Button pushing

I am getting old. I find I am missing the old way of doing things once they've gone.

Take the car we hired in Scotland. It didn't have a key that you put into the ignition and turned, it had a card that you put into a slot and a big button you pushed to start and stop the engine. Very unsatisfying. It also had an automatic handbrake. Even more unsatisfying. It was more like an arcade car experience than a real car experience. What's next, no steering wheel and a joystick with buttons for left and right instead?

But at least the car had buttons. Our new stove has one of those touch thingamybobs that you press to turn the heat up and down. I only realised tonight, after several episodes of finger-jabbing frustration where I couldn't get the stove to work properly no matter how hard I poked it*, that you don't need to press or push anything, you just gently lay your finger on the touch thingy and voilà, the temperature changes. I can't say I actively miss turning a dial the way I missed turning a car key and pulling the handbrake on and off, but still, gently caressing the stove somehow doesn't feel right. Not physical enough. I'd like to press something and feel at least some movement, some sensation that I actually did something.

I'm sure there's people who still miss a choke, typewriters, eggbeaters ... probably even wringers. And I like modern conveniences, I really do. But the joy of button pushing and key turning and pressing things is innate - just look at how much kids like to do these things. So preventing us from carrying out these basic needs is actually cruelty. Cruelty, I tell you. It shouldn't be allowed. Youngsters these days, they just don't know what they've lost with these new-fangled contraptions. Everything was so much better in my young day!

Right, now I've got the diatribe, I'm ready for the nursing home.

* Just so you don't think I've been unable to work the stove ever since we moved in: it was only installed the week before we went away, and I've only used it a couple of times since then. So yes, that still makes me a slow learner, but not too embarrassingly slow.

Not brave at all

Whenever I have flown to Australia by myself with Téo, at least one of you has made a comment along the lines of You are very brave making the trip by yourself. I have always replied No, not really, Téo is very easy on the plane and anyway I wanted to see you.

After the two-hour flights to and from the UK, one by myself with both kids, I can assure you that really, I AM NOT BRAVE. If Téo had been like Lukan, I really don't know that I would have made the trip to Australia by myself so many times.

We call Lukan "little pest" and "little monster", but actually, Téo was the more abnormal one. We never even had to baby-proof our house once he got mobile - he was usually only interested in toys, and the few times he went to touch a non-toy, we just had to say uh-uh-uh, that's not a toy and he'd stop.

For the most part Lukan sees toys as pesky objects that must be swiped aside in order to get to everything else. Especially electrical items.


We have tried the uh-uh-uh, that's not a toy strategy, but all this has taught him is to say uh-uh when he touches forbidden items. And he really is a pest... in the hotel on our last night in Scotland, he dropped Téo's socks into the toilet bowl, then fished them out and played with them. Which wouldn't have been so bad, except that we hadn't flushed the toilet after using it.

Not being very interested in toys is bad enough for a long plane trip, but Lukan is also a wriggler. Ever since he was a baby, he has never once sat still in a lap. Téo is also usually very active, but there are two things that sink him into a happy, still stupor: Swampy and the television.

So a long plane trip is heaven for Téo - he is allowed to have Swampy AND watch television for hours and hours and hours. On our flight to Dallas when he was 18 months old, he didn't even want to leave his seat once.

Lukan doesn't have a Swampy and is not interested in the television.

The flights to and from the UK were not fun for him. He wanted to crawl, he wanted to touch everything, he wanted to whack everything. Then he screeched when he didn't get his way.

This was bearable for 2 hours, but for a flight that's 10 times longer? Where I won't sleep for at least 30 hours? And with 2 kids to look after? I just don't know that I'm brave enough to do it alone.

The obligatory holiday shots

On the North Sea

This is the town we are staying in this second week in Scotland:

Nothing much else to report.

The best blueberry pancakes

The blueberry pancakes I made for breakfast this morning were the best I have ever made. They even earned me a kiss from Bronnie.

So to share the love, here's the recipe:

1 cup (250g) self-raising flour
2 eggs, separated
something like 3/4 cup milk
1 tablespoon melted butter
extra butter for cooking
blueberries (fresh or frozen, but fresh is MUCH better)

Beat the eggwhites until stiff. Mix everything else separately, except for the blueberries. Add the milk slowly - the consistency should be thicker than for regular pancakes. Stir in the beaten eggwhites - be gentle, you don't want to destroy all the bubbles. The batter should end up being foamy.

Melt butter in a pan over a medium heat, dollop half a ladleful of batter into the pan, drop some blueberries on top, turn when golden on bottom. It's best not to make the pancakes too big otherwise they don't cook so well in the middle. Melt new butter in the pan for every batch.

Serve with maple syrup. And proffer your cheek for kisses!

I made double the quantites above, which fed 3 regular adults, one breastfeeding adult, one toddler, one pre-schooler, and one baby.

He looked away at the wrong moment

Highland fun