I’m making the most of the good weather this morning and getting down and dirty with my flower beds … yes the joys of weeding.

Actually, although I spend ages putting off the task, I find weeding rather enjoyable. I usually leave it until the weeds have reached jungle proportions so it’s quite a physical job. So there I am, out in the quiet of the morning, ripping up weeds, listening to birds singing their hearts out, drinking in the smell of freshly turned earth. A time of contemplation, I feel far closer to the divine out here than I ever did having a “quiet time” of bible study and prayer.

Two books come to mind as I clear the way for my plants to breathe again. The first is Anne of Green Gables. I can’t remember the exact quote but there’s a part where the young Anne explains that she can’t understand why people go inside into a dark gloomy church to pray. If she wanted to pray to God she would go into a field and throw up her arms to the sky in praise. That’s a little how I felt this morning.

The second book is The Secret Garden. I am not a good gardener. I don’t really know what I’m doing. However, there’s something almost primal, a longing for a “patch of earth of my own” just like little Mary Lennox, and watching things grow that at first looked lifeless is a special kind of magic. There’s memories of my childhood mixed up in all that (hence the book choices, I guess) – the scent of earth reminding me of mum and dad digging up potatoes and sieving the earth. The delight I felt in finding an old glass marble inside the sieve – previously lost for a couple of generations. Fighting the birds for the first fresh raspberries (and losing!)

As I said, I’m not a great gardener, but I am proud of what I’ve achieved with the overgrown wilderness that was here when we moved in. I’ve tidied it up considerably. My biggest thrill was planting a raised bed full of cotton lavendar – I couldn’t afford much so picture 23 tiny little one-inch diameter plants looking completely lost in a huge flowerbed. I was terrified that I was going to kill them off and even at that size they’d cost so much. Today, one year later, with a mix of nuture and neglect they’ve flourished and there’s not a single gap between them.

I’ll miss this garden when we move.

I have had a really lazy day today. Akra was a saint and got up with Akra Jr again this morning and let me have a long lie in. I felt so much better catching up on all the sleep I’ve missed this week.

Sheepishly apologised when I finally got up and started to feel really guilty that I hadn’t done xyz that was on my to-do list for the weekend when Akra reminded me that it’s a bank holiday weekend – i.e. he’s home tomorrow as well! I’d completely forgotten so it was the best possible gift I could have been given. Devoted the rest of the day to being lazy for good measure.

So, I “wasted” the lunchtime doing random blog hopping on the hunt for new daily reads and wishing I was a better web designer for my own blog. Cooked a gorgeous roast dinner with all the trimmings. Akra Jr has been utterly utterly cute and huggable all afternoon and the weather has been half decent.

I’m now sitting in front of my computer with a glass of cold white wine wondering what to do with the rest of my evening, when I suddenly realise …

…the stress has gone.

As an afterword, I think this is a cuter picture of me as a kid, but I was a bit older in the other one so seemed a fairer comparison:

*sigh* wish I’d kept the red hair…

You’re not at a family gathering for longer than about 5 minutes, without someone commenting how your child looks like his father, or his grandfather or Auntie Mo. So in the spirit of scientific comparison (and inspired by Sylvia’s recent posting on her photolog) I have produced a collage of baby photos for your viewing pleasure.

Clockwise from the top left: Akra, Me, Akra’s Dad (who is the family favourite for “doesn’t he look just like…”) and Akra Jr, all at around the age of 2. (My and Akra’s dad’s pics are closer to the age of 1 but near enough for comparison purposes).

So who do you think he looks like the most?

I’m rather disturbed to read that National ID cards are back in the news again after reports that David Blunkett is keen to try and rush them through. The thing is, I’m not really sure if I have a really good argument against them to explain why they fill me with such unease. Is it because of a growing cynicism against anything the government tries to push through without proper consultation, or is it unjustifiable paranoia on my part?

Maybe it’s because there has been a slow chipping away at civil liberties in the name of war against terrorism (and now also throwing in asylum seekers for good measure). Maybe it’s because the UK, unlike other countries, doesn’t even have a written constitution to protect the rights of the individual. Maybe because I believe that once we have them (in whatever form) then getting rid of them again would be unlikely and what other information would be deemed “essential” to store centrally for the government’s use? Religious persuasion? Who you voted for last time around? Sexual orientation?

I’ve tried looking at civil liberties sites to see if there are more substantial concrete grounds for me to be suspicious but haven’t really found anything – just many more people like me feeling slightly uneasy about the whole idea. Maybe I’ve just been looking in the wrong places.

I wish I could even hope that if there was a sizeable opposition by the electorate that the government would rethink the policy, but their track record isn’t the best now is it?

If you haven’t seen Matrix Reloaded yet, don’t fret … any spoilers I’ll stick in the “Read More” section below. I’m nice like that.

I don’t actually mind going to the cinema on my own. After all, you tend to get involved with the film, it’s not really imperative for you to know the person sat next to you (and that way you don’t have to share the popcorn). However, there are little things I miss. Not being able to have a whinge about the cinema, how the coke is flat, how dire and cheesy the ads are, giggling over the trailers, bitching about the moron in the back row who took a laser pen to the cinema. Still, just at the point where I was thinking I needed someone to share all these thoughts with, I remembered I had a blog and all stray thoughts saved for later reference.

The cinema I went to is the new Warner Village cinema in the centre of Croydon. Despite it being a brand new cinema of a large chain, the place has always felt decidedly amateur to me. A brand new film has come out, but they only have one person on the ticket office. They are slow. They have to answer the phones too. And the pre-book ticket machines don’t work properly.

It’s lunchtime, so I get there early so I can grab something more substantial to eat like a hotdog, only they have no hotdogs heating up. Each time I remind myself never to go to the first showing of the day, but I never listen. Oh well, lunch consisted of popcorn, pepsi and revels.

Then there’s the special “deal” they’ve got going on Pepsi at the moment. Buy their refill size and get unlimited top-ups! Great, but I really can’t see me wandering out of the film just because I’m getting a bit low on flat watery cola.

Still, the excitement was there. I’d been looking forward to watching Matrix Reloaded for a while now, and had even rewatched the first film last week just to make sure I would remember what was going on. So what was it like? [warning: spoilers ahead]
[Read more →]

… but you can’t make him sleep.

You may have noticed that I’ve changed the site’s tagline. It’s been one of my favourite quotes for a while now – originally because I loved cooing over my baby’s sleeping form with his pudgy arms flung above his head in a state of complete relaxation and abandon. It was a joy to behold. Alas that little baby is now long gone. Now I’d just like some sleep please.

I’m not quite sure what happened. When he was very little (younger than about 3 months old) he was a terrible sleeper (other than the first two weeks when every baby seems to be permanently asleep). When I say terrible, I’m not exaggerating for effect. He would not go to sleep regardless of anything we did and we tried all the good and bad habits. Instead of the 16 hours very young babies are supposed to sleep, Akra Jr would only get 12 or 13 and would be utterly miserable while he was awake. Eventually we got a good routine established, gritted our teeth to him bawling 10 minutes before every nap time and never looked back. We all had decent sleep, we all were much much happier people.

Fast forward 21 months and now it all seems to have gone awry again. I don’t think it’s the change to a bed – although that’s not helping as keeping a child in a cot is much easier than keeping a child in a bed. I’m beginning to feel like his evil gaoler, guarding the doorway to his room until he’s finally given up his escapist tendencies. I don’t know whether that nightmare had him spooked so now he doesn’t like to sleep (although he doesn’t seem frightened in the night – grins his head off when I catch him creeping out) or whether he has just found something to become his toddler rebellion.

I am so utterly utterly knackered and I just don’t know how we’re going to break out of this cycle. We’re both sleep deprived and getting really ratty with one another. Lost the plot again with him tonight, whereas I normally can act calm and rational in the face of all odds, even if I don’t actually feel it. Something has got to give…

Set up dining chairs in a row, stick stuffed toys on each of the seats, put a toy teapot lid in the arms of the front teddy for a steering wheel and tell him it’s a bus:

Kept us amused for about half an hour this morning, that did.

I have a confession to make. The current weather is all my fault.

Remember that brief sunny/warm spell we had back in April? Well I rather optimistically went out and bought loads of new summery clothes for Akra Jr – shorts, t-shirts, light pyjamas… single handedly drawing the good weather to a close.

Yesterday, I thought I ought to try and repair the damage I’d done by using reverse psychology against the weather. I went out and bought Akra Jr a little kiddie umbrella (it has The Fimbles plastered all over it, if you’re interested. Actually, it still has them plastered all over it even if you’re not). He loves grabbing onto my umbrella while walking in the rain, but it’s a bit of a struggle keeping the heavy adult-sized one upright. Plus I get soaked.

I thought I was being clever. However, the weather has outwitted me again. Now it’s just very windy and wet, completely negating any use an umbrella would have, and guaranteeing that a pint-sized umbrella user would either get blown away or would have his heart broken along with the umbrella spokes.

Sorry.

I’ve never organised a surprise party before, but I have to say it was pretty damn good.

Of course, the preparations had hit a slight glitch when Akra worked from home unexpectedly for three days, especially as I’d sent out the invite emails with the subject title of “SURPRISE PARTY!” – when the RSVPs started coming in I had to keep exiting the email program very very quickly.

Then there were the emails that bounced, and the person who ICQ’d Akra saying that he’d heard I was trying to email him, did Akra know what it was about? ARGH! Fortunately I talked my way out of any awkward questions.

Wintermute was a complete star and organised picking up the cake (shown below), putting up decorations at the pub and generally being a very efficient gopher. There was a brief panicked SMS exchange when no cake knife could be found at the pub, and I’d just managed to smuggle a small knife into my handbag when I was told one had been found after all.

On the walk to the pub, I saw two of our friends just ahead who I’d told Akra that they were going somewhere else and wouldn’t be able to make a drink out or babysit. So a cunning exaggeration of new shoe teething pains was employed to give some distance to allow them to get to the pub first unseen.

We got there. Akra was very surprised. Fun was had by all.

Now where’s the nurofen?