Read it Again!

Read it again, Daddy!

One of the things that always pleasantly surprises me about reading with a small person is their amazing ability not to get bored. I remember once going to a talk about children and reading and being told the statistic that on average children will read the same book 40 times. 40? Yes, 40! And I'm beginning to suspect that that's a conservative estimate.

Every single night for the last three weeks, I have had the pleasure of reading from Yummy by Lucy Cousins. It is a brilliant book, but a very dark book indeed – no doubt about it. Foxy Loxy does bite the heads off Ducky Lucky, Cocky Locky, Goosey Poosey and co. The wolf does swallow up Little Red Riding Hood and her poor sick granny and the woodsman then really does go on to hack his head off. From the format of the book, the level of the text and the bright, cheerful illustration it's obvious that this collection of traditional tales is aimed at two-year-olds but to me it's a bit scary. Lucy Cousins' stories and illustrations are pretty terrifying (albeit terrifying in primary-coloured way) but Little C cannot get enough of them. She gets five stories (or sometimes more) a night and if she had her way, they would all come from Yummy.

Just a few of our current favourites

Mummy however, has a lower tolerance for repetition and limits this anarchic toddler-fodder to two or three stories per night with the remains of the quota made up from a regular selection of firm favourites. I love it when we like the same books and I always feel a little bit proud when she chooses a Walker Book. A Bit Lost by Chris Haughton, I Want My Hat Back by Jon Klaassen and the fabulously feminist The Princess and the Pony by Kate Beaton never fail to please. But we also love The Gruffalo (who doesn't?), The Storm Whale, Orange Pear Apple Bear and just about anything illustrated by Britta Teckentrup. We like books that rhyme, books with lots of different voices (even if my accents are a bit inconsistent), funny books and above all, books with animals in them.

It's nice to bring new books into our (not-so) little library, but we will always return to the old favourites. Even if we have read them a time or two too many!

Read Me a Story

So you may have noticed that my most recent blog post was a little bit different from what I normally write. There was less about me and mine and more about the books that I have been reading and enjoying. I've really missed writing here, as it's something very much for me, and I have come to the realisation that if I want to write I need to actively make the time to do it and then just do it! Now, reading on the other hand is something that I can always find time to do (especially on the train into London) and if I write about reading then I have the perfect prompt – something to write about that I'm passionate about and that I do all the time so, in theory, I should always have something to write about.

I am seriously lacking creativity in my life right now, so this is my way of getting some back. Bear with me while I figure out how it will work. At the moment, I'm thinking that during the week I will post about one or two of Little C's books (and naturally about her) then at the weekend, I will post about the books that I read for pleasure (and whatever else has brought a bit of pleasure into my life). The main thing, though, is that I will be writing, and hopefully that will lead to me making, baking, getting out and about a bit more and generally making more of my life. (At least that's the theory!) So here goes.

This week, for the very first time, Little C read us her bedtime story. The story of choice was The Biggest Kiss by Joanna Walsh and Judi Abbot (published by Simon and Schuster). It's a follow up to The Perfect Hug from the same team, which we enjoyed a great deal in boardbook. When we first read The Perfect Hug, I didn't get it. It didn't scan particularly well, it didn't rhyme brilliantly and there wasn't a huge amount of story, but then one night something just clicked and we discovered the real flow of the book. And it was magic. Trust in editors and go with it. Just reading the words as they come, without trying to get them to fit into the regular norms was lyrical and lovely and made all the difference in the world to our reading. And I think this must be what has helped Little C to love the book so much and to remember practically all the words so that she could read the book to us. I think that these two books are poetry and we'll remember her reading her first story to us for a very long time. Thanks to Aunty Laura, Uncle Mark, Adam and Sam for such a lovely present.

The second book that I'd like to share with you this week is the rather scrumptious Deep in the Woods by Christopher Corr (published by Frances Lincoln), which we bought last weekend at The Hambledon in Winchester.  It is luminous and lovely with almost-neon colours that shout out of the pages. The artwork is charming and the story, with its group of animal friends is delightful. There are no bad characters in it, everyone is friendly and they work together to find a way that they can co-exist happily. The sense of community fosters a kindness in the book that is all too often missing, sacrificed for a bit of dramatic tension or some mild peril. A really special book that I'm sure will stay in rotation for a good while yet.

Excellent Women

If you were the kind of person that might judge a book by its cover (which let's face it, I know do - all the time) you would certainly find that these two books are very fine books indeed. They are both beautifully designed and produced and are just the kind of book that I would want to read, just from looking at them. I picked The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim as a holiday read for our recent week in Cornwall and D bought Pax by Sara Pennypacker as a present for me from the most excellent St Ives Bookseller. Sadly I didn't have enough time to finish either of them while we were actually away. (I did finish The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin, but more of that another time.) But now we're back and I have my reading time on the train, I've raced through them both and enjoyed them very much indeed.

In Pax, Sara Pennypacker has seamlessly woven three stories: that of the title character Pax, his boy Peter, and the broken (but not bowed) Vola. All three characters are rich and believable. I don't usually go in for talking animals, but the very 'foxness' of Pax is utterly enchanting and convincing to boot. 

The background to these stories is a war-torn country, the precise area in which Peter and Pax live has been evacuated. Peter's father has enlisted and Peter is sent to his grandfather's house, meaning that he must leave Pax behind. Needless to say, this doesn't go well for either of them and the first section of the book is dedicated to their anxious search for each other.

The second section of the book is where, for me, things got really interesting and new characters were introduced. Two cranky women. (Perhaps this is why I liked it so much!) Vola is a woman damaged by war and Bristle is a vixen fighting to survive against the humans while looking after her brother Runt.  On first encounter, neither of these women want anything to do with Peter or Pax but as the lives of the two humans and the two foxes become entwined they soon become as important to each other as the fox and his boy. The third section of the story sees the two main characters reunited but the shift in the dynamics of their relationships has altered everything and life will never be the same again for either of them. The finale was heart-wrenching, but the openness of the ending left hope for me that all would ultimately be well.

This was a wonderful book that I would whole-heartedly recommend. Viola is one of the most excellent women characters in children's literature that I've met in a while. The only thing that would have made it better for me would've been far more of Jon Klassen's delicious illustrations, but you can't have everything.

Speaking of excellent women brings me onto the second book that I finished this week. I am a huge fan of the Virago Modern Classics range and have been ever since I discovered Excellent Women by Barbara Pym with a cover by Orla Kiely.

This beautiful book with a cover by Angie Lewin has been sitting by my bedside for quite some time waiting for a suitable occasion, and a holiday in Cornwall in April just felt like the perfect time to be reading The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim. The interiors are every bit as delightful as the cover and the four women who find themselves thrown together for a month in an Italian castle are about as colourful and charming as you could hope for. Set in the 1920s, two young women, Rose and Lotty, both dissatisfied with the marriages are brought together by an advertisement in the Times for a small Italian castle available to rent for the month of April. Finding it a stretch financially, they enlist two very different women, the bored but beautiful, Lady Caroline and the haughty and lonely Mrs Fisher. At first meeting they get on terribly, but as the weeks pass by and their relationships deepen the magic of San Salvatore weaves its way in and out of their lives. It's not massive on story, but the characters are all and it is simply wonderful. I dare you not to love it!

A Room of Her Own

What a great couple of months we've had since I last posted here. We've had our first family holiday to Cornwall (including Catriona's first steps in the sea!), done lots of work around the house (all of the things that we've been putting off for the last eighteen months), and watched our little baby change and grow, turn into a little girl and begin being her own wonderful, wonderful person. 

It's amazing to see the changes in her from day to day. Just last week over the course of two days, she learned six new words; teeth, cheese, Janey, Phoebe, bed and Volvo. (D is particularly proud of that last one!) She understands things in a way that we've never really appreciated. She has a sense of time passing, she knows who she is in the context of her own world and she is happy in it. 

When we came back from our holiday, she finally moved into her own room. A little later – well, a whole year later – than we'd planned, but wow! what a difference it has made to us all. It's a lovely room and a space that I would've loved to have had as a child. It is very much her own room though, with her bed and her clothes, books, toys, a mobile, lights and pictures (although the latter aren't actually up on the wall yet.) We bravely took the decision to take the sides off her cot to give her a big girl's bed and true to her own unflappable nature, she slept in it completely unfazed from day one. And boy, does she sleep. When her cot was at the bottom of our bed, she would wake up four, five, six times a night. I'm a restless sleeper and, to be honest, we wound each other up. But now – and I truly hope that this will last – she goes to bed and stays in bed, asleep until we go upstairs to wake her up the following morning.  

And waking her up is now my new favourite time of the day. She always wakes up with the most spectacular bedhead and a breathtaking need to chat. She can go from sound asleep to full on blabbermouth in less than five seconds. It's astonishing. And lovely. And the only way to distract her from her early morning monologue is to ask, "Catriona, would you like some breakfast?", to which the answer is unswervingly and resoundingly, "YES!"

And then we start our day and the rest of our lives together. Love that girl!

A Little Bit of Time...

Imagine that you had a day when you could do pretty much whatever you wanted. Just one day to do as you pleased. What would you do?

As a result of our lovely friends being away on holiday for a week, I needed to do an extra nursery run and I decided that rather than ask for an extra work-from-home day, I would take a day's holiday to drop C off and then have a little bit of time to myself.

In the run up to my day, I spent a certain amount of time mulling over what I might get up to. I knew that I wanted to do only nice things and to make every minute count. To do things that are hard to do when you've got a little person needing your attention. The anticipation became a treat in itself; what would I do? what could I do? There was no should about it, no sense of duty, because I was only going to do things that I wanted to do.

And on the day itself, I dropped Catriona off at nursery and headed straight to the leisure centre to actually go for a swim. Going swimming with a toddler, means splashing around, jumping in and walking around the pool with a baby torpedo, but no actual swimming takes place. This time was different, I swam thirty leisurely lengths, savouring the silence, and I left the centre properly dressed, with dry hair and even with a bit of make-up on! 

Next up was a brisk walk up to Clarendon Palace in the glorious sunshine (lucky me) and a walk back through the nature reserve at Whitebridge Spinney. 

This ran nicely into lunchtime so I took myself off for an alfresco lunch of wild garlic tart at the very lovely Henderson's Artisan Bakery and stayed on after lunch to read my book in the sunshine with a cup of tea. 

I had planned lots of things for the afternoon – knit, make malteser tiffin, watch a movie, paint my nails – but the weather was so nice that I took a blanket to my nearest park and read my book until it was time to collect little C from nursery.

What a wonderful day. And the best part of that day? Seeing C's lovely little face when I picked her up from nursery and getting those two perfect, pudgy arms wrapped around my neck when I reached down to pick her for a cuddle.

Getting Back to Normal

What a wonderful thing time is. It passes quickly, slowly, imperceptibly, irrevocably. If you can get through it, you can get through anything. And so here we are. After one year, two months and fifteen days, I finally feel as if I am getting back some of my own time, and I have to tell you, it feels wonderful! I love being a mum, but it is not the only thing about me. Today is not a landmark day, nothing major has happened to make me feel like this, but the sun is shining and as I took the time to walk the last part of my journey to work along the river, I realised that yes, I am getting my life back.

Taking time back has been a gradual process, which started with the little lady going to nursery. It wasn't the smoothest process initially and we both struggled at times, but she cracked it and now she loves it. It has enabled me to go back to work, which again hasn't been easy – there's been a certain amount of guilt, my priorities have altered and I have frequently questioned whether or not I'm doing the right thing, but I have (at least today, I think I have), and it's good for both of us. I get to use my brain and can engage in adult conversation about something other than babies; and she gets to throw powder paint onto the snow and feed baby goats from a bottle. I work for three days a week, which means that the majority of my week is spent with her – it's a better balance all round. More than this, it's not just rejoining the world of work that has been a good thing. The time that I spend either side of my working day is a wonderful thing, the commute which used to be a bit of a chore has now become my own precious time to read, knit,  daydream or even freelance. I have read more in the last ten weeks than in the entire year of my maternity leave and I LOVE it!

Most recently, I've been reading a lots of great books. Highlights have been Bellman and Black by Diane Setterfield, The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters, The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins the two 'Cormoran Strike' novels by Robert Galbraith (aka J. K. Rowling), Waffle Hearts by Maria Parr, The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell, The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer and Perfect  by Rachel Joyce. I'm currently devouring Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay and can't wait to get stuck into The Museum of Extraordinary Things by Alice Hoffman. Catriona is currently reading Hippos Go Beserk! by Sandra Boynton, Rosie's Walk by Pat Hutchins and Noodle Loves to Cuddle by Marion Billet.

It is wonderful to be back in the world of books, both reading and making. But beyond books,  I've also taken up yoga again and have found a really enjoyable vinyasa flow class in a village just outside of Salisbury. I have picked up my needles again in earnest and am knitting a sweet little cabled cardigan for Catriona's friend Janey. I'm gradually doing the things that I used to enjoy so very much before having a baby. 

To be honest, the baby isn't really such a baby anymore. She is walking (clumsily) and talking (in an almost intelligible way) and full of cuddles and kisses. Developmentally, it seems like there is something new every single day. This week, she climbed the stairs for the first time and last week, she walked over to the fridge, opened the door and helped herself to a punnet of raspberries. This morning, before I left for work she said, "Bye" and gave me a lovely, lovely kiss. I can't tell you how hard it was to leave the house. She has everything ahead of her and she amazes me every day.

Looking forward, I want to carry on keeping the balance; looking after her and looking after me. I want to appreciate my lovely husband more, get out running regularly, make more, read other people's blogs more, get out in the garden more and maybe even go out on a date... (Oh, and blog more – see you soon.)

Hello Again

Well, hello there! I'm sorry I've been away for so long (has it really been five months?) but I've had my hands a bit full with the charming creature that is becoming more and more of a little girl every day. 

Today she is eight months old and eight months wonderful. The last couple of months in particular have been such great fun, as Catriona grows, develops and her individuality shines through. Her favourite things just now are the cat and food. Her adorable little face lights up and she squeals in delight whenever he ventures near. They've had a couple of close encounters and Coleman's patience has been sorely tested, but he turns out to have the patience of a saint and so far they're the best of friends. I really hope that it'll stay that way...

Food is her other great love and I have say that she's a natural born eater! She hasn't turned her nose up at a single thing we've put in front of her. (Though she does pull a brilliant face if presented with anything really cold!) We waited until she was a full six months before embarking on this particular adventure, as we wanted to try baby-led weaning, and she was very, very ready. We hit the ground running with three full meals - and a lot of milk besides - eating together and sharing exactly the same foods. Mealtimes are my favourite times of the day, even if the clearing up afterwards is quite challenging!

When she's not eating or beaming at Coleman, the little lady has a fabulous social life. (Oh, so much better than ours!) Catriona goes to classes twice a week with her little baby buddies and loves to swim at the leisure centre. We like to keep busy so we have our own little adventures, which this week have included a morning out at Mottisfont and a day out in glorious Bath Spa tomorrow with Lois and Janey. 

As you can imagine, this doesn't exactly leave much time for me to create, craft or read, but I do keep trying. I'm currently reading The Apothecary by Maile Meloy and The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden by Jonas Jonasson and I'm knitting a fox-face hat and a cloudy sky blanket for Catriona, of which more in my next post. (Which hopefully won't be such a long time coming!) See you here again soon. Nx