Boelens Bieken Honingbier from the Foreign Beers stand, which was described as "Gorgeous Honey beer" and was. I thoroughly approve and wish to find more. When I went back to the foreign beers, all the honey beers had gone, all my backup choices from the Lambics had gone, and I tried Orval because I could see it was there. It was drinkable and had nice texture, but nothing amazing. I had sips of other people's drinks now and again, those that stuck in memory overnight were the Espresso Stout from Dark Star which Alex (climber, but not the one atreic knows) had, and the Rauch beer that ptc24 chose (both good). Helen (climber) had a cranberry wheat beer which was very thin-tasting and I found disappointing but she liked.

I may or may not get to beer tonight. It will depend on how sociable and energetic I am feeling - there was a plan for work people to go, but the colleague most enthusiastic about it is off sick.

On Saturday night my aunt Lucinda was celebrating her 50th birthday in Langley, a little village near Macclesfield, on the edge of the Peak District. It wasn't going to be possible to get to and from the party without a car, and it was also difficult to find anywhere to stay very nearby. So I decided to rent a car, and then to make a virtue out of the necessity and find interesting, non-motorway, routes there and back.
( Read more... )

Despite an easy evening, I woke up shattered, stuffed-up and sore-eyed. It only took about an hour of wrestling guilt to decide to call in sick. I am really trying to work on my less helpful macho reactions to bodily weakness, especially after the mess I made last week of what should have been a minor 1-afternoon migraine.

On the Bank Holiday weekend, Jonny and I had a huge, impromptu, do-you-remember fest with the old family albums that Mum's tidying had brought to light. I was inspired by a particular sequence of photographs to faff with the scanner-and-cropper and produce the below proof that my fondness for technology goes back a long way:

( Warning: gratuitous baby photographs )

( Bank Holiday )
( A week of work )
Saturday dawned beautiful and free of lurgy - I think the wine killed it. Helped prepare the house for fanf's birthday party, which proved a success I think. Very nice to look around at intervals and see many groups of people chatting away happily. The last dregs of it hung on until about 5am, which was well after birthday boy had given up and gone to sleep. I'm quite glad I stayed off the booze as I merely felt shattered this morning (as opposed to extremely ill and embarrassed as after my birthday party). I managed to get most of the mess cleared up but ran out of steam at the thought of washing up; thankfully Keith obliged and also made fryup when I'd dragged up enough oomph to get to the co-op for bacon and mushrooms.

fanf slept late in his inimitable manner and finally emerged in the evening to watch The Bourne Identity with me. I enjoyed it just as much as the first time I saw it. We played with the special features, though I'm rather of the opinion that I'm really glad they didn't bother with the extra start and end sequences, or any of the deleted scenes. They tended to remove any remaining ambiguity and mystery around Jason Bourne that was part of the charm of the film for me. Anyway, we can now go see The Bourne Supremacy with my flaky memory of the film refreshed.