Busy busy. Mum came to look after us for a fortnight, which was lovely: so nice to have that extra pair of hands to pass the baby to, or to peel potatoes, or colour with Tamsin, or do Maggie’s homework. (I mean, of course, help M with her homework.) And now she has gone and we are working out how to manage three children two grownups; it seems the way to manage is mostly to do no housework beyond the absolute essential* and to live in a midden. So naturally I have upped the ante by choosing this week to put the house on the market. Any buyers out there who can see past the toys and clutter and non-cream walls and distinct lack of immaculacy?

We have a new car, so can all leave the house simultaneously and not in convoy. It is a Toyota so may well be recalled for weirdy accelerator issues:  it will have to go back anyway as they have not fitted the reverse parky beepy things that we requested. Not sure if it is the fault of the lease company or Toyota; frankly I don’t much care as long as it is resolved before I reverse into something. Cameron sold his at the weekend and is now driving my old one, muttering under his breath about the yogurt and crumbs and mud and general unpleasantness of it: he tried to get it valeted on Sunday but was turned away from two places. We are not sure if they were scared by the state of it or just about to close.

Jenny** is growing and growing and I know this is a good thing and what babies are supposed to do yet couldn’t help feeling sad as I realised I had to stop cramming her little feet into newborn-sized babygros and get out the next size. It is a novelty for me to have a big baby (she’s not huge, just biggish) after the other two tots, and she is such a happy content sweet thing with bright eyes and a double chin. Maggie is reading, properly – just discovering the Secret Seven and really not that interested in being read to or even in reading out loud but just wants to be left in peace with her nose stuck in. Just like her mum. She’s a sensitive soul who was upset when Granny went home. Tamsin is, well, three, and didn’t give a monkeys. Very three. She’s enjoying preschool but still refuses to speak there (but will whisper, with some sort of 3-year-old logic) and is great at jigsaws -oh, and she has started ballet lessons which she loves.

* Essential = one hot meal a day, clean plates to eat it from, clean clothes.
**Links are to photos

All sorts of lapsed bloggers have been crawling out from the woodwork and behind stones this Christmas period. I feel inspired to join. If anybody out there isn’t on FB/my text list/the grapevine and is thus unaware, baby Jenny joined us on December 20th (just: 1.11 am). I may be a biased and rose-tinted mum – and it may be early days – but she’s a pretty perfect baby and her big sisters are thrilled. More photos can be found here, including one of M&T dragged from their beds to meet the new arrival, and for those of you who enjoy such entertainment her birth story will follow just as soon as I can bear to put her down for long enough (and as soon as I find time without a babe-in-arms that isn’t immediately claimed by another child or some essential household task. Or sleep.) All I will say for now is that independent midwives rock, and are worth every single penny.

Her first couple of days of life were spent on the sofa snoozing and feeding (she is a champ and has gained a lb already, at 10 days old) and generally getting over the whole pushing out a baby at way past one’s bedtime thing (didn’t get to bed until after 3 the night she arrived). My favourite event was surprising Sara, in whose house we had been at 5 pm on Saturday (no baby): her face was a picture when she walked into our living room at 10 am on Sunday to find a whole new human being had arrived overnight! On day 3, we finally managed to put up the Christmas tree and were visited by a different midwife; this one had wondered the day before J arrived if it would be worth trying a wee bit of homeopathy: we had discussed whether it would work if you didn’t believe in it. She maintains it clearly does (I think she’d have arrived regardless). Day 4 my milk arrived – I need say no more for anybody who has been through it – as did my parents.

A pleasant if necessarily quiet Christmas: mum and dad came and cooked goose and trimmings (and now they have gone I can put selected leftovers in the bin but shh don’t tell!) and occupied M & T with games and crafts. They (the girls) had clearly absorbed all the propaganda about santa not coming if one didn’t go straight to sleep: when I went up to tuck them in and fill their stockings, I found two girls lying perfectly straight under completely undisturbed duvets, clearly neither of whom had twitched a single muscle since bedtime. Both slept until 745 which was quite a present for us, too. [Aside: at a week old I find it hard to evaluate whether J is "good", but I am getting a lot more sleep now than when I was pregnant, which probably means she is. I was asked today whether she was sleeping through, which struck me as a bit nuts.]

J and I had our first outing yesterday – her first ever trip outside the house, my first venture beyond the garden shed for 10 days. Lovely to get walking not waddling and I so enjoyed getting the baby sling back out. Today was busy with the health visitor (a profession of which I have not been given cause to revise my opinion), a trip to the hospital for J’s hearing test (all clear) and a new tumbledryer as mine picked the perfect time to break down. J has experienced three short car rides so far and has screamed through them all which does not bode well for next week when we must go to Surrey.

Fry a chopped onion and some garlic (I used 3 cloves, peeled but not chopped) in some olive oil until they are starting to look quite brown and caramelisedy (it is too a word).  Add about 1/2 tsp ground cumin, 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon and 1/3 tsp flaked dried chilli; stir about a bit then pour in about 500 ml nice chicken stick (home made for even more smugness). Add 1 1/2 minute but home-grown butternut squashes, diced (or, I don’t know, about half of a normal shop-sized one), and simmer with the lid on until that goes soft and, ahem, squashy. Let it cool a bit then blitz to a gorgeous smooth thick soup.  Scoff the lot then lie groaning on the sofa until it is time to get the children (who wouldn’t have appreciated it anyway).

So, Cameron spent 2 weeks in Switzerland on a course. (No I have no idea, you’d have to ask him.) Fortunately we had had enough notice of this one that I had my parents booked for the first week – always good to have extra pairs of hands for the small fee of meals and coffees out; Dad even pickaxed-up two patches of very hard lawn, which now very much resemble freshly dug graves, for me to assemble my raised beds, ex-allotment (boo hiss), next spring.

The middle weekend was spent with about 20-odd people (friends and friends-of-friends) at the very lovely park hall; highly recommended if you need somewhere to accommodate so many people in the middle of nowhere, want a small pebbly bay within walking distance and a lovely sandy beach a 10-minute drive, don’t mind having no phone reception and fancy fresh air and silence. The girls had a whale of a time, I got loads of sleep, what more could we have wanted?

The second week actually passed surprisingly peacefully, despite me having a  looming deadline (which was supposed to be my last as I have awarded myself some maternity leave). Oh, and we just won’t mention me locking the keys (car and house) into the car boot and spending a good 3 hours organising and then waiting for my rescue service. If I hadn’t been quite so pregnant, and hadn’t had 2 small children to watch me, and had thought of it (!), I could have probably managed to get up onto the roof and in through the bathroom window. It wouldn’t have been elegant.

Friday morning, Cameron had to get a train right across Switzerland to catch a plane: this got him home a mere half-hour later than anticipated which allowed us an overlap of approximately 25 minutes (I wrote a briefing note) before it was my turn to go! On the train to London to meet Pewari and attend TAM.

Great weekend. Great. Even though I am truly abysmal as a modern woman and missed my children (we are all supposed to be champing at the bit to get away for some Me Time.) All the speakers were exceptional, without, um, exception; a couple of the comedians on the Saturday night were not entirely my thing but given that we were at the conference centre from 8 am and didn’t get back to the hotel until 1130, I was feeling quite jaded by then anyway. My quote of the conference goes to Glenn Hill (son of the Cottingley Fairies photographer) who described people of religion as “human goslings”, imprinting on the first thing they are told. In context it was quite brilliant. My heart was warmed by the delegates’ reaction to Simon Singh announcing his wife was expecting their first baby: proof positive that sceptics are not cynics.

In no particular order, my impressions were as follows: great shoes, wacky slogan T-shirts, i-phones, twitter. Geeky yet pleasant and very friendly. How can they expect you to eat sausage and mash without a knife (and why no ketchup?). Dehydration. Bad coffee; good choice of teas. “Breakfast” does not equal coffee and a pastry in my book. Richard Wiseman hilarious.

Maggie asked Cameron on Saturday whether I would be home this week. Apparently if I was (I am, obviously) we would “be like a proper family”. Way to layer the guilt, child. May I just point out that the last time I went away overnight leaving Cameron to do childcare, I was expecting Tamsin?

OK, I need some help from somebody who knows. I thought my grasp of science was quite firm but I find it shaken to its foundations by tricky questions from Maggie (who, incidentally has been in and out and in and out of school like a tee-to-tum* this past week; we have no idea what is going on except she’s a bit poorly. Sometimes.) We’ve been touching on evolution a little since our visit to the Natural History Museum in the summer, but it is all a bit confused. What can I say, ask me about molecules!

She declares she doesn’t believe in dinosaurs because it doesn’t seem very likely, does it. Well no it doesn’t – and how to explain that they are not like fairies or, you know, dragons, or something that you can choose to believe in a bit if you like but really we all know they are not true. Or Santa – and we’ve had some interesting chats about the juxtaposition of him and Jesus, also, thanks to the church school she is attending.  The Christmas when Jesus was born was indeed the first Christmas, after a fashion, but was it the first time Santa brought presents? And if not, why not?

So. We established rather reluctantly that dinosaurs had existed a long time ago (we saw the skeletons, remember). But – here’s the science bit – did the monkey things** evolve from the dinosaurs? Or did they evolve from the other mammally things that were around at the same time (I think), mammoths and, um, sabre-toothed tigers and suchlike? And if that is the case, did they share a common ancestor? I am pretty firm on birds (and I imagine reptiles) evolving from dinosaurs, but didn’t some fishy thing crawl out of the swamp on its fins at some point? Was the pre-dinosaur, and did that then evolve into us or into birds?

*A thing that goes in and out a lot. No idea; ask my mum.
**She’s fairly unquestioningly happy about us having evolved from monkey things, and I am reasonably happy about hominids and Lucy and missing links. I think. We haven’t got into that in depth yet.

And yes, it is only Wednesday. Morning. After a very productive weekend (damson gin, plum wine, 3 loaves of bread), Sunday night was mostly spent listening to Tamsin cry with earache. Cameron sloped off to the spare room but I don’t think any of us got much rest. Irritatingly, the next day she was perky and bright while I moped about waiting for bedtime and wondering whether the day would ever end. One night of proper sleep then the school rang at Tuesday lunchtime for me to go and pick up a very poorly M. White, hot, headache…so I spent last night listening to her breathing, which didn’t sound very good. Occupying one child who wants to lie all sad and cuddled on the sofa at the same time as another who is rapidly developing cabin fever is something of a challenge – and C is away – and I have a stinking cold, did I mention that?

Moan moan whinge whinge.

First “hypnobirthing” session today. Mostly comprised sitting all quiet and comfy with my eyes shut for half an hour (nothing wrong with that) while the…hmm…not sure what to call her; hypnotist conjures images of gold watches and yooou are feeeeling sleeeepy while hypnotherapist suggests I have Issues. Anyway. She did a kind of guided relaxation, of the type that I am rubbish at after yoga classes. Bodily relaxation fine; stopping my brain from making endless to-do lists, not so good. Oh and I imagined I was in a beautiful garden a bit. Can’t honestly see how it is going to help but I am quite willing to give it a go: can’t hurt, can it.

OK so I haven’t quite been here as much as I intended.  Part two of our hol has not yet appeared. Today: a new term, a new school year. And boy are we back to normal: Mag loved school of course, despite a small wibble when we went in to her new classroom, saying goodbye to Ruby (different class this year) and not knowing where her drawer was. But apparently her new school shoes were brilliant. Tamsin and I zipped into town on the bus to visit the market for 2 kg of plums – I have an unexplained urge to make wine – and some damsons for gin, then she went off to preschool. Cameron has gone to Italy via London (he is showing some press people round Ferrari, how horrible for him) and I am home alone in the rain with a short deadline. And actually rather enjoying being on my own for the first time since July!

I haven’t set foot on the allotment since being kicked off: am going to have to stop being sad and embarrassed and get myself down there. There’s a sandpit and two raised beds (and some lovely veg, and a rhubarb crown that I know they have been coveting) that I will not leave for the next person. It’s raining though; did I mention that?

I’ve been reading…not that I am ever without a book, but I’ve been getting through them at a better rate (we’ll see what happens now it is term-time again). One of my reads was not on the label, an interesting book in the same vein as tescopoly or fast food nation. It wasn’t full of surprises but has reinforced a lot of the things I was trying to do anyway – so I am back baking bread, which had slipped over the holidays (and early pregnancy too, don’t forget – a pretty damn good excuse if you ask me) and stepping back from the meat-centric diet we had drifted towards. (This is complicated by Tamsin being almost exclusively carnivorous.) I have dug out my excellent river cottage bread book and today attempted english muffins (that’s them in the picture); bagels are next on the hit list. I am unsure about prawns, the farmed fish/wild fish thing continues to confuse me, but I feel quietly smug (and lucky) to have an organic farm shop in the next village that competes with the supermarkets price-wise and stocks about 95% of things I want.

I am so sad – we have been evicted from our allotment. For weeds, which to be fair are out of control, and because (pointed look at my midriff) you are not going to be able to do anything for 3 years are you. Which also might be fair enough but is not for them to say, and from past experience it is the period from 18 months – 2 1/2 that is the problem: newborn babies are quite happy on an allotment. I suspect the reality is that nearly all the other plots are dug by a gang of old boys, and one of their friends wants on.

On a purely selfish personal level, I am utterly gutted as this is my escape; somewhere I can pop to for a few hours in the evenings, weekends, or when the children are at school/nursery. Without it my day to day life will consist almost entirely of house stuff and mumming – I spend too much time here as it is. Conversely I am sad for the children who love coming down with me: Maggie has been in tears (why don’t they want us? and I just want our allotment back) and Tamsin gets ridiculously excited about digging potatoes from the ground, and is made happier by a fresh raw from-the-pod pea than almost anything else. I am also cross that my parsnips, squash and artichokes will be lost.

I am really annoyed that there was no warning whatsoever, beyond one of the plot-holders yesterday suggesting that there had been “whispers” about me (and she was only telling me because I am so nice. Huh.) Surely “sort your weeds or you are off” would have been only polite? And I don’t want to see any of them, so will have to go after dark to dig up all those potatoes, retrieve raised beds and sandpit, and remove all the other plants that I can hopefully find a home for here.

Train travel with small children – fantastic in that they are not strapped into a seat, they can colour and draw as they have a table, can get up to go to the loo and there are interesting things to look at out of the window. Drawbacks? They are not strapped into their seats (!) and I have a horror of impinging on other people’s peace and quiet.

We travelled from Chester to London, arriving around lunchtime – dumped our bags at the hotel and made our way to the Natural History museum. Brilliant, but unfortunately the entire under-13 population of London had chosen the same day to visit so although we spent time in the fascinating geology section and saw the whales, some of the mammals and some ichthyosaurs, there was a huge queue for the dinosaurs. Of course, with hindsight and post-disney, a 45-minute wait is nothing and we should have just queued and looked on it as good practice and getting our eye in.

The next morning saw us trundling cases to board the Disney Express!

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