Fishing

- I'm going to catch a fish in my net. A big one. Not a mummy one, a papa one. And not a baby. A papa. And then we're going to take him home, and then we're going to cook him, and then we're going to eat him for dinner.

And then two seconds after I took the photo, he fell over in the mud. That was the end of fishing.

The best fun he's ever had

Och aye

We're in Scotland! We're in the middle of nowhere in the Western Highlands, where driving 10 miles on the narrow, windy road takes about an hour, and there's no mobile phone connnection, and no shops for 15 miles in either direction, and the temperature is around 10 degrees... but there's meant to be otters and pine martens frolicking on the shore, and we've seen deer, and hopefully we'll get to see puffins and dolphins and whales and basking sharks and selas, and Téo is hoping to see a monster in one of the lochs, and the view from the house is rather nice:

Plus we're here with good friends from Oz (Bronnie and family) which is the best of all.

Posting may be light for the next couple of weeks...

On the home front (II)

The floor of our house was once the floor of a sea. The shells of creatures that lived and died in the sea are still there:

This is cool, yes. But the floor of a sea is a soft silty place, which doesn't change much even millions of years later after it's turned into stone. So if a child were running around on the stone and happened to knock over something heavy, something like this for example:

... then you'd get five powdery holes in your new floor. Something like this in fact:

On the home front (I)

Before we moved from the small apartment, I wondered if maybe we would feel a bit lost in the big house, not being able to hear each other if we were in different rooms. I also wondered how I would maintain my supermummy ability of knowing exactly what my kids were up to all of the time.

I needn't have worried - the atrium does a very fine job of transmitting sound around the house. If the room windows are open, any sound made in one room bounces off the atrium walls into every other room, so you can hear what's going on as if it were happening right next to you.

This can be a bit disconcerting sometimes. We'll call out to find each other, but the answering I'm here! sounds like it was said a few centimetres away, no matter which room or what floor it came from.

And then today while I was on the toilet, I suddenly I heard the au pair and Téo speaking loudly just outside the door. Not wishing J to hear me going about my business I hung on... and then saw the bathroom window was open. Realising they were actually elsewhere in the house, I carried on... and then had the awful thought that if I could hear them like they were next to me, could they hear me like I was next to them??

C and I need to urgently do some sound checks.

Belated birthday wishes

I have a beautiful goddaughter in Australia.

Isn't she beautiful?

I don't know her very well.

For a few years back in the 90s I spent a lot of time with her parents, especially her dad, who worked at the same place as me. He was one of my best and closest friends. But that was over 10 years ago now. I went to live overseas for a year and never returned - and in the meantime she came into existence and was born and became a toddler and then a little girl and then a young girl. In all that time, I've spent maybe a whole day in her presence. In two hour fragments, up to 18 months apart.

These fragments form a rough sense of her life... an 18-month old stubbornly insisting on using chopsticks to eat her rice... a three-year old using toilet roll binoculars to spot goats at the zoo... a three-and-a-half-year old proudly cuddling her new baby brother...a four-and-a-half-year old diving into a pool and colouring in princess drawings... a five-and-a-half-year old playing with my niece... a six-and-a-half-year old dutifully giving me a kiss... a seven-and-a-half year old playing Wii tennis. It's not much though.

The last time I saw her, she asked why I was taking so many photos. Because I don't see you very often, I replied. Because I want at least some record of this lovely girl whose childhood is passing me right by, is what I didn't say.

I don't imagine she has any sense of me, this stranger who appears every now and again with late Christmas and birthday presents.

And I'm late again this year in wishing her a happy birthday. But Anja, despite my almost complete lack of contact with you, I'd like you to know that I think of you often, and worry about whether you'll like clothes that I want to buy for you, and that even though we don't know one another I am still fiercely proud to be your godmother.

And that I hope one day, we will know each other.

Happy (slightly late) 8th birthday!!!

My cute boy (for his fairy godmother)

The door to my office, where I am working, just opened.

- Mummy, I'm going to tell you something wewy intewesting.

Téo comes in, looking around, clearly seeking inspiration.

- I'm just going to tell you...

He looks around some more.

- Ummmm....

He comes over, stalling.

- Ummmmmm.... J (the au pair) and me is going to play Memowy.

I give him a kiss.

- OK mummy, I'm leaving you to work. Goodbye!