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Day 88

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Level 2 Chi Kung. Microcosmic orbit.

An beautiful warm sunny autumn day, spent doing various minor bits and pieces, which somehow added up to a very satisfying day. Did some laundry, cleared up some bits and pieces of admin, collected Katie from school and had a great time scrunching through autumn leaves on the way home. Sat out in the garden with Kate and Dash, cuddling Sherlock and enjoying the sunshine. Supervised homework. Made dinner.

It’s such luxury not to have to try to fit all this stuff into the cracks left by a full-time job.

Day 87

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Level 2 Chi Kung. Microcosmic orbit.

Nick was off on one of his long cycle trips, so I was on morning duty. One consequence of this is that I tend to have little visitors when I’m doing Chi Kung. Katie and Dash have long been fascinated due to the similarity to the actions in ‘Tree Fu Tom’ – a favourite cartoon. Katie even does the microcosmic orbit with me sometimes and it is hilarious watching her very seriously doing bellows breaths, stroking her tiny nipples etc. But today was the first time Jack has shown an interest. This is very exciting as I would love to get Jack to the point where he would do it with me. I’m sure it would be very good for him.

I forgot to mention yesterday that we saw a woodpecker in the back garden. We have heard them many times but normally they are completely hidden by foliage so this is the first time we have seen one.

Katie organised a party today just for the two of us, with a long list of activities for us to complete together, including gardening, dancing, cuddling Sherlock, her reading me The Gruffalo, drawing decorations and party food.

Although it’s years since I lived in the southern hemisphere, I still feel the urge to spring clean at this time of year, so today I bit the bullet and started going through the children’s drawers, sorting out what still fits them, what needs mending and what needs to go to the charity shop or in the recycling bin. Now that Katie is showing an interest in patchwork, I also have a fifth category: stuff that might be useful to cut up for future projects. I will be picking up conkers over the next few days to pack in with the clothes that will go to the attic. Conkers are a natural moth repellent and I really wish more people would cotton on to this as, at this time of year, public transport is made almost unbearable by the stench of mothballs as people get last year’s coats out of storage – very unpleasant!

I had a much more comfortable sleep last night with very little knee pain, which confirms my feeling that taking it quietly yesterday was a good idea. I worked out that I was walking around 3.5 to 4 miles each day getting Dash to and from school, and I think it was just a bit too much at this stage of recovery.

Day 86

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Level 2 Chi Kung. Microcosmic orbit.

Was woken every couple of hours through the night with knee pain – whatever position I fall asleep in, I seem to end up in positions where there is torque on the kneecap, wake up in agony and have to wander around for a bit before I can get back to sleep – so decided to have a quiet day today: a bit of tidying, some laundry, and helped Katie get started on the patchwork cushion she has been dying to make. She had her heart set on making a duvet for her first project but, given that she is using pieces about 3cm square, I thought a cushion might be more achievable.

Day 85

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Level 2 Chi Kung.

Last day of taking Dash to school – the people who run the transport service have confirmed that he definitely has a place on the bus on Monday – thank heavens!

Realised today that, with the kids only back at school a few days, the Christmas posting deadline for surface mail to NZ is looming, so I had better get organised and get to the post office. Really tired this week, so looking forward to a sleep in tomorrow (my turn!) and a last cruisy weekend before drama etc restart next week.

Day 84

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Level 2 Chi Kung. Microcosmic orbit.

Another day, another borrowed baby… On the way to Dashi’s school, the bus driver was again turning away people with buggies. The two available buggy spaces had obviously been taken at the first stop (I get on at the second stop) which means people in the middle of the route have no chance. Considering that the number 75 only runs every 15 minutes and one could quite easily miss out on several buses in a row, it’s no wonder people get a bit desperate. This time the desperate mummy was from Eastern Europe, and, I guess because this time the baby’s colouring matched mine a bit more, I was soon graciously accepting compliments on the baby’s physical beauty and placid nature! I was wholeheartedly agreeing with the baby’s admirers (including a policewoman), when it occurred to me that I should really point out that the child didn’t belong to me!

Baby-cuddling opportunities aside, spending 4 hours a day on public transport gets old quite fast, so I was relieved to hear from the LEA that transport via the school bus is arranged from Monday.

90 harrowing minutes spent watching Helen McCrory butcher her children in Medea. I thought McCrory was wonderful but found Danny Sapani an unconvincing, and irritatingly sweaty, Jason. He had a silk hanky in his breast pocket and I was simply willing him to pull it out and give his face a wipe down.

A disappointing meal at the usually reliable Rivington Grill – lambs sweetbreads so devilled you couldn’t taste the sweetbreads, followed by lacklustre sausages and mash, finally redeemed by a wonderful plum pie for pud.

Day 83

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Level 2 Chi Kung (tightness in left thigh now getting really annoying). Micocosmic orbit.

Beautiful warm sunny weather, which only made it more frustrating that almost four hours of it were taken up dropping Dash at school and picking him up. In spite of having asked for, and received, the necessary information on the 7th of July, the local education authority have still not managed to arrange Dashi’s transport to school. Yesterday, because Jack hadn’t started back to school and is uneasy on public transport, we had to take taxis and clocked up a bill of over £70 for the two trips – and came close to an even higher bill when Katie vomited in the taxi on the way home! Fortunately I managed to catch most of it in a carrier bag so the driver didn’t charge us the vomit clean up fee, which can be up to £100.

Today, with Jack at school, we were able to take the bus – a great deal cheaper, but also a great deal slower, hotter and less comfortable. The LEA promised yesterday that they would phone me at 11 am today to give me an update on progress but of course they didn’t call, nor did they answer any of my many phone calls to them, so it looks like we’ll be doing the whole thing over again tomorrow.

One plus note is that I did get an opportunity to do my absolute favourite kind of good deed – i.e. one that helps someone else and is also really fun for me! I was on the bus on the way to collect Dash this afternoon, when a young woman struggled onto the bus with a sleeping baby in one arm and a buggy in the other. The bus was crowded and there were already several buggies on board, so she was going to end up with the near-impossible task of trying to fold the damn buggy one-handed, as the bus lurched wildly along (in my experience, bus drivers are generally grumpy and unhelpful and particularly hostile to mums with buggies – I think the grumpiness is probably something to do with the fact that there are hardly any public toilets in London and bus drivers aren’t allowed to just nip into the nearest pub like the rest of us). As she went past, I asked if she wanted me to hold the baby while she got herself sorted out. She looked me over and I must have looked trustworthy because she gratefully handed over the child and went off to stow the buggy. Well, she took ages to come back, so I got a good long cuddle, as well as a few strange looks from people getting on at the next stop, possibly on account of the baby being as dark-skinned as I am pale.

Day 82

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Level 2 Chi Kung (still mystified by the tightness in left thigh). Microcosmic orbit.

A beautiful day today – somehow now that it is officially autumn, every hour of sun seems extra precious – so, after dropping Dash at school and doing Chi Kung, I was eager to get out into the garden. However a plumber arrived to quote for repairing the upstairs loo and, having made the mistake of offering him coffee, I thought he was never going to leave. By the time he finallydeparted, I had just enough time for Katie and I to tie in the climbing roses (which have been growing like triffids in the warm, wet weather over the last few weeks) before we had to head off to collect Dash again. After we got back with Dash, I fed everyone, then Kate and I went out again and weeded the feijoa bed.

Dashi’s first day of secondary school went well. He said it was interesting and he made lots of friends – his only disappointment was that lunch did not include chips! It did however feature strawberry ice cream, which Dash won’t usually eat. School strawberry ice cream is obviously different though, as he appears to have yummed it down. Let’s hope that school spinach is equally miraculous.

Kate and Jack go back to school tomorrow and I find myself both sad and excited. Sad because our lovely summer together is over but picking up on Dash’s excitement about secondary school and Katie’s about starting key stage 2. It’s funny, I always expected to end up home-schooling my kids – a task for which I am manifestly unsuited on account of utterly lacking the requisite saintly patience. I expected to do this not through choice, but because, having been utterly miserable at school myself, I would never have been able to make them go if they had expressed even mild upset at the prospect. So it is a constant surprise to me how much they love it. Jack’s school and Dash’s primary school are pretty fab, and I could completely understand why Katie loved her Montessori when we lived in Bayswater, but I am more puzzled by her delight in her current school. Although it is one of the top state primaries in the country, having met Katie’s teacher, it is hard to imagine it actually being fun.

On Sunday I was scrubbing down a chopping board when Katie initiated this conversation.

K: “That’s my board. That’s my board. That’s my board”
J: “Well, it’s a board you helped me choose.”
K: (increasingly agitated) “It’s my board. It’s my board.”
J: (mystified and a bit exasperated) “Well, when you grow up and leave home, you can take it with you to your new house.”
K: “Ok. I’ll have that board and you can have all the other boards.”
J: “Thank you”.
K: (scanning the kitchen and looking thoughtful) “Though I’m going to need at least one of those small ones.”

Why do I feel as if my 7 year old daughter is negotiating a pre-nup ahead of our eventual divorce?

Day 81

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Level 2 Chi Kung (strange cramping tightness in left thigh, otherwise good). Microcosmic orbit.

As today was the last proper day of the school holidays (Jack and Katie don’t start back until Wednesday but Dash starts tomorrow) I thought it merited special occasion treatment, so I made gingerbread pancakes with maple syrup for the children’s breakfast. Ever since she overheard Denise Ball and I discussing shamanic journeying, Katie has been desperate to meet her spirit animal. After breakfast had been made, consumed and cleared away, I thought ‘why not?’, so I looked up the instructions in the Integration course manual and found some appropriate drumming on-line. I put my Alexander-technique mat down on the floor and talked Katie through the instructions and the importance of coming back when called. She lay down and immediately sat up again, complaining that the room was too bright, so I gave her an old t-shirt to put over her eyes and we got started. Frankly, I wasn’t really expecting her to be able to stay still long enough to have any kind of experience. So I was surprised when she lay, quite still apart from slight puppy-sleep-chasing-rabbits twitching, for the duration of the drumming. When she came back, she was breathing hard and I asked her why she was panting. She said, matter of factly, that there had been a lot of running. When she had got her breath back enough to talk, she told me that she had met a lemur, which then lead her through the forest (the aforementioned running) until they came to a brown bear. She hadn’t really thought about a question to ask her spirit animal so she just asked “Will I see you again?” and got the answer “Yes”. She was eager to tell Dash about her experience but he was initially a bit dubious, given that she regularly concocts outrageous stories to wind him up! Later though she came back and told me that he said he doesn’t need to do the journey, as he already knows that his spirit animal is a lion, and he goes to “that place” all the time. Given Dashi’s relationship to lions in this world, I guess I’m not that surprised.

Day 80

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Level 2 Chi Kung. Microcosmic orbit.

Nick went for a long bike ride this morning so I was on morning duty with the children. It is a mystery to why the lidded glass bowl I have always used to make the porridge has suddenly started exploding porridge all over the microwave. Hey ho. Did some laundry, sat in the sun, cleaned the kitchen and made Dan Lepard’s Whisky and Ginger Cake (very good). Realised halfway through making the cake that we had run out of baking soda and had to make a trip to the local corner shop to get some more.

I only really enjoy baking when I start with a reasonably immaculate kitchen – with the result that I often start the day with the intention of baking but by the time I have cleaned the kitchen (sometimes several times if people have inconveniently required feeding and created more mess) the opportunity has passed. My hope is that my family will eventually clock that there is a correlation between the extent to which they clear up after themselves, and the likelihood of homemade cake being produced, and be motivated appropriately!

Day 79

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Level 2 Chi Kung. Microcosmic orbit.

I am continually amazed at the growing strength in my hands since starting level 2 Chi Kung – the ‘claw like an eagle’ bit really works. Today I opened a fresh jar of sauerkraut without resorting to gadgets, running it under warm water, cursing etc.

A lazy day, basking in the afterglow of having such a lovely time with Denise Ball on Thursday and Friday. Did a bit of tidying, and put the apple sauce Denise made from our windfall apples in the freezer, but otherwise spent the day sitting or lying about resting the knee.

Katie announced this morning that she and Dash had packed a picnic and that they intended to have it on the heath. I explained that Nick would have to take them as I didn’t want to do much walking today and she was fine with that. I asked if she needed any food or anything for the picnic but she assured me that everything was already organised. She had packed: a towel to sit on, some dry rice bubbles to eat, a bottle of water and two cups. She explained that she and Dash would use the cups and Nick could drink directly from the bottle.

Several visits from young foxes this afternoon, which makes me think that, although Mr and Mrs Fox didn’t breed in our backyard this year, they probably weren’t far away. If the conservationists succeed in reintroducing lynx, I wonder if we will one day have lynx’s slipping across the bottom of the garden?

Amidst all this domesticity it is usually only through Richard Bolstad‘s posts that I am aware of the approach of war, but today it was all over radio 4. It is even scarier hearing it through a medium that doesn’t usually convey anything more troubling than Gardener’s Question Time. I admit to being nervous, as it’s getting hard to see how this can end well. I feel like a character from Elizabeth Jane Howard’s Cazalet Chronicles, only lacking a convenient family estate in Sussex to repair to when push comes to shove.