Katie was discovered this morning snuggled up sound asleep in Dash’s bed, her own bed being covered in quantities of vomit such that I was reminded of Baldrick and the cappuccino. So plans for the day went out the window and it was mostly spent laundering duvets and pillows and entertaining a very bouncy, healthy and easily bored little girl, who nevertheless can’t return to school until Wednesday. If it’s fine tomorrow I think I will take her and Sherlock to the park and run some of the energy out of them.

Very funny article in Saturday’s Guardian.
http://www.theguardian.com/…/caitlin-moran-my-sex-quest-yea…. I particularly liked the part where the young Moran, having got her entire sex education from watching Twin Peaks, describes how she came to acquire a new skill: “what I found truly interesting was the scene where the sexy teenage Audrey Horne (Sherilyn Fenn) applies for a job as a prostitute at Twin Peaks’s spooky, high-class brothel, One Eyed Jack’s. The owner asks Horne if she can prove she would be a good potential employee. Other sexy teenage would-be prostitutes might have replied by bringing out their CV, or perhaps talking about their Duke of Edinburgh’s award. Or, frankly, just saying: “I have a vag.” But Audrey Horne was far too sassy for that. She took a cherry from her cocktail, popped it into her sexy, red mouth and, 10 seconds later, carefully removed from the tip of her pink tongue the stalk, now tied in a perfect knot.”

A red letter day for Sherlock as he had his first trip to the groomers. He normally has a fairly spaniel-like coat so it is bizarre to see him looking like a chocolate-brown sheepskin rug.

The day started out rainy but, just as I was about to give up on being able to get some planting done, the rain cleared and it turned into a lovely (if rather humid) day. We made the best of it and planted: four pungas, two cabbage trees, 12 feijoa trees, and six corsican mint plants. Planting the feijoas was a total pleasure – we have worked so hard preparing the bed for the hedge: digging out to a depth 2 feet or more, sieving the soil, mixing in our wonderful rich homemade compost and leaf mould and a generous quantity of manure (including some I opportunistically collected after a police horse answered a call of nature on the footpath in front of the house!). The pungas etc were harder work as we haven’t done the same level of prep out the back. Nick dug the holes with a mattock – and then got carried away and grubbed out a whole series of stumps, including one that I trip on every bloody time I go down the back. The only things left to plant now are the magnolias, the kowhai and the kakabeak but we think we will leave them in pots until we come back from Italy as planting them requires some serious prep. A large glass of wine and a nice hot bath to get the kinks out, now I’m off to bed. Tired but happy.

Another busy Saturday lived to the accompaniment of intermittent torrential rain – but this time I wised up and took an umbrella! Sherlock had his first date with a couple from BorrowMyDoggy – a site which matches people with dogs with people who would love to have a dog in their life but can’t own one for one reason or another. Possibly because I described him as “a chocolate-brown cockerpoo with film-star good looks”, Sherlock has had a lot of interest on the site but this is the first couple with whom we have got as far as the “Welcome Woof” as the site refers to the initial meeting. I was going to cancel, on account of the rain, but Tudor and Jo sounded so desperate to go ahead that I relented and we met by the church on the heath at 2pm. It was clearly love at first sight and, after talking to them for a while, I had a good feeling about them. I gave them a quick briefing on Sherlock, being careful to include his less desirable (sock-stealing, shoe-chewing) traits and warning them that he couldn’t be let off the lead in public yet as he is a bit unpredictable around other dogs, but they just gazed at him with worshipful expressions. When I asked if they would like to take Sherlock for a walk they, to use an expression favoured by an old friend of mine, “practically ripped my arm off and hit me with the wet end”. They came back an hour later, eyes shining, and reported defensively that Sherlock had behaved impeccably and was in fact very well-mannered around other dogs! As for the object of all this adoration, well, young Sherlock looked like a kid who has spent the afternoon being plied with forbidden sweeties at Grandma’s house!

The fruit and veg market was amazing today. This lot – aside from the ginger and garlic which are from last week – cost 3 quid, and we had already eaten some of the tomatoes for dinner! The flat peaches are very sweet and juicy.

A bit of a curate’s egg. The roadworks (replacement of gas mains) which have been creeping down the road for weeks reached our place today – ear splitting volume on what must have been one of the hottest days I have ever experienced in London (so keeping the windows closed was not an option). So I took refuge at the back of the garden and started reading JK Rowling’s A Casual Vacancy. I bought it when it first came out but could never quite bring myself to add a hardback book to the stuff I had to carry on the train. It was also extremely frustrating to arrive at Dashi’s new school for his first transition visit and discover that pretty much everything we were told when we toured the school a few weeks ago was incorrect. This school was not our choice – not even on our list – but, on the basis of what we were told, we decided not to take up our option to appeal against the decision. When we toured the school, we were shown around by a very impressive, dynamic woman called Jane, who introduced herself as ‘the assistant head’, which I foolishly took to be another term for ‘deputy head’. Unfortunately it turns out that ‘assistant head’ is a similar job title to ‘trainee manager’ in the sense that Supervalue used to use it as the job title for their newest and lowliest shop assistants. During the tour, Jane told us that the school has a very sophisticated transition process, honed over the years and including a short residential camp over the summer holidays before new pupils start in September. Today I discovered that there will in fact be no transition process at all – beyond the visit today – and the Head seemed totally confused when I asked about it. Jane also told us that the school’s new premises would be ready for the start of the new school year in September – now it’s Easter 2015 and slipping. They also have a very bizarre approach to permissions, requiring parents to opt out of things that one would expect to have to opt in to. Amidst a welter of form-signing, there was this conversation

Receptionist: ‘and if any photos or video are taken of your child then you agree that they will be legally owned by the Miss World Organisation.’
Me: ‘No, I don’t agree.’
Receptionist: ‘in that case, can you please sign this form?’
Me: ‘No, I don’t want to sign the form, I DON’T want photos of Dash used that way.’
Receptionist: ‘That’s what the form is for – to say you DON’T want the Miss World Organisation to own images of your son.’

I’m pretty sure that this approach would be frowned upon, if not actually illegal, under data protection regs.

Finally, given that at autism conferences, or in situations where there is only one source of provision, bright, successful people tend to be over-represented amongst the parents, it is a bit worrying to turn up and discover that all the other parents look like they are on the bones of their arse. Then the receptionist asks three times – ‘Are you sure you’re not eligible for free school meals?’ and you start to wonder what it is that all the other middle class mummies have worked out that you’ve somehow missed…

On the plus side, Dash seemed to quite like the school – though this was because they had iPads and let him eat chips and white bread for lunch, so not all that reassuring.

After I picked him up, we went to a cafe for him to have his favourite mango smoothie and then had a wander around the Turkish deli and the fruit and veg market. Later, after taking Katie to music, we had a swim and then I made a salad of tomatoes, red onions, rocket and watercress, dressed with the basil infused olive oil I got at the famous Mr Christians on my last trip to Notting Hill, and served it with Turkish bread and grilled haloumi and feta. Perfect food to eat outdoors on a summer evening. While we were eating, we were startled to see this little fellow approaching with no sign of fear. We never seen any sign of mice in the garden before (or in the house thankfully), so it’s hard to escape the idea that he was attracted by the smell of grilled cheese.

Day 21: A gloriously sunny day followed by a beautiful balmy evening. Lift Chi Up, completed and filed UK tax return (yippee!). Dinner at Brasserie Raymond Blanc (starter of chick pea salad with smoked auberigine was great but main courses a bit so-so), followed by a stunning performance of the anti-war play, ‘The Silver Tassie’ at the National Theatre. A slightly startling play at which to be in the front line – I mean front row – what with the ‘shelling’ and the bayonets at some points coming within a couple of feet of our faces. A brief walk on the south bank, appreciating the views of London at its most gorgeous, then home to water the feijoas, pungas, magnolias etc that we haven’t had a chance to plant yet. We really need dry weather on Sunday to get them planted – keeping everything crossed.

Started organising paperwork for the UK tax return, took Katie and X, (a school friend of Katie’s) for muffins at a cafe and then to Blackheath Beach (http://www.conservatoire.org.uk/…/The-OnBlackheath-Beach-Op…) for a sand sculpting workshop. On the way home, I stopped to collect the linocut prints which were too wet to bring home yesterday. I was gathering them up carefully and beginning to test whether they were completely dry when X’s repeated attempts to grab them with her straight-from-the-sand-pit mucky hands prompted me to decide that they would be safer going straight in a bag. Unfortunately they were still just tacky enough to all stick together (and some now have added sand) – very sad.

Dog-bathing. not as a martial art, but as an exercise in advanced cross-species rapport building. I will draw a veil over the circumstances which led to my starting the day with emergency dog-bathing and just be glad that Sherlock not only cooperated but seemed to actively enjoy the process. Normally we bathe Sherlock in plain water but this time I decided, partway through, that shampoo was definitely required. I told Sherlock to stay and went off to get the shampoo, half expecting to have to chase him around the garden on my return, but no, there he was, still sitting happily in the basin. While Sherlock dried off in the sun (fabulous sunny day today) I decided that, having started the day grubby, I might as well get a bunch of other grubby jobs done before I hit the shower, so I washed all his bedding, emptied and scrubbed out the compost bin and gathered up and disposed of the rather chewed results of Sherlock’s frequent raids on the recycling bin. Lift Chi Up, then a nice hot shower – there’s a special pleasure in a nice hot shower when one feels dirty enough to actually need it – and off to printmaking. I did some more work on my lino cut and got some nice results. We were all sad that it was the last day as none of us could imagine continuing at home without the push of a class to go to. We may be reconvening in September though, to take part in a reminiscence project. Home to attack the pile of filing (which has begun to annoy me) and a (sadly fruitless) attempt to communicate with HMRC.

Lift Chi Up, lovely long telephone call with Ann Eade, got some boring to do list stuff out of the way. The admin really does seem to go on and on at this time of the year – and I haven’t even started the tax returns yet.

Booked Kate and Dash into their chosen art classes for the summer – for the first time they will be doing two classes together so it will be interesting to see how that goes. I don’t think Dash has ever experienced Katie’s (very quiet, ultra-polite, butter-wouldn’t melt) public persona before – he might end up asking the classic question: “Who are you? And what have you done with my sister?”.

More rain, more Elliotts Row hassles (hopefully the last) and a minor but annoying plumbing situation. On the plus side Dash and Katie are great friends again (after a sustained period of squabbling). They appeared in the morning holding a “wishlist” for the day which included, at number 3, “Hug Mum”! I was excited to see “Tidy Up” at number 4 but when I mentioned it Katie said “Oh yeah, we decided not to do that one.”

A tiring day. Usual Saturday logistics complicated by thunderstorm, torrential rain, the need to make an urgent trip to BHS to buy mattress covers for the new tenants, and a birthday party for Katie necessitating the purchase of a suitable gift and card, and two additional half-hour walks in the teeming bloody rain – feel like I’ve had wet feet all day. Meanwhile back at Elliotts Row to assemble the IKEA beds, Nick discovered that one of the boxes had all the fixings missing so had to go back to IKEA this evening to pick up more. I will be glad when the tenants are installed and we can get back to normal – I only hope that they are not the whinging kind. We haven’t let the place furnished before and it really does seem to be a significant amount of extra hassle.