Allotment, buzzing

Despite the big move in May, we decided to keep our allotment and get some lettuces, pak choi and whatever else we can out of it. I love the allotments, going there gives me such a sense of deep contentment I was loathe to give it up even though the logical part of my brain is asking whether I really need more work right now.

As usual, I’m ignoring that part of my brain.

Thrillingly, the plot next to ours has just installed two beehives. I had a nice chat with the woman who was there weeding, and they put them in last month. I love bees. I was obsessed with the Royal Festival Hive when I worked there, and one day I’d love to have my own.

The daffodils above are a legacy left by previous plot holders. This weekend I will cut them and bring them home to grace our kitchen table.

I didn’t scream at the pharmacist even

It’s been a difficult week. Elliot had some nasty gas, then the teething flared up again, and now who knows, but each night he lasts in his cot for about an hour if I’m lucky. Twenty minutes last night. On top of that there were the 3am wakings, necessitating a walk around the neighbourhood. Christopher is very busy with work, so it’s mostly down to me.

I could cope with all that, really I could, if it weren’t for the fact that due to being rundown (I assume), I’ve been visited by the mouth ulcer fairy. Several times, under my tongue. You don’t think of your tongue as a muscle until something is wrong with it. The pain is constant and nasty. I can’t talk properly, and yesterday I couldn’t really talk at all. I went to the pharmacist, hoping for something a bit stronger.

Through the pain, I managed to get out that I had four big mouth ulcers under my tongue and I could hardly speak, it was very painful. He looked at me and said, ‘Do you eat a lot of spicy food?’

I closed my eyes to summon the stamina to keep going. ‘No, I’ve been up with him,’ gesturing at Elliot -

‘Oh, so you’re rundown.’

Yes thank you, I did this on the NHS Direct website, fine. Also, what mum of a toddler isn’t? Give. Me. Some. Drugs.

‘Well, there’s only really Bonjela, have you tried that?’ Nodding vigourously. ‘Well, you have to take care of yourself too you know, try and get more sleep.’

It took all my self control not to a)scream, b)start crying, or c) grab him by his little ugly tie and throttle him.

Back to Black

You probably have a more varied wardrobe than mine, which is 80% black. Black skirts, black tops, black jeans, black tights. The other 18% is dark grey. I do venture into hot pink and red sometimes. I discovered purple a couple years ago even.

Because I wear so much black, I often end up with a pile of faded and sad looking jeans and tops. All the cotton things go that dirty, edge-of-the-road snow colour. It’s heart-breaking when you’ve found the perfect t-shirt fit and then it fades. However, I now have a solution for you: Dylon Wash & Dye.

Don’t be frightened, there’s no standing in the garden stirring a bucket with a broom handle like a demented witch (how I used to dye my blacks pre-Wash & Dye). This is simple. The dye comes in a pouch which you empty straight into the washer. Dump your blacks on top – I don’t need to tell you not to put anything else in there you don’t want dyed, right? Run the machine on a regular 40º wash with no detergent. When that’s finished, run it again with detergent, then dry everything as normal, albeit not in the sun.

Done – your washer won’t leave smears of black on things after this either because that second wash cleans it out. All your black clothes are refreshed. This process has added years of life to my clothes, I kid you not. There are a few colours to try, as well as an indigo dye for jeans. If you’re dyeing something an entirely different colour, remember the stitching won’t take the colour.

Available from John Lewis, Waitrose & Ocado (other places too I’m sure) – £4.17 at Ocado this morning

Happy dyeing!

[As usual, no one approached me about this product or gave me anything , I just like it]

Seven things

I’ve been tagged by Abigail, so off I go. Seven things you probably didn’t know about me.

1. I dressed up as a giant rubber duck. It was for the Great Capilano Rubber Duck Race, and I even did a dance next to a choir in yellow raincoats. I was 14 I think. I think I did it three times. I got stuck in the doors of a lift, and the visiting language student they left with me to keep me from getting lost couldn’t explain to anyone what had happened.

2. I am a voracious science fiction reader. I’m even working my way through the Nebula Award winners. ‘Genre fiction’ some people sneer, well, I don’t really care. I have loved it since I read Ray Bradbury’s The Illustrated Man when I was 10. Fantasy, not so much. I like spaceships and stuff.

3. I wrote a zine for five years, mostly a proto-blog kind of thing, bits of personal writing. It still turns up on the interweb from time to time (number 96). I had distribution through the US, UK and Canada… you know, by people standing behind trestle tables at indie rock shows. I ran my own table too, back then.

4. I haven’t seen much of my real hair colour since I was 12.

5. I play some instruments, in descending skill order: flute, piccolo, cello, saxophone, recorder, accordion, Appalachian mountain dulcimer, and if pushed, ukelele.

6. My own armpits freak me out so much I can barely touch them.

7. It took me until last year to like baked beans.

Photobooks with Blurb

I know how ephemeral digital photos are. I remember, as a child, pulling out the big photo albums every so often and flipping through the pictures of me as a baby, of my mum when she was pregnant with me. How sad, I thought, that Elliot won’t have that same feeling.

For nearly a year I’ve been trying to do a photobook on one of many photo printing sites. I have half-finished ones all over the internet. Either the upload procedure is a pain, or they weren’t very Mac compatible, or the layouts were weird or I would find out at the end the book would cost me an incredible amount.

Finally, I saw one of my friend’s photobooks and it looked brilliant. The printing was beautiful, not too horribly glossy, and the layout was beautifully simple. She pointed me towards Blurb. A tool for self-publishing, Blurb is quite powerful. I used the web-based Bookify tool, which easily hooked up to Flickr so I could grab my photos. When you already share your photos online, it is a royal pain to have to dig them all out again, decide all over again which ones are good, export and upload.

I made a 48-page book, hardcover with a dust jacket, premium paper (which allowed me to get a matte finish) at 25 x 20cm, and it cost me £30.38 including delivery. I could have gotten a softcover, without the matte finish and it would have been about £20 including delivery. That’s incredible for something so beautiful.

I can’t wait to make more and more of these to sit neatly on our bookshelves, ready for Elliot to page through when he’s a bit older.

I *heart* Burt’s Bees

There is a bee in this photo, I promise

A long time ago, I discovered Burt’s Bees lip balm. I liked the waxy quality that softened up once warm, the taste of honey every time I licked my lips. I wasn’t really aware Burt’s made other things too.

Fast forward to mumhood, and when I saw Burt’s Bees made nappy cream, I picked some up. I’ve never looked back! It smells lovely, feels smooth and soothing, and most importantly, clears up most nappy rash very quickly. Plus I get this whiff of honey when I pick up the little guy, which is nicer than smelling of Medicated Cream.

My final Burt’s Bees obsession is their shampoo and conditioner. My hair is a bit kinky, a bit frizzy, a bit straight. Dry ends, whilst the fringe likes to go all oily and horrible. A friend had been using it for awhile, and her hair was looking very shiny and healthy indeed. I was looking for a new brand as my addiction to Kérastase had to end due to budget constraints. The Burt’s Bees Super Shiny Sugar Beet & Grapefruit Shampoo and Conditioner aren’t cheap, but they are a nice mid-range choice – a place surprisingly devoid of options. It seems you either pay £18+ or £5, not much in between. My shiny hair in my photo up there on the right is entirely down to this shampoo and conditioner.

Buy Burt’s Bees in the UK at www.iloveburt.com and in Canada at www.burtsbees.ca

A disaster waiting to happen?

Yes, that’s full of tomato ketchup. Yes, that’s the edge of our bed.

No it’s mine!

At the Science Museum yesterday, Elliot squealed when he saw the alphabet floor tiles all laid out neatly. He ran forward and picked up the ‘O’, flipped it over a few times to examine it. A three-year-old ran up and took it away from him. His grandmother stood behind her and didn’t say a word as she ran off with it. Not half an hour later, the same thing happened, with an even older child, again with his mother standing right beside him.

Is it just me who finds this wrong? I know they’re toddlers and they don’t understand, but all the more reason to say, ‘No, you can’t take that from him, he’s playing with it.’ I know it may be nigh impossible to get the thing out of their hands and actually return it, that Elliot has probably lost interest by now anyway – but it’s how they learn. How on earth do you expect them to say please and thank you, or play nicely, at any other time if you don’t enforce it in all their interactions you can manage?

I’m not really sure what to do as Elliot’s mum in this case. When the second child did it, I tried to take it back and said to him, ‘No, Elliot is playing with it right now, why don’t you play with those?’ (There were about 8 identical thingies right next to him), but he just said ‘No no no no no’, and I wasn’t going to push it, so I didn’t. His mother didn’t see, or pretended not to.

Of course there are times when the little guys are sitting in a pile of lego, happily grabbing bits back and forth from each other, or when you catch the situation much too late to sort it out. But what confused me is this mum and grandmother stood there and watched, they weren’t distracted, and it didn’t seem to make any impact.

How do you deal with this? Or do you ignore it at the time and try and explain later?

Only one nap

All of a sudden, earlier this week, Elliot decided to only have one nap a day. It took me by surprise, there hasn’t been much working up to it. It seems to be that if he wakes very early, there will still be two naps, but normal wake ups (from 7am-730am) means he’ll stretch all the way until 1130 or noon until his nap. Now that one nap can last just about two hours.

Of course I’m still recovering. There’s no second chance if I need to get something done in his naptime. Though, to be fair, he is more patient than he was a couple months ago, and I can get more done than I used to while he’s awake. Though I’ve been meeting up with a few very new mums lately, and watching their little tiny ones sleep constantly… oh, why didn’t I realise how wonderful that was at the time!

No sick days

What didn’t occur to me when I decided to stay home with Elliot full-time, is being poorly. That when I’m poorly, it’s often because Elliot is poorly and gave it to me. That when he kicks the cold and is running around slowly dismantling the house drawer-by-emptied-drawer, I might very well still be poorly. And coughing. And feeling sorry for myself.

I would like to be in bed now, can you tell?