Five years later

...and still going strong.

The Swiss side is winning

Today, upon seeing a certain sport on TV:

- Hey mummy, why are those men snowboarding on waves?

There and back

So yes, I did it again, disappeared into the ether, not even a Facebook of a warning. Sorry.

We were away again, this time in blustery, drizzly, chilly, but still somehow sun-burny England. Thankfully far far away from the riots, in Cornwall:

And then around a bunch of stones:

With a fairy godmother!

More photos on flickr one day soonish.

Now I'm off to eat vegetables. And fruit. Lots of both. Because after a week of English breakfasts and pub meals? I have a serious craving for raw and crunchy.

Next steps

We had a chat at the shop. A chat about how if he likes the pink gumboots the best, then he should most definitely choose them. How there are no right or wrong clothes or colours, how we should wear what makes us feel good. But also how he should be aware that some people think pink is only for girls, and when we do something that runs against what people think, well then, those people may say something. Something not very nice. So if he wants the pink gumboots, then he needs to be strong enough to not care what other people say.

- I'm strong enough mummy, I am, I'm strong enough.

Snapshot catch-up

1.

So it's summer, and the school holidays, and that means swimming lessons! Only, the hot weather stopped when the holidays started, and even with a wetsuit it's only been warm enough for three lessons. Is my child ever going to get past learning to kick on his back?

2.

I was at the Japanese embassy the other night, supping on sushi and tempura on the Lake Geneva waterfront in a beautiful mansion (in the original, not Japanese, sense of the word). There's no picture because that would just be gauche, dahlings, and in any case it was pissing down rain so we were all kind of huddled and shivery and not looking as splendid as we otherwise might. 

But the cold meant that when nature called, I was warmly and very welcomely reminded of a quite lovely Japanese custom: the heated toilet seat. And looking for the toilet paper, I was reminded of another: the built-in bidet. It was somehow even more amusing in English. 

3.

I have a bike! My mum's not here any more so there's no picture of me on it, but still, I have a bike!

I have to admit, I was a little nervous hopping on, it being 11 years since the last time I rode a bike, back in the day in Japan. But it turns out it's true what they say about bikes and never forgetting. I felt like I was flying.

4.

And where did we go, on our first - and, thanks to the near-incessant pissing down rain, only - family ride? The village shooting festival! You can read about it here.

Overtaken on the wrong side

- I've got Angry Birds on my iPad!

- Angry Birds?

- You haven't you heard of it? It's the most popular app ever! Hundreds of millions of downloads!

--- iPad is started up and the game is shown to me ---

- You have to fire the birds at the cages to release the birds that were caught by the poachers. Then you have to kill the monkeys. They were helping the poachers. And at the end is the evil cockatoo, he's really hard to kill. ... Hah! You didn't beat my score!!

- But how do you know the story?

- Well it's the story from Rio.

- But when was Rio released?

- Sometime earlier this year.

- And there's been hundreds of millions of downloads since then??

- No silly, this is a special Rio version, there's the original Angry Birds version too.

- Oh.

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This conversation - in which I so totally played the role of the out of touch, clueless mother - was sadly not with anyone from a younger generation, but someone two up from me: my mother.

I am feeling slightly more hip this weekend, having now seen the film (albeit only in 2D) and bought the app for my iPhone.

I still don't have a tablet* though.

My iPhone aside, C has declared us as Android-only.

The sweet gesture... that wasn't

Téo's school had an end-of year concert... which, yes, was a few weeks ago now, but hey, things have been busy.

Anyway, Téo was in a school concert. After the concert, the kids went back to their classrooms to change and for a little snack, while the audience mingled in the playground. After not very long, Téo came running out asking where Lukan was. When I pointed him out, Téo ran off to give his little brother half the chocolate bar he'd been given in class.

Now, Téo is pretty good about sharing lollies with Lukan - as long as Lukan is right there. If not, then he gobbles them all up himself.

I was feeling pretty proud of my first-born for thinking of his brother. I may have mentioned this to a couple of other mothers. You know, in passing.

And when it came time to go home, I told Téo how nice it had been of him to give Lukan half his chocolate.

- Well, I didn't really like it.

Oh.

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The second post of my 2-month blogging gig is up! This time I'm rambling about my rambling veggie patch.