THE PINK LEG

I went to a charity book sale that my friend was holding in aid of breast cancer in her back garden yesterday afternoon. Both she and her husband work for the NHS ironically. As the women sat around chatting, the many toddlers took turns on the big trampoline. All the kids except Anna were brave enough to have a shot. After everyone left I made to leave myself but my friend suggested I stay an extra hour as we hadn't got round to chatting. With only Léon, Amaia, Anna and her own four year old left, Anna finally decided she was brave enough, not to jump on the trampoline but simply to stand on it. Léon and my friend's son walked across the trampoline towards the exit to let Anna stay there alone. They were quite slow and quiet so as not to frighten her. The movement under her feet however made her wobble and fall to her knees on the surface of the trampoline. She didn't fall off, but started to cry. I figured she was just feeling a little scared as she often is around such things. My other friend carried her over to me, she cried for five minutes then sat on my knee hugging me. When we got up to leave she refused to walk but it had been a long, hot day so I carried her to the car and drove home. At home she still refused to walk. I made dinner, gave her calpol and thought that after an early night she'd have forgotten all about it. After all it wasn't swollen or bruised. This morning just before 8am we were awoken by a happy little voice shouting in Danish as always that she was awake. Thomas went up and took her out of bed as usual and tried to stand her down and she started to scream again. This just wasn't normal so I bundled Anna, Amaia, a buggy and a papoose into the car and was in Yorkhill by 8-30am. No one else was there so we were taken straight away. She refused to weight bear. No amount of coaxing worked, so she was x-rayed and they believed they could see a tiny hairline fracture above her knee. She was quizzed as to what colour of plaster she'd like and she agreed to pink. As soon as the doctors started to apply the five layers on this hot day she started wailing at them in mixed English/Danish My will ikke want that! She became ever more frustrated as she shouted ikke over and over to no avail. Eventually she calmed down and I took her home. She looked a little fed up most of the day as she was completely immobile. She didn't seem to be in in pain but was quite sad and clingy. She had seemed to be cheering up towards bedtime though we didn't put our finger on why until Thomas came in holding her pyjamas At last I can take this off she announced, assuming that the pink leg was part of the day wear that would be discarded along with the flowery dress. An inconsolable little girl was then carried up to bed wailing Why? over and over as she tried to get her head round it staying on till next Wednesday at the earliest.

WORLD CUP SWEEPSTAKE

We had this idea, given there are so many of us in the family, that we would have a family world cup sweepstake. The idea was for the six biggies to receive five teams each and so no one would claim unfairness Amaia could receive the two teams left over. We haven't decided on a prize value yet. I figure the winner will determine the type of prize we need to buy. Charlotte, being a big footie fan, was so enthusiastic she drew up all the teams from the Internet and put them in a hat ready for the big draw... so imagine her disappointment when she ended up with Australia, Ghana, USA, Algeria and Serbia! Mine weren't much better: South Africa, Côte d'Ivoire, Uruguay and Slovakia with the saving grace of Italy whose team might manage to roll about pretending to be injured again long enough to get into the final! (Miaow) Léon was pleased with France, as was Thomas with Denmark (though less with England). Thomas and Marcel split the bulk of the decent teams, but I have a sneaky feeling the winning prize might end up being a jar of Blueberry Baby Pudding given jammy Amaia drew Brazil (and Chile)!

A PROUD PARENTING MOMENT

 A day out Originally uploaded by PhylB

I know I'm going to come across as a sad middle-class cow but I'm going to share this with you anyway :-) Today my 4 year (and 8 months) old son was playing in the garden when a neighbour's 6 year old came wandering down the path holding a small burger in one hand and a McDonalds Happy Meal box in the other. Léon whispered to me What is that? I explained it was a burger and a Happy Meal box and he replied What is a Happy Meal? This came from a child who can tell chives from garlic chives in the herb patch and who knows which plants give raspberries, strawberries and blueberries around the garden! I'm a smug and happy mummy!

PHOBIAS

Something to think about if you are a parent... When we were at Amazonia's animal-handling session the other day every single child who recoiled from the petting animals on offer (a python, a tarantula and a lizard) screaming and crying was accompanied by a parent (usually the mother) who also refused to touch the same animal, displaying fear, loathing and hysteria. Even children as small as three or four had picked up on their parents' fears and developed the same. I remember the same phenomenon from my childhood with friends whose parents disliked cats or dogs. Before you burden your kids with your hang-ups, ask yourself if they really need them?

EMPATHY

 Bitsy and Teeny Troll Originally uploaded by PhylB

The empathy gene has kicked in! I was taking a bath with Anna and Amaia tonight as I often do. In fact Léon is also usually in there too! I long for a bath alone, without ducks, mermaids and boats! Anyway I was washing Anna's hair as usual. I soaped it up with one hand, holding Amaia with the other. She looked on, curious. I gave Anna a sponge to hold over her eyes and poured a pint of water over her head, again as always. Anna flinched and whimpered very slightly. Amaia started crying hysterically, though Anna wasn't crying! The same happened every time I rinsed Anna's hair. I ended up having to console Amaia for having washed Anna's hair! I can hardly wait till Amaia grows some too :-\

CEILIDHS

I was a big ceilidh dancer in my youth... oh dear I guess that statement implies I'm no longer in my youth :-( It started with uni. The German department was forever running 'German ceilidhs'. Then when I lived in Germany I remember one bizarre evening when Gillian, her then fiancé Billy and I ended up in a strange hippy commune teaching a lot of happy, drunk Germans the 'Dashing White Sergeant'. At my first wedding we had a ceilidh and André happily danced what he thought was called the 'Washing White Surgeon'! We broke tradition by being last to leave - we were just having too much fun to leave any earlier. Later at Collins in the early days we often found ourselves in Glasgow's Riverside club of a Friday evening ceilidhing some more. Ceilidhs hold very fond memories for me. Of course the most famous one was Vivian's 40th birthday party in Hyndland tennis club on 26-7-97. I was happily dancing a 'Strip the Willow' at midnight and by 5am I was in the Queen Mother's hospital in labour with Marcel - after driving three of the other guests home of course as I was the sober designated driver! Last night Thomas and I went to a birthday party. We had assumed it would be a meal and chatting affair but it turned out to be a ceilidh. I had a whale of a time despite my aching I've-left-Amaia-for-the-first-time-ever-over-full boobs. It's funny how you never forget all the dances and despite being overweight and out of shape from having Amaia, I didn't feel at all sore or out of puff! I'd love to go to more ceilidhs, though they really aren't the same if you don't know a few other couples to take along. It'd be a great way to keep fit too. I guess it won't be too many years before I can leave the kids the odd weekend evening to strip the willow once more - old hips permitting.

FIRST STEP TO INDEPENDENCE

Today Léon went to school for the first time ever. The induction process began a few weeks ago with parental meetings which I have been attending and trips by his teacher to his nursery, but today was his own first trip into school as a class to meet his teacher in situ and his classmates, not all of whom attend his nursery. We dropped him at the school gate at 9-30. Many of the children looked somewhat apprehensive clinging to their mums and needed coaxing in. Léon stood beside me till he saw they'd to line up in the playground. He ran in. The head teacher gasped as he almost knocked her over galloping through the gate. Wow this one's enthusiastic, she commented. We went to the dinner hall for a talk and waited nearly three hours for him to return. When the dinner hall door opened most kids ran to their mums' arms for a hug of reassurance. Léon, too ran towards us. I bent down for him to throw himself into my arms. He stopped, put his head close to mine and whispered Do you have money for me mum? I'm just gonna go get myself a school lunch! He seemed more confident than I had been expecting. Did that make me feel proud or sad...? So off we went to buy school dinners. I watched in amazement as somehow he managed not to drop the tray of food onto which he'd heaped a bowl of chicken noodle soup, 4 meatballs, mash, turnips, a box of raisins, a carton of apple juice and a tub of ice cream, not to mention a knife, a fork and two spoons. I didn't know my wee man was capable of walking so far balancing things - he never seems to manage it at home. He sat down and ate the raisins, then took a spoonful of the soup. It was too hot so he ate the four meatballs, followed by the ice cream, then the mash and then a bit more ice cream and finished up with the chicken soup, an efficient if interesting way to eat. He seems to have survived and enjoyed his first step towards independence.

TIME FOR A SAND PIT?

After my nit scare of last week, I was less stressed when I noticed both Léon and Anna seemed to have developed another dose of the beasties. Once again the culprit seems to be soil but given they now both have cycle helmets, a quick inspection of the whole garden turned up their own 'home-made sandpit'! I love having the garden for the kids - they are really in their element out there but between midday baths to remove mud from hair and three changes of clothes each a day for the wee ones because they've been watering their jeans instead of the potatoes or the likes, I may be needing a weekend away at a spa to recover soon!

ANOTHER SEASON ANOTHER SPOT

As we enter our third year of visits to Yorkhill still no closer to resolving Léon's ever-changing spot issue, it is with a mixture of despair and resignation that I watched today as his entire body broke out in spots, lumps and scratches from simply running barefoot across the grass. He wasn't allergic to grass last summer but this summer it looks like grass is going to be added to the ever-growing indeterminate list of mild but upsetting allergies - egg, marshmallows, shampoo, soap, various sweets, grass etc etc. Despite the fact that he is on a daily dose of 20ml of antihistamines all year round, the grass took less than ten minutes to do this to his legs, arms and feet (check out the picture full-size). When he used to show an allergic reaction to something, I'd rush for the antihistamines - now he has the reactions after his daily dose, I'm at a loss for a plan B :-( It is so frustrating to have no obvious solution to his painful and distressing problem.

PINK CAR

Shopping in ASDA last night I came across this beauty. I think I'd have to have it if ever I won the lotto (pity I don't play lotto). Apart from its cute value, I just would love to see Charlotte's look of horror the first time I turned up at school to pick her up in it!

BUTTERFLIES

Anna has a bit of a butterfly obsession at the moment. She has two pairs of shoes with butterflies on them, several T-shirts and a rain jacket. She just thinks they are the most beautiful creatures about... or should I say thought. Yesterday in the garden, the first butterfly of the season flew down and perched on the handle of Léon's trampoline. Thrilled to please his sister, Léon ran over to her and told her to come quickly to see it. She bounded over, stopped dead in her tracks as it fluttered towards her, screwed up her face and ran to me wailing it was a yucky thing! Some things disappoint in real life, I guess!

À QUOI ÇA SERT L'AMOUR?

 Ça sert à ça, l'amour !

NITS?

They all get nits at some point from nursery. Léon has never caught it and has only six weeks nursery left so I thought we were safe. Then last night I noticed he was scratching his head. I parted his blond hair to see lots of little black dots. Ho hum!
I dug out the old nit comb and forced the poor little bugger to sit still for half an hour while I combed each strand of his very thick hair. I removed bucketloads of the little black dots but found no eggs or beasties. How strange. I put on my glasses which I almost never use to see if I was missing something but still no bugs. Given his head was so full of the gritty bits I was astonished to find that the bugs had moved out en masse but there you go. I checked all the other kids and there wasn't a single sign of nits on them - weird again. I washed him and sent him back out to play with clean hair.
I looked out the window to see both Léon and Anna playing on bikes. Only Léon has a bike helmet because Anna has only started playing on bikes this week for the first time in her life. Léon has kindly lent her his bike helmet. Léon then cycled past wearing a dirty old flowerpot on his head. D'you like my helmet? he shouted as he passed.
I lifted it off and parted his hair - back to square one! It seems the nits were actually dried mud! Silly wee man - why do little kids not think to ask the obvious - I've just been wearing a plant pot mum - could it be mud?

SCHOOL GALA DAY

I like school gala day. It isn't that beat the goalie, rides on a pony and a raffle for a bottle of £2 shampoo are my thing, it is more the opportunity to surreptitiously offload old toys to their toy stall that appeals. Rather than the guilt at binning old and broken toys, you can convince the kids that letting the primary school sell them for school funds is a noble act.
This year however it came back to bite me in the bum. We usually leave before the end but somehow Thomas and I were still eating our strawberry cakes in the dinner hall when the clock struck 12 and they reduced every piece of rubbish in the hall to 10p and Léon and Anna proceeded to spend all the money I'd given them on toys more hideous, bulky and useless than anything I've ever handed in, with first prize going to Anna for choosing this mangy, demonic, jaundiced clown-baby doll that is already giving me nightmares!

A NEW BABYSITTER

We've been watching the TV more than usual - that is to say more than an hour a week - since the election. Obviously that means mainly news and debate programmes. Normally Marcel watches things like Heroes or 24. The kids tend to watch cbeebies. The difference with news, of course, is that you have a presenter staring straight into the camera and talking to us in our living room. Amaia has fallen asleep on a cushion in front of the TV almost every night since the election, convinced the newsreader is her new babysitter talking to her till she falls asleep. (Dad will probably argue they are boring her to sleep of course!)

CUPRINOL FENCE SPRAYER

We live in a corner house. When we moved in there was no fence on one side, just a conifer hedge but we thought a perimeter fence to fill in the gaps was advisable given how many small children inhabit our world. So there are now approximately 80-100 metres of wooden fence at various points round our garden. Of course 100 metres of fence is actually 200 because a fence has two sides. We painted the outside at the back of the house manually. It took about five hours so we decided that we had to find a better solution. We went to B&Q and found a sprayer because painting a 1m80 fence would take forever. First time we tried it (a couple of weeks ago) we realized we couldn't use the sprayer near the plants or fruit trees because everything was being completely coated with paint. We spent half an hour painting with it and Thomas spent an hour cleaning it afterwards :-( On Tuesday I went out and painted behind the trees manually. It took about five hours. My shoulder throbbed and I was covered in paint. I was knackered. Second time we tried it, it stopped working after the first ten minutes. It was clogged with paint. Thomas spent an hour cleaning it and then sieved the paint into it only to have it clog again after ten minutes. A second and third time Thomas cleaned it out, finding it only worked if you blew the paint out of it. It took two hours to clean the sprayer and half an hour to clean his beard. In the meantime I spent six miserable hours painting again manually. Third time it clogged we threw the useless piece of crap in the bin and both took out a paintbrush. We have about five hours left on the side of the house and maybe three on the other side. I am now sitting here recovering with a chunk of cake and a large gin. My shoulder aches, my arms ache, I feel like I could use a double hip replacement. The next time the fence needs painting, I am going to put the house on the market.

THE COMPLEX RELATIONSHIP OF SISTERS

Today I had to take Amaia for her second set of vaccinations. Last time round I had taken her alone but today I had Léon and Anna in tow too. I explained to both as they sat in the health visitor's room that Amaia would get two jags in her leg and that although she'd cry for a minute or two, she was ok and it was to keep her healthy. As expected, the minute the needles went in the face crumpled and a scream was mustered from her big toe. Anna cheered and clapped when she received her jag! Amaia cried for 30 seconds or so, slowly calmed down and then we left. A whole half an hour later Anna let out a huge scream from the back seat of my car as if she'd jammed her finger in the door or window. She was inconsolably trying to tell me what had happened but I couldn't make out a word. Had Pudge stolen a toy? Had she been stung by a rogue wasp? Bitten her tongue perhaps? Eventually she calmed down enough to sob That lady hurt my Amaia!... wait a minute - didn't she cheer and clap at the time? Crazy, mixed-up girl!

WAS DEVOLUTION REPEALED?

Jim Murphy MP has had a little election leaflet dropped through my door. On it he lists his priorities:

• working hard for the young,
  
• protecting child tax credits
  

Fair enough... He then goes on to list:

• keeping East Ren's schools the best in Scotland,
  
• building houses to rent,
  
• free bus travel for pensioners,
  
• policing,
  
• cancer treatment,
  
• NHS,
  
• local school catchment areas
  

Funny that - as far as I'm aware these issues are all devolved to the Scottish parliament - so it seems if we vote Mr Murphy back in he will work on two minor issues while riding on the back of the local MSP's achievements.
Now I know why the man was too busy to help my volcano-stricken family last month.
Mr Murphy - my head does not button up the back!

16:9

I almost always do portrait photography, for which 3:2 is the best format given the dimensions of a baby's face. Last week I was wandering around Copenhagen and I suddenly became aware of how much better the 16:9 format is for city photography. I ended up spending most of the week switching between the two. It's definitely worth remembering when in a city situation.

TABLETOP PHOTOGRAPHY

I think one of my favourite ages to photograph is around three or four months when you can stick a baby on a tabletop and snap all their wonderful expressions without fear of them crawling out of shot! How cute is this whole session? We get the whole spectrum of Amaia's personality - coy, curious, happy, worried and gentle.

WHO TO VOTE FOR ON MAY 6

I am a seasoned traveller. I have backpacked round Europe and even NYC alone and with kids and babies for the best part of 25 years so I don't normally find getting from A to B difficult. This time however crossing the 1400km from Copenhagen to Calais via Aarhus with over a million other stranded air passengers was proving tricky and costly. I didn't for one minute believe my MP (East Renfrewshire's Jim Murphy - Secretary of State for Scotland) could offer me anything I hadn't come up with myself but I wanted him to be aware there were people stranded in Europe for whom a bus in Madrid was not the optimum solution. More for fun, and for want of something better to do given the vacuum of information we were facing in Northern Europe, I decided to tease him with the following email first thing on Monday morning:

Hello Jim
I am one of your constituents living in Newton Mearns. This morning I had to ring all three of my children's schools to explain I, my husband and my 5 children are currently stranded in Europe unable to return home because of the Volcano. I was told many children and teachers are in the same situation.I find it interesting that no one is coming up with any solutions to get us home. Flying is a cheap form of transport these days - being able to fly to Europe doesn't mean you have enough money to finance endless nights in unbooked hotels, meals in restaurants or buses, trains and ferries across Europe. I simply cannot afford to come home by means other than budget airlines.

Today I was utterly dismayed to hear Gordon Brown on BBC world coming up with a plan to repatriate people in the US via Spain not even mentioning people stranded in Europe itself. I was due to fly from Copenhagen last Friday morning. I have tried overland and managed to get as far as Hamburg where the trains are now so full I cannot proceed given I have 2 babies with me. I am being offered 5 hour waits between train connections in the middle of the night in the middle of Germany and they are estimating 2 days overland to Calais where I might get a boat and then try to find my way from Dover to Glasgow. Three days overland at huge expense, with 5 kids between 12 weeks and 12 years is unaffordable.

Apart from Mr Brown no politician seems even to have noticed the crisis. I will be deciding who to vote for on May 6, depending on who has some real and practical solutions for me and the many families stranded at the end of the Easter school holiday.

I look forward to hearing your suggestions.


Of course I heard nothing back for 48 hours, which had I not had my mother-in-law's flat keys would have cost me another £300 at Danish prices if I had needed to pay two days food and two nights in a hotel at the current exchange rate. So 2/10 for a speedy reply for starters.
Then suddenly this afternoon I received this reply from one of his minions - I will copy it for you verbatim:

Thanks for emailing Jim, he has asked me to respond on his behalf.

Several constituents have contacted Jim about the terrible disruption that the volcanic ash has triggered across the world.

As I am sureyou can understand there is little that individual candidates can do, but please rest assured that the prime minister government is taking the matter extremely seriously and doing all it can to get people home as quicly as possible.

The Foreign Office's current plan for the dealing with UK nationals stranded in Europe can be found here - http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/travel-and-living-abroad/021-Flight-disruption-help/022-travel-in-europe/

I hope that this is of some use to you and reassures you somewhat.

If there is anything further you would like Jim to do please get in touch.

Best regards

Funnily enough I had actually found the foreign office's page of advice several days ago. What I do find interesting is that when I wrote pointing out crossing Europe to Calais or Madrid was too expensive and impractical with small children and the crowds currently on the trains and asked if Jim had any more helpful advice or suggestions, his second in command simply sent me an email full of spelling and grammatical errors linking me to the foreign office page that tells me to make my way either to Calais or Madrid after checking with my airline. Let's have a big round of applause for that one!

So I will sit here till Friday and if my flight is cancelled again, I will make my own expensive way to Calais (£500) and as a thanks for the 'prime minister government' sending all the buses he could find to Madrid rather than various centres around Europe, I will make a point of making sure I do not vote for Mr Murphy and his crew on May 6.

MOST VIEWED PHOTO

I was checking out my flickr photos and found to my amazement that this is one of my most popular ones. In fact, if you ignore the breast feeding photos where I suspect people aren't looking at the baby, this is possibly my most viewed photo. I guess it must be the curiosity evoked by it. Pianos are so hard to lift so why would anyone go to the bother of dragging one out into a field in the middle of nowhere?

A VOLCANIC RANT

Several points on the stranded passenger issue:

I have heard several flippant remarks on the TV about people getting a prolonged holiday. The thing is when you book out of your hotel on the last day of your holiday, you don't tend to have budgeted for an extra £100 or so a night to stay on somewhere else. Nor have you budgeted for another week's meals in restaurants. You have no more clean clothes, so you go looking for a laundrette and end up doing your very own impersonation of the old jeans ad sitting in your underwear. You may not have necessary medication with you - who takes a month's supply of say the pill or asthma medicine when they go away for 4 or 5 days? You don't know when any of it will end so you are stressed financially.

I read today on the BBC a quote that summed it up. Someone who had flown to Copenhagen like us with a budget airline (we paid £250 roughly to come with Norwegian) was now facing an overland trip back to Scotland choosing between car hire at over £1000, land travel at £700 or as he put it 'haemorrhaging money indefinitely on Copenhagen hotels and restaurants'.

I heard a suggestion that as many people as possible should try carpooling to get home. On the face of it, this sounds like a reasonable idea but stop a minute. Why would people be on holiday at this time of the year? Because the schools are off. If you choose now you are likely to be a couple with at least one child with you, more likely two. Sharing a taxi home or car hire when you have to pay 4/5 of the cost makes carpooling insignificant as an option for most.

We fly everywhere because flying is the only means of travel we can afford. Flying is much cheaper than trains these days. Journalists are acting as if people who could afford to be in Europe can simply pay whatever it costs to come home overland as if paying out an extra £1K or £2K is nothing to your average passenger. We paid, as I said, about £250 for our holiday. We cannot simply fork out an extra £100+ a day to stay on or travel overland. Most people will be in this situation.

People are also acting as if the problem stops when we reach Dover. The UK is unlike the rest of Europe. We fly everywhere because internal trains are three times the price and because of that when we arrive in Dover, getting to Glasgow is another financially significant trip if alternative means of transport are even being laid on. Everyone who is stranded did not come from Kent. Scots are even more likely to have flown because they are further from Europe on land.

We are in the middle of a recession. How many employers will be happy when the workers don't come back for weeks after Easter? How stressful is it for those who can't afford to lose their job to be stuck here haemorrhaging cash they can't pay back indefinitely?

And to cheer us up this morning Gordon Brown has finally noticed the problem (probably when many fewer kids and teachers than expected turned up for their first day of school after the Easter break) - great at last we might get an extra few buses or boats... but no, it seems no one is stranded in Europe, it is simply a problem for people stranded in the US and further afield so he's going to have them flown to Spain and brought home by bus - he hasn't noticed us at all...

I guess the solution in that case is to try to get a boat from here to the US so Gordon will repatriate us eventually via Spain. Grrrrr.

THE VOLCANO FROM HELL

I was half-packed and psyched up to come home on Thursday. We had planned a day of farewells to the relatives in Copenhagen and then a quick flight home on Friday morning. Dad texted me about an Icelandic volcano that was erupting and causing chaos. My first reaction - Is this an April fool's joke? It was too weird to be anything else. I turned on the Danish news and realized it wasn't a joke. News was saying it would last 12 hours so we signed up with Norwegian airlines for text updates on our Friday morning flight and went to the goodbye dinner with Miriam and Bjørn. The news told us before dinner that Danish airspace had been closed as a precaution until 12pm Friday. Our flight was 12-10pm - I was beginning to doubt our chances of escape but maybe we would just be the first flight out of Denmark after the crisis. Sitting on the bus home from dinner at 9pm Norwegian texted us that our flight was officially cancelled. :-(
We watched the news as they prolonged the airspace shut-down hour by hour. We checked Norwegian and they had no more flights before Monday. There was no point in hanging about Denmark as long as that so we opted for a refund and a landtrip. Thomas went out at 8-30am on Friday to find the best land route. At 9am I got a rushed call. He had managed to get train tickets from Copenhagen to Amsterdam via Hamburg - a fourteen hour trip with just six train changes followed by a ferry from Amsterdam to Newcastle leaving 24 hours later, arriving in England on Sunday morning - a 48 hour trip in all. The only problem with it was that it was leaving in 45 minutes so I had to finish packing the two cases, and the rucksack and get myself and both girls across Copenhagen in about 30 minutes. It was a beautiful morning and it was the Danish Queen's 70th birthday into the bargain so there were more people on the streets than usual awaiting the royal parade.
First my in-laws phoned for a taxi but they said it would take more than an hour to find one with baby seats and they wouldn't take us without. They then rang Miriam who said there was too much traffic to guarantee getting to me and then to the station. They started surfing the Danish bus system. I tried to explain I knew how to navigate Copenhagen myself and would take a bus to Nørreport and a train or Metro from there. They kept surfing - how could the foreigner know how to navigate Copenhagen better than them? They aren't from Copenhagen and had been using a car all week but... I made to leave. My mother-in-law decided the best bet was her coming with me to the station while Peter drove the luggage in the (3 seater) car. We got to the station with 15 minutes to spare but there was no sign of Thomas or Peter. I rang Thomas - he yelled 'complications' and hung up. There was still no sign of Peter!
With five minutes till the departure Thomas appeared running and told me to follow him. We both sprinted into Copenhagen's main station 'Travel shop' skipping ten queues of 50 people each all shoving, pushing and screaming in many languages. We weren't the only ones who had worked out there had to be a land route. After all those years of flying everywhere (I haven't interrailed since the early 90s) this actually came as a surprise to me! Oh dear.
So what was the 'complication'? There were two departments - one for train tickets, one for ferries. Thomas had bought the train ticket and reserved the ferry one but by the time he'd been redirected to ferries, some numpty had sold his reserved ticket and we had approximately 2 minutes to decide whether to go to Amsterdam without a ferry ticket or simply abandon the plan.
I figured if we got all the way from Copenhagen to Amsterdam over land then going down the coast trying for ferries in Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Zeebrugge, Ostend and Calais wasn't going to be too hard. I'd done it so often alone as a student, it really wasn't rocket science so agreed to go to Amsterdam.
We found Peter beside the train throwing in our luggage while Miriam fought the guard valiantly to stop it leaving without us. We jumped in as it pulled away and then set about trying to find seats given we didn't have reservations.
The first train was fine. We crossed half of Denmark sitting together. We had a 15 minute change half way across, where again we had no problems finding seats. It was quite a fun adventure!

We checked the schedule. Most of the trains had about 15 minutes between them, the one in Hamburg at 6pm had half an hour. That was our only window for finding food. Miriam had thrown in a box of cold rice from the night before and a couple of slices of ryebread so we'd survive the first 8 hours.
Things went fine until the Danish border. On leaving it the train ground to a halt and sat for half an hour with no explanation. Strange... Half an hour into Germany, half an hour before our scheduled changeover in Hamburg the train stopped again and a guard announced only in German that there were major trackworks ahead and that the train was stopping. All passengers were to get out and transfer to buses and we'd be driven into Hamburg. This didn't seem over-problematic, just a pain to move all the luggage. It turned out however that the German railways (DB) had been assuming normal levels of passengers and had laid on a bus, but with many intercity passengers instead of the handful of locals they'd expected on a normal Friday, they suddenly had to scramble up two more buses and drivers and by the time we arrived onboard we had 25 minutes to reach our departing train in Hamburg and the driver was estimating it'd take just over an hour.
On arrival in Hamburg we confirmed our train had already left then joined the 60 people queue in the Travel Centre. The guy in there gave Thomas a new train timetable that necessitated a 4-5 hour wait for a connection in the middle of nowhere at 2am and warned us the station there would close so we'd be out in the cold. We were then redirected to the lady who stamps the tickets to revalidate them.
A very smiley, chubby friendly-looking woman looked up from her desk and we explained where we were going. She peered over her glasses and inquired as to whether we really fancied 4 hours in the cold or if we'd rather DB paid us a hotel room for our 'Minikinder'. Hard choice?
She set her colleague to ringing around warning things were fully booked because of the crisis. I envisaged a scabby, dodgy hotel like you often find around large stations - the kind of place pick pockets hang out but if DB were paying, I'd just sleep on my handbag. We were given a ticket for free Bed and Brekkie in the Hamburg Park Hyatt and set out on foot to look for it.
Much to my surprise I found myself in front of a luxury hotel ten minutes later. At reception we were asked where the girls were to sleep in a double room. We asked if they had something even cot-sized for Anna and told them Amaia could sleep with us for the night. They saw the DB certificate offering to pay unlimited costs 'We'll upgrade you to a suite with two Queen-sized beds, Sir' they informed us, rubbing their hands together as they pocketed (I have since checked on the Internet) €435 of DB money!

The next morning we were met with a feast fit for a king - unlimited everything washed down with oranges pressed for us. Anna was given her own silver cutlery with bears on and after our long trip I could happily have stayed there all day but we'd a train to catch at 9-45 to Osnabrück.
We dashed to the station and manouvered the cases and the buggy down to the platform. We waited and five minutes before departure a sign popped up saying in German that the train would leave from Harburg. What was Harburg??? Once more the trackworks were causing a problem. We'd to take a metro to a suburb and catch a train there but we'd no idea what time it was leaving at and no one else knew either. We hopped on the metro and arrived to find we'd to climb three or maybe four floors with no lift to get to the station from the metro. We had two cases, a rucksack, and two babies in a broken double buggy. One wheel had snapped on the girls' buggy on Thursday but we were trying to coax it to the ferry because carrying a baby and a two year old was more impossible. My back ached from trying to push the broken buggy while Thomas dealt with the cases. My boob ached from my latest bout of mastitis just two days earlier - I'm so run down from being on antibiotics on and off since Amaia was born.
We reached the top of course to find Osnabrück had already left. We joined yet another queue of grumpy travellers with large cases to find out plan C or were we on D by now? I was beginning to notice that the percentage of travellers with airport tags on their oversized luggage had gone from 20% on Friday to 70% on Saturday. More languages were being spoken around me. I recognised they were from further afield. It seemed everyone on mainland Europe had decided to try to go home overland and Germany's trackworks were throwing a spanner in everyone's works. A new plan was produced which meant Amsterdam was another day further back and the ferries and Eurostars were all fully booked beyond Monday. The buggy died at that point and we'd no way to carry the girls. The DB asked if we wanted to go on or if we wanted a free ticket home to Thomas's parents.
At this point my kids rang to say they were stranded in France too. I spoke to my ex-husband and established they couldn't get out overland on a bus without two overnights in Strasbourg and London and couldn't get Eurostar tickets either. The first flight (if it flies) that they could get on was April 23. At the thought of not seeing my big babies for another week, I just lost the strength to carry on and stood in Harburg with the tears rolling down my cheeks.
Given we were going to have to sit it out for days and we couldn't afford hotels, we reluctantly opted to return to Denmark - this time to Århus where we could sit in Thomas's parents' flat as they were driving to Italy.
The Intercity train arrived and we tried to get on - I swear the whole of Hamburg airport had the same idea - there was standing space only till the Danish border. I perched on the suitcase trying to feed Amaia standing up as Anna sobbed in distress 'I'm sooooo sad' over and over for an hour. An old lady (maybe late 70s) got on at the first stop. She asked to push through the people saying she had a reservation. People tried to let her pass, and a guard arrived. She explained the same to him. He shook his head and said there was no hope and told her to stand till some people got out.
Eventually Thomas got enough space to sit on the floor in a compartment.

And after a while I even got a seat. At 6-30pm we arrived back in Århus having spent exactly 32 hours on the road getting nowhere.
We are now stuck here hoping something will fly soon, with tickets for (you'll laugh if you've been reading all my recent ranting) the only flights we could get - yeah you guessed it - Ryanair next Friday.

THE NAME ISSUE AGAIN

I have been watching the election campaign on the TV and, as a woman, I am finding the media's interest in Sarah, Samantha and Miriam more than a little nauseating.
Firstly, I am not in the slightest interested in who made their clothes or what shade of nail varnish they are wearing. If these women in any way pertinent to the campaign, it would be from a policy point of view, and given they have certainly all been gagged so as not to cause their partner to lose any points in the polls, they are irrelevant. I find it more than a little patronizing too that they are all assumed to be supporters of their husbands' parties. For these three, it does seem to be the case but I can imagine a marriage or partnership where two people love each other but actually don't agree politically, and for that reason, again, their presence in the campaign is unwelcome. Imagine a situation where two of the three support their partner's partner, and the third doesn't? How would the media deal with that?
I would have loved to have seen Hillary become president last year simply out of curiosity to see if the media would have dared to ask Bill for his best apple pie recipe, or to hear how his suit compared to the designer gear of Mrs McCain, but I'm off on a feminist tangent.
The one thing that is niggling me most is the mainstream media's almost blanket insistence on calling Miriam González Durántez Miriam Clegg. When I first married back in 1991, the registrar said 'Sign the certificate here using your maiden name for the last time'. It was taken for granted that I would change my name to my husband's. That was then, but this is now. I, like a growing number of UK women have chosen not to change my name. Whether Miriam has chosen not to become Clegg for UK or Spanish reasons is irrelevant. The fact is that she goes by the name Miriam González Durántez, so how dare the media rechristen her to suit their antiquated ideas? It should be her choice, and hers alone, to change her name.

OMA'S 80

My kids are over in France visiting their German grandmother this school holiday for her 80th birthday. Of all André's family, I miss Annie most of all. I miss sitting on the stool in her kitchen chatting for hours and hours about nothing and everything. I miss her homely cooking. I miss her warmth. Much older than my own parents, my old mother-in-law was a bit like the Granny I didn't have as an adult, having lost my only Granny as a child. They weren't at all alike, she is simply a lovely, fascinating, genuine old woman. I would love to be able to drop in and give her a birthday hug, but in the absence of that possibility, I've printed out this photo of her three grandchildren, framed it, and sent her it so she knows in her heart, that I still miss her terribly.

NORWEGIAN AIRLINES

Norwegian Air Shuttle LN-DYB
Originally uploaded by Drewski2112

After my displeasure with good old Ryanair over the past few days, imagine my delight at finding this little paragraph tucked away in one of their rival's terms and conditions. Norwegian Airlines actually says 'Children under the age of two are allowed to check in up to 5 kilos of luggage free of charge. A car seat and a pram will also be accepted free of charge.' Well blow me over - someone has thought through that crazy airline policy whereby the person who pukes, poos and dribbles on all their clothes, who uses nappies and who isn't allowed luggage and offered the poor stressed parent a token gesture. Wonderful! So I can choose between Ryanair Edinburgh to Billund or Norwegian Edinburgh to Copenhagen... a hard choice!

RYANAIR AGAIN, ON A MORE LIGHTHEARTED NOTE

My dad just emailed me this and I thought my fellow Ryanair-haters may be amused by it.

Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary arriving at Dublin Airport and going into the bar for a pint of Guinness.
“That’ll be one Euro please,” said the barman.
A delighted O’Leary handed over his Euro and said: “That’s a great price.”
“Will you be wanting a glass with your Guinness, sir?” enquired the barman.

I think it'd have been better of course if O'Leary had been charged for his bar stool, his beer mat, the washing of his glass afterwards and the right to pay using cash, debit or credit card of course but you can't have everything ;-)

RYANAIR - A WEE THOUGHT

I was looking at flights from Stansted to Denmark on Ryanair just now. The flights were £11.99 each and the luggage charge was £20. That got me to thinking... I wonder what Ryanair would do if their customers started booking their luggage a seat instead of checking it in. I can see the form now: Mr Green Suitcase, Ms Navy-Blue Holdall... come on troops, let's give it a go. It's time people-power brought them to their senses ;-)

RYANAIR I HATE YOU

I remember fondly when Ryanair started out, back in the days when they actually used their grey matter. They thought through the plastic meals and worked out that many customers would rather fly cheaper and not receive the plastic food. That was about the last time they got a policy right. Now I hate them with a passion. Apparently to 'incentivise all of its passengers to travel light' during the summer months, they are going to charge passengers £20 per case per flight. Now bearing in mind that they don't allow you to pool luggage and per flight means per leg of your trip, then for my family to go to Italy via Stansted (not because we love Stansted but because they don't go directly) we have to pay 7 people times 4 flights times £20 to take our bags with us, because let's face it, whether they want us to fly light or not, not many families with kids can fit enough luggage in the their back pocket for a three week stay in another climate. This gives us a £560 surcharge over and above flight costs. Of course they also still slap on the wonderful charge per person for paying with a debit (no, not just credit) card. This is a charge per person, not a charge per card of course because processing that one payment using one card for one amount is apparently seven times more costly to them :-\ So we have our flights, our surcharges for bags, for paying them, for wanting our kids to travel sitting near us etc etc The original £11.99 flights are now costing us over £1000 and they then put a coin slot on the loos to 'incentivise all of their passengers to go to the toilet before boarding'. Two hundred passengers sharing a single toilet that will get jammed the third time someone puts a quid in the slot and nowhere else to make your kid pee, just great. No matter how well travelled my bladder is, I can hardly tell Anna at just 2 that she has to hold it in for a two or three hour flight. If I was planning to reboard a Ryanair plane, I think I'd take a potty and ask the flight attendant where I was meant to empty it after use! But I fully intend to boycott them till they come to their money-grabbing senses, so it won't be a problem.

MURALS AGAIN

I was commissioned once again by the little ones to decorate their room with a mural, this time the theme was to be space. With Léon visiting his grandmother in France this week I actually had time to get it done. It is amazing how much more time you have on your hands when you only have a two year old and a newborn to look after when you are used to looking after five! As ordered by Anna, the space ships on her side of the room had to be pink, and those on Léon's side had to be blue! This was all her own idea! Who says sexual stereotyping isn't in-built?! I can't wait till Léon comes home now to see his face :-)

JIGSAW PUZZLE HELL

Léon is a bright little boy but one sticking point we've had over the past year or two is jigsaw puzzles. He can do them, but no matter how many times I explain to him that there are edge pieces and middle pieces, he still insists on trying edges in the middle and vise versa. This usually results in my usual calm mothering demeanour going into meltdown. I start calmly trying to remind him 'Remember honey the ones with the smooth sides go round the edge'. As he tries this for the 25th time, I start to twitch and by piece fifty I am usually jumping up and down sweating manically shouting 'Pudge put the smooth pieces round the edge'. I start to look like Basil Fawlty when Sybil tormented him from her hosptial bed while awaiting her toenail operation. Thomas says he can always tell when I am doing jigsaws with Léon from the tone in the room below his office! Oh dear.
Anyway, by last autumn I had finally got it through Pudge's jigsaw-challenged little mind that the smooth pieces went round the edge. Phew - my sanity was saved (only just) and the little white van with the men in white coats was no longer on standby...
Then mum bought Anna a lovely jigsaw in Marks and Spencer for Xmas. What Granny wouldn't buy a 2 year old something nice like that? But what on earth are M&S on???? What kind of bastardized jigsaw is this? Is someone out to get me? It has smooth pieces in the middle too! Pudge tried to help her out and is now back at square one. If I could get my hands round the neck of whoever commissioned this piece of nonsense for M&S I'd choke him/her to death! Anna likes it too much for me to lose it, Léon is more than puzzled by my year of jigsaw rantings and I am ready to order the straitjacket.
Thank you very much Marks and Spencer :-(

HOW MANY PEOPLE HAVE REALLY LOST THEIR JOB?

Commuting home from Glasgow city centre
Originally uploaded by zawtowers

According to our darling chancellor in this week's debate, the UK has come out of the recession and things are looking up. Something is striking me as odd however...
I was a commuter on Glasgow's hellish M8 for the best part of 20 years before I started working from home. When I lived in the West End and drove to Bishopbriggs every day the journey was 40 minutes instead of the 25 it took outwith rush hour. When I moved to the south side the no go period on the M77 started at 7-20am and went right through to 9-20am... bumper-to-bumper chaos, 20 miles in 2nd gear. The only respite was school holidays when suddenly many parents took a holiday and you could drive almost freely at least till the M77 merged with the M8. Fridays were often slightly lighter (not sure why) but in general the 25 minute trip to Bishopbriggs at rush hour took the best part of an hour.
Last Friday Amaia had an appointment at Yorkhill hospital. It was at 9-30am. Nightmare... Factoring in 10 minutes for parking, I left early around 8-40am and was in town by 9am without going below 6th gear. Where had rush hour gone? Assuming it was a Friday anomaly, I didn't question too much.
Yesterday Anna had an appointment at Yorkhill hospital at 9-30am. Nightmare... Factoring in 10 minutes for parking, I left early around 8-40am and was in town by 9am without going below 6th gear. Now I was really puzzled. It was Wednesday, it wasn't a school holiday and the weather was miserable. All these factors should have meant I would grind to a halt at Silverburn Tesco but no. Rush hour was simply non-existent.
I have to conclude either that at least 60% of Glaswegians have started working from home, or that they've lost their jobs and are still home under their duvets at rush hour these days. What is the truth?

NOT A GOOD DAY

It's 6am and Anna shouts from upstairs 'Daddy, I want a pee'. Daddy replies 'Zzzzzz' from my side. Grrrr. I jump out of bed onto the frozen floor and leg it upstairs. I've still not got round to changing the clock on the boiler - bugger. I take Anna to the loo and she pees for what seems like five minutes solid as I shiver, then begs to get back under her warm duvet.
I go down and fall asleep. Around 7am I move my right leg. Something on Thomas's side is cold and wet. Surely 38 is too old (or too young) to be peeing the bed? The wet is too cold anyway. I lie awake and hear 'drip'. 'Thomas! Something is dripping on the bed!!!!' We turn on the light. Our bedroom is in the bottom corner of the house in the extension. Our heads are beneath the office but our feet are in the bungalow half of the extension. The lintel separating the two halves has two little drips hanging from the edge of it. It is snowing outside. Waking up with slush in your bed on the second day of British Summertime isn't the ideal way to start the new season.
It has to be a hole where the one storey extension meets the two storey one, or something to do with the central heating pipes directly under the office window. Option one is bad, option two is even worse (it would necessitate the removal of all the office furniture and the ripping up of the new hardwood floor on a week when Thomas is up to his eyes in three different projects).
We turn off the heating for an hour to test theory two. It continues dripping. He's relieved. I'm still stressed. He takes up a kettle of water to test theory one. He opens the window and pours the kettle onto the outside window ledge. Niagara comes instantly to the bedroom ceiling. Option one is confirmed. We decamp with our wet duvet into the cold living room and leave a basin on the bed. At least we can now try to reheat the house given we have 10cm of snow outside.
We know if we can just find the hole now we can plug it with concrete or tar first time there's a dry day...
First time there's a dry day? Oh shit it is Scotland! Thomas has plugged it temporarily with playdough! The drip has subsided but I'm still considering a night on the most uncomfortable futon in the world in my living room as a better option than another rude awakening to a foot in the slush in the bedroom :-(

A SUDDEN OBSESSION WITH DEATH

Driving home from nursery the other day Léon suddenly burst into tears and threw himself into my arms at the traffic lights (he was in the front beside me as both girls' car seats were in the back of the micra that day). What on earth could be so wrong after a nice morning at nursery with his little friends? Inconsolable, he sobbed 'Who'll hug me Mummy once you are dead?' I have no idea where the sudden obsession with death came from but a long discussion ensued in which I more or less had to promise not to die till my hundredth birthday to calm him down. Tonight when I'd read them their story and sung a song or two, it started again. This time there was no crying but he asked me out of the blue 'Who'll give Amaia her doodah (the family word for breast milk since Marcel invented it as a toddler) once you are dead?' Again I stressed I would be old when I died and Amaia herself would be old and therefore no longer in need of milk. After asking when Thomas, Anna and I would die, he started to ask about people who were already dead. 'Are Thomas's mummy and daddy dead?' he asked. 'No Thomas's mummy and daddy are Brita and Peter' I explained. 'Oh, who is dead then?' 'Granny's mummy and daddy are dead' I told him, knowing this would be unlikely to upset him overly given he didn't know them. 'Who were they?' he asked. 'My Granny and Gramps' I told him. Because his French grandfather died many years before he was born, I ventured 'Opa is dead'. 'Opa lives in the forest' he replied. Opa is buried in a little French cemetery on the edge of a forest and Pudge has visited his grave. I tried to explain graveyards 'Cemeteries are where dead bodies are taken. Opa 'lives' in that big stone house you've seen in the forest.' 'So when's he going to get alive again?' 'Once you are dead you don't come alive again' I explained to him. He let out a huge sigh of exasperation 'If he's never going to be alive again, how on earth is he going to go to the dentist?' At that point I gave up - I was just speechless. Why on earth is this four year old concerned with how his long-dead grandfather is going to keep an appointment with the dentist?

NATURAL LIGHTING

I love to take photos with natural light indoors rather than the harshness of a flash, especially when babies are the subject. Instead of the startled what-was-that-flash? look, you just get a lovely, so-real-you-can-hug-it shot of your very own teeny troll.

I'M SPEECHLESS

For goodness sake! What kind of planet are we living on???? I'd be horrified if I had an 18 month old who couldn't identify fruit and veg. This is unimaginable to me. Mind you, I have tried to teach them from early on about good food and of course Thomas grows it in the garden so they know exactly where it comes from too!
I have to say that one of the major advantages of having a big family is not being able to afford ready meals so the kids get to see how to make food from the bottom up and of course it also forces the big ones into having their own cooking days which further advances this knowledge. Tell them to go cook a meal for ten from raw ingredients, they are completely undaunted.

THOSE TWO NEWBORNS AGAIN!

When you see two human babies separated in age by just six weeks, you have to conclude that a large part of the first few months' growth is concentrated on the head and brain area! Poor little Lana looks like Amaia might try to swallow her whole! It's funny to think that just nine months down the line they are likely to be more or less the same size!

EASTER FLOWERS

We were sent a pretty Easter card by Thomas's mum. I have had a vague notion though, since we received it, that something was odd about it.
Suddenly today it struck me. It was the juxtaposition of snowdrops and Easter. To me in Scotland (with the obvious exception of this year) snowdrops are a January, or February at a pinch, flower. Easter is hyacinths, and maybe the tail end of the daffodil season, but definitely nothing to do with snowdrops!
It is funny how our climates are very slightly different despite the geographical proximity. After all the west Scotland is an area where you encounter dozens of palm trees - and I'm yet to bump into one of those in Denmark!

BEFORE WE IMPORT THEIR CULTURE LOCK, STOCK AND BARREL...

I notice the UK is slowly becoming America. When I was a child there were no drive thru burger places. There was no 24 hour shopping in supermarkets the size of small towns. We went out 'guising' at Halloween, not 'trick-or-treating'. Our lanterns were made of Swede, not pumpkin. Our cars had accelerators, not gas pedals and we parked in car parks, not parking lots. The list is endless.
But as a word of warning before we hang our culture out to dry and accept their way of life, we should occasionally look up at what is different and better here in Europe and the UK. Take holidays, for example - I for one couldn't imagine having any quality family life on a US ration of holidays.
Worse still, today I was appalled to find out about their idea of maternity leave. When I was pregnant, I joined an online web club which mailed me a weekly pregnancy update. As a rough guide I was told the approximate size of the baby, its development, changes to expect in my own body. I didn't realize at the time these updates would continue after birth. It was a US site. Today's update shocked and upset me:

• Your Baby Week 9

  Now is the time many mothers will go back to work. Leaving your baby will always be hard but there are ways to make the transition smoother.

  If you are breastfeeding your baby should be adjusted to taking the bottle when you are not around by this point. This will help the separation go smoother for both of you. Don't fret about taking a pump to work and pumping during your breaks. This is a good time to store up milk for the next day.

  Take the transition slow, introducing your baby to time away before the big day comes. Drop the baby off for a couple of hours at the day care, or child care provider's home where the baby will be staying. Spend time there with baby, letting the baby know that you are comfortable and trusting of the place, as it will then be less scary for your infant.

  Forgo the bottles on the weekend, and use that time for consistent nursing and to keep your milk supply going strong. This is also a good time to strengthen your bond with your baby after being away at work all week.

What crazy kind of society thinks 9 weeks is the point when many mothers should return to full-time employment? Apart from the physical demand on a woman who has only slept midnight to 3am, 4am-7am, (on a good night) this seems positively barbaric to me. I remember how I felt in 1997 when going back full-time was compulsory at week 29. I cried buckets, I held and hugged Marcel all weekend, I tried not to sleep at night so I could look at my baby, my breasts and heart ached for him. It wasn't until the UK brought in 52 weeks maternity leave in 2005 that I felt prepared to go back to work as a psychologically whole person. So today I have held and hugged Amaia and felt happy to live in a country where returning to full-time employment this morning is not a requirement. I have held her close and made her feel safe and when she's wanted milk I have been there for her to suckle on warmly, as I should be when she is so tiny and helpless.

ONE OF THOSE SURREAL PARENTING MOMENTS

The little car decided the trip to nursery this morning at 8-45am was the best possible time to blow a tyre... thanks little car.
I considered changing it myself for about 25 seconds and then decided that's what I was paying Tesco breakdown for.
After a 45 minute wait with Léon and Anna dancing round and round on the pavement, a very nice gentleman from Hamilton Motors turned up to rescue me.
He took off the hub cap and jacked it up. The kids were fascinated and wanted to stand in the middle of the road to watch the wheel being removed. Obviously that wouldn't be safe so the man put the hub cap on the pavement and told them their job was to look after it. They took their task very seriously, sitting down instantly and staring at it without blinking. After a few minutes Léon said 'It's a bit like a pizza', and from there a whole pizza game ensued. They put on toppings, cooked it and took turns at pretending to eat slices. The mechanic commented on the wonders of infant imagination...I should have seen it coming when Léon mentioned his had more tomato on it than her slice... Suddenly Anna burst into hysterical sobs. 'What's up?' I asked, assuming she'd jammed a finger somewhere or suchlike. 'Léon finished the whole pizza!' she blurted out heartbroken and indignant. She turned to him in disgust. 'Why did you eat all the pizza?' she cried before pushing him and trying to slap him. I could see the mechanic chuckling behind the wheel as I dragged her off him before she physically injured him for stealing her pizza!
Gimme strength!

THE BOOBS SHOULD HAVE SEEN IT ALL

You all know I should be on the NHS ads for breastfeeding having fed the kids on average till the age of two. I have never given a baby a bottle in my life and would need to read the instructions if I had to! So you would have have thought my boobs wouldn't be able to experience anything new on the feeding front. I have had thrush on the breasts from all the kids' mouths in the early days. I've had blocked ducts at least three or four times with each baby so I know all about cabbage and boob-combing. I've had mastitis (the worst illness of my life - like flu with knobs on) once with Charlotte at nine months, and once with Léon so know the first signs of that mean beg for antibiotics instantly before you are shaking so much you can't get them into your mouth. When I had Anna I got cracked nipples for the first time ever and had to resort to those awful nipple protectors at least on four occasions. I cursed the little besom for sucking wrongly but got on with it.
This week, however, has been the worst of my eight or nine years of breastfeeding. Last Tuesday night my left breast felt like I was developing a blocked duct so I had a hot bath and combed. No result... so I went to bed having taken two nurofen and slept a total of 35 minutes in the whole night. My temperature soared, my clothes were soaked through and I was in a great deal of pain. I assumed mastitis and begged for the antibiotics on Wednesday. I managed half a night's sleep but again had to change all my clothes and was still in agony. Friday didn't see it improve and it was starting to nip.
I noticed Amaia's mouth was white again - did I have mastitis with thrush thrown in? I googled.
I seemed to be showing the signs of the thrush being inside the ducts rather than on the nipple. Inside I was on fire and I could feel swollen lumps all the way along at least one of the ducts between my nipple and my underarm. Even when you know it is feeding-related, feeling tangible lumps inside your breast sits uneasy with you as a woman :-(
I have now been on a different set of antibiotics since Monday and have had oral thrush treatment. I can now almost touch my breast but often get a short hot stabbing pain on the inside and feeding has gone from excruciating to vaguely unpleasant so I have a way to go yet. I just hope when I finish my antibiotics tomorrow things continue to improve slowly because the next 22 months are going to be a nightmare otherwise!

WOOLLY BOOTS WITH LACES

Socks and shoes have always been an issue with tiny babies. Apart from the ridiculously expensive Baby Gap socks I have never had a baby who managed to keep his or hers on at all. When you are born around Xmas, you don't want to be hanging around barefoot. Until I had Anna, I had persevered with countless lost socks and shoes and frozen toes. When Anna was born Thomas's Danish cousin sent us a pair of home-knitted booties. I put them on her one day without thinking about it and realized that the laces meant they didn't fall off, and therefore the socks also stayed on. Bingo! By the time Anna was six months old, her one pair of booties was pretty scabby but had definitely proved useful. This time round, my mum must have remembered me raving about them because she knitted Amaia five or six pairs. I, too, made her a pair so Amaia has never had cold feet in her life! I'm a bit annoyed at myself for not thinking of this earlier. I guess very few people knit baby clothes now that shop-bought clothes are actually cheaper, but when it comes to shoes I'd definitely recommend these over any of the cheaper shop models that, like the socks, simply fall off. Time for back-to-basics on the baby shoe front!

PUBLIC OR PRIVATE?

Now here's an example of a completely irrelevant piece of journalism. I clicked on it having worked for exactly twenty years in the private sector surrounded by friends in the public domain so considered myself well placed to analyse it. But comparing one random person in the private sector with anyone is utterly pointless given private companies set their own agenda.

So for all you public workers out there who are rushing to hand in your notice tomorrow to pursue a job in the private sector here's a bit of the UK private sector I know (from my own experience, and that of other family members).

Core hours are probably between 35 and 38 hrs a week.

Salary is probably on a par with or slightly lower than public sector for equivalent post. With rises of 1 - 1.5% annually for 10 years many private sector jobs have nosedived behind public equivalents. (For example when I started work in publishing in 1991 I earned 30% more than a school teacher, by the time I left the sector 18 years later I was 30% below a school teacher with the same number of years experience because of low annual rises and salary scales that had been abandoned but not replaced.)

Holidays 25 days a year - but taking them given your workload is unlikely so count on losing 3 or 4 at the end of every holiday year.

Overtime - Twenty years ago rates were written into your contract, ten years later rates were dropped as was overtime, now overtime is an everyday occurrence, compulsory, unpaid, and you never hear a 'thank you' - this is the case for all the private sector job holders I know.

Company pension - final salary schemes were phased out 7 or 8 years ago for the most part and thereafter those on final schemes have become easy picking in every round of redundancies but this is of course simply 'coincidence'.

Bonus - 1% if you were eligible, in my own case I was not and never received a bonus in 20 years though other family members have. Often private sector workers receive an annual bonus instead of a salary increase so they have, to all intents and purposes, been on a pay freeze for most of the last 5 years - not great for mortgage purposes.

Benefits - Healthcare discounts and money-saving offers at selected retailers. Again in my case this was not something I was eligible for though other family members have received these.

Union membership - if you want to pay every month you could join a union but no one will strike or complain because of job insecurity so it is irrelevant.

Something the article doesn't mention is sick pay. Sick pay is something public workers take for granted - I have even heard of NHS workers applying for holidays to be retaken when they've fallen sick on holiday. In my experience sick pay in the private sector is irrelevant as being off sick just isn't allowed - with redundancies hanging over you always, being off sick became a luxury about 4 or 5 years ago.

TWO NEWBORN BABIES

Today I took Amaia to visit her new playmate 'Lana'. Lana was born exactly six weeks to the day after Amaia. Because Lana weighed only 60% of Amaia's weight at birth, and because Amaia has had six weeks to gorge herself on breast milk seeing them together was quite comical. Technically they are both newborn babies but with Lana still too little to fit in the 0-3 month clothes and Amaia already into the 3-6 month size despite her tender age, I don't think many people would consider Amaia a newborn beside Lana! Amaia looks like she could eat her for dinner. Funnily enough after I left Lana to drive home, I bumped into a friend who hadn't seen Amaia yet. Her own kids are grown up so she took one look at Amaia and announced Awwwh - she's soooo tiny! It's all relative, I guess!