Boxing Day. No Chi Kung 🙁

Lovely visit from my nephew and his wife and their little boy Tiger. Tiger was initially a bit frightened of the dog and correspondingly reluctant to leave his mum’s side. Apparently he picked up a fear of dogs, along with a tendency to say words like ‘butter’ and ‘water’ without sounding the ‘t’s, from his south London babysitter. This (both the fear of dogs and the estuary accent) has horrified Tiger’s South African-born Mum even more than his NZ-born Dad. Tiger thawed eventually though, and by the end of the visit he was on the (rather damp) trampoline and playing in the playhouse and on the swing seat with Katie. It was lovely to see the wee cousins bonding, and Katie was over the moon at having a wee one to mother. I think it is one of the things she misses most from Montessori.

Level 2 Chi Kung. Christmas Day!

Unfortunately it was 1:30 before all three excited children were sufficiently sound asleep for us to fill the stockings, eat the mince pies, drink the madeira and disarrange the reindeer’s carrots (bite marks etc). So we were still pretty sleepy when Katie came bashing on the door just after 7 this morning…

The good news is that the missing present has turned up. The bad news is that Santa has left Katie a lovely expensive man’s wallet in soft grey leather. No doubt I will eventually find a small, square (wallet-shaped!) package of glow-in-the-dark modelling clay addressed to Nick! Oh the perils of wrapping gifts when half asleep.

Level 2 Chi Kung.

Nick is almost always the last to bed and hence is the one to settle Sherlock down for the night. But last night I stayed up putting the finishing touches on the ginger crunch and doing other bits and pieces. When I was about to go upstairs, I gave Sherlock a cuddle, urged him onto his mat, and turned the lights off. Before I had even reached the stairs, Sherlock was whining piteously and body-slamming the kitchen door. I went back in, cuddled him again, made sure he had his chewy stick and left again. Whining and door thumping followed me up the stairs. Nick was sound asleep but, as the racket from downstairs continued, I felt I had no choice but to wake him and get him to go down and do whatever he does that keeps Sherlock happy. He’s not an easy man to rouse but, eventually, the noise from downstairs got too much for even Nick to ignore and he staggered downstairs to the dog. He gave him a quick cuddle and said goodnight and was back within two minutes. Not a peep out of Sherlock the rest of the night. Obviously just missing Daddy!

Nick did the second coat on the log cabin floor, then we dressed everyone warmly and set off on our customary Christmas Eve trip to the zoo. A real treat this year as we got to see the baby gorilla born two weeks ago. The mother was cradling the baby in her arms and stroking his head. You can say what you like about zoos – and I was very dubious before I had children and somehow found myself a regular zoo visitor – but you can’t doubt that the people at ZSL believe in what they are doing and genuinely care for the animals. Katie really enjoyed stroking the African pygmy goats. They were very cute – especially the friendly one that tried to eat my carrier bag. I asked a keeper about their unusual (very rounded!) shape and he said that they are simply fat and also full of wind – he says he sometimes feels like he should just give them a firm squeeze…

We had booked for Katie and Dash to visit Santa’s Grotto and it really was the best Santa I’ve seen. Beautiful costume, snowy beard etc, cut glass accent with just a hint of brogue, everything said in verse (including answers to the children’s fairly random questions). A photo was taken of the children with Santa, then Santa urged me to join in the next photo (I was reluctant). As we left, we were skilfully herded to the photo counter, and given a choice between the photo of just the children, and the one with me and the children. I was about to say ‘just the kids’ when Dash piped up and said he definitely wanted the one with me in it. The shop assistant expressed surprise, saying that kids mostly wanted the photo without a parent in it. I said, ‘I guess my kids like me’ and she said, wonderingly, ‘Yes, it’s so sweet.’ I still would have preferred the version without me in it but I thought, under the circumstances, it would be churlish to insist.

Beautiful sunset and a really bright, sharp sickle moon on the way home.

Home and an hour of frantic activity before the arrival of our lovely Madalina who stayed for the evening and was to have had dinner but ended up having to make do with cake, on account of having unexpectedly turned vegetarian! Lovely Skype with Aunt Betsy.

Level 2 Chi Kung.

While Nick, having sealed the underside of the cabin floorboards yesterday, laid the floor and applied the first coat of seal. Kate and Dash both helped level the floorboards into place. I took Katie with me to Borough Market and then to Elliotts Row to check that the repairs to the leaking shower were ok before paying the plumber’s invoice. A bit worried about the state of the place. After the last tenants, who stayed for 10 years and always kept the place clean and tidy, these lads are a bit of a shock to the system.

Got home and made the icing for the ginger crunch, then foolishly stayed up until nearly 3 am doing bits and pieces.

Level 2 Chi Kung.

Second coat on the log cabin (not such hard work as the first coat yesterday) but complicated by the presence of an agency cleaner. I don’t like to use agencies, because you pay top whack and the cleaner only gets minimum wage, but they target people advertising for cleaners and can be very persistent. These guys spotted that i checked out their website and kept emailing me progressively more attractive deals. When they got to £20 off a 4.5 hour clean I thought I might as well give them a shot for one of the weeks that Glacier-girl was going to be back in Hungary. It wasn’t a success – she arrived half an hour late, I couldn’t understand her accent and she couldn’t understand mine. She then packed up and announced she was leaving after three hours. I pointed out that I had booked 4.5 hours but she said that they were telling her to get to her next job. I said fine, not to worry, Merry Christmas and that I would sort it out with the office. But she rang the doorbell again ten minutes later and said that they had told her to stay. She stayed another half hour or so, (so still well short of the 4.5 hours booked) then left without mentioning that she had broken the crisper drawer on the fridge. Hey ho.

Level 2 Chi Kung.

I was thinking that I might have to work quite hard this year to make Christmas special for Katie: she got gradually more downhearted as all her friends departed for Christmas in France, Italy and Finland, all saying how dreadful it must be not to ‘go home’ for Christmas and to spend it instead in boring old London. For me, I have always found Christmas in London rather wonderful – a little less so now than when we lived in Bayswater, but still. Everyone leaves, and those of us left suddenly have the city all to ourselves. Anyway, I needn’t have worried. Having done the clear primer coat yesterday, today we began applying the first top coat to the log cabin. We gave Katie a paint brush and she was happy as a pig in mud, and a genuine help, taking care of all the awkward low bits! Unfortunately, young Sherlock was also very excited about the painting, eager to resume his in depth examination of my ear canal every time I bent down to do the low bits! As a result his beautiful chocolate brown coat now has a number of attractive blue highlights.

Level 2 Chi Kung.

I went upstairs at 7pm last night to do some bits and pieces on the computer and immediately came down with a bad case of QWERTY-face. Felt so tired that, instead of going downstairs and attempting to be sociable (i.e. falling asleep on the sofa) I just put the electric blanket on and was washed, flossed, brushed and in bed by 8pm. Woken at 1:30am by Nick finally coming to bed, I thought that might be it for the night, but no, I went back to sleep and, give or take 15 minutes, pretty much slept the clock round. I did have a strange and rather sad dream. I was attempting to fly out of Singapore but was finding the airport confusing. This in itself is strange as Changi, in spite of being large and busy, is so well designed it is actually one of the world’s least confusing airports. But in the dream it was more maze-like, and Chinese people kept pressing boxes of luridly coloured sweets on me. In the dream I kept myself going with the thought that I just had to get on the plane and then when I got to NZ, I could relax and be looked after. Then I arrived and got off the plane, only to discover that, in the dream as in life, my parents are dead and there isn’t anyone to look after me.  🙁

Performance day for Katie’s trampolining class. Parents aren’t normally allowed in the room so I haven’t seen Katie in action before. She has only been going a couple of months so I was impressed with how well she performed her routine. When she came over at the end to show me her certificate and get a hug, I couldn’t help noticing that there was nothing under her leggings that she wasn’t born with. I don’t know what it is with that girl, she’ll go commando every chance she gets! I asked her on the way home what she has against knickers (not her bottom obviously) and she said she just can’t be bothered. Hey ho.

It is a matter of some urgency to get the log cabin painted before bad weather sets in, and the paint can only be applied when the temperature is above 8 degrees. In practical terms, this means we need to do it in the middle chunk of the already short winter day. In view of this, I had said to Nick that I would help with the painting. However I was really nurturing a secret hope that he would take care of it, allowing me to get on with other stuff. So when I got home from trampolining and saw that he was out the back, painting the cabin, I went out hoping that he would say that he had it under control and there was no need for me to help. I have no idea why I thought this might happen – we have been together for 27 years and he has never once said anything remotely like this, or turned down an offer of help with DIY (no matter how tentative or insincere that offer might be!) – but I guess hope springs eternal! So the rest of the day was spent applying a clear primer coat to the log cabin and plans to get more Christmas baking done (everything other than the Christmas cake itself having been either eaten or given away) went right out the window.

Level 2 Chi Kung.

Distracted from getting on with the long list of things I needed to get done during the children’s last half day of school, by the arrival of the builders to erect the new log cabin. A large parcel of timber had been delivered by HIAB last Monday and we had been informed that it would be put together like Lego. The guys arrived as I was about to leave to take Katie to school and introduced themselves thus: ‘Hi, I’m James, and this is my brother Jay.’ I’m not sure what possessed me to reply ‘Goodness, your parents didn’t have much imagination!’ but I’m afraid I did.

Level 2 Chi Kung.

I have always believed that, while most of humanity may well be ape-descendants, I personally have bear DNA – as evidenced by the fact that, at the start of winter, I want to eat a lot and then sleep until spring. I decided to have a ‘quick nap’ after dropping Katie at school – didn’t wake up until 12:45!

One the way to collect Katie, I checked my phone and discovered 4 missed calls from Elias’ father. I called him back and he explained that, as Elias wouldn’t be trampolining this week (he twisted his ankle earlier in the week) he had told Elias that he would be going to after school club instead. Unfortunately Elias was really upset about this and insisted that he wanted to go to Katie’s house. I of course said this would be fine, but Tomi said that, when he couldn’t get hold of me, he had arranged for Lena to take Elias. Of course Elias didn’t know this. When the children emerged from class, Elias promptly attached himself to my side like a little Moomin-shaped limpet. I explained that he would be going home with Lena but the normally ebullient Elias moaned piteously, on the verge of tears. This was awkward. Lena (Russian and famously always late) was nowhere to be seen and I didn’t feel I could abandon Elias, on the other hand, we were, as usual on a bit of a timetable to get home in time for Dash. I also didn’t want Lena to end up feeling offended if she had to drag a reluctant Elias home with her. She finally arrived and I explained the situation, saying (truthfully) that I thought Elias’ preferences might be something to do with the increased likelihood of obtaining ice cream at my house! Lena, who looks after Elias a lot, seemed happy enough to send him off with me, so we raced home, just managing to get to the gate at the same time as Dashi’s bus.

Nick had made fabulous raisin bread the night before, so I offered the kids raisin toast. Elias, looking crestfallen, said ‘Will there not be pasta?’ I said, that yes, of course there would be pasta, but I thought they might like a quick snack of raisin toast first. In that case, Elias thought raisin toast sounded just fine. I lost track, in the flurry of toasting and buttering, whether Elias put away four or five slices of raisin toast, then three of the cupcakes that Dash had made at school. He and Katie then repaired to the living room to watch a DVD. I went in at 5pm and asked if, given how much they had already eaten, they would like fairly small servings of pasta? Elias replied that, no, he would definitely like a large portion. I am beginning to think that, with Siniqua away in India until after Christmas, the poor wee moomin might be finding his Dad’s cuisine not quite up to the standard he is accustomed to! Still I was quite prepared for him to push his pasta away half-finished – but no, every scrap was cleaned up. After trampolining, we went home and the children managed to fit in an ice cream while we waited for Tomi to arrive – though Katie only had a couple of bites of hers before asking me to put it back in the freezer for later. Then Tomi arrived and, to everybody’s consternation, Elias refused to go home. I had offered Tomi a drink but, understandably given that they leave for Finland tomorrow, he wanted to get home and pack. Elias is usually a very obliging little boy and poor Tomi was clearly unsure how to proceed. I retreated – saying I would let him deal with his child his own way – and a very disconsolate Elias was eventually persuaded to leave. Missing his mummy very badly I think.

Level 2 Chi Kung.

Presented Jack’s driver and escort, and Dash’s escort with tins of baking, and sent Dash off on the bus laden with tins of baking, and wine for his teacher and teaching assistants. Dropped Katie at school with alcohol for her teachers, then had a blissful 45 minutes drinking coffee and reading a magazine in Gail’s, the new cafe in the village, before Katie’s year 3 assembly at 10am. A short and tasteful affair in contrast to the lengthy and over-elaborate pageants of key stage one. Went straight from the school to do the last of the non-food Christmas shopping. The shops were mercifully quiet – the only queue was at H&M (where I wasn’t even buying anything – just changing a pair of Jack’s track pants for a smaller size) which I think was more because they only had one person serving in the whole enormous shop rather than because it was particularly busy.