We left for Valencia on Friday morning, carrying everything Sofia might possibly need for three days in Spain - no chance of getting away with just hand baggage this time.
Sofia made friends with the official in charge of the baggage scanner - he offered to hold her while Jules folded the pushchair and she smiled and laughed and patted his face. 'That went a lot better than I expected!' he said, sounding quite chuffed!
That night we got a cab out to the port and had dinner at a place that specialised in rice - not spectacular but quite edible.
On Saturday we went into the old town and Jules and Annie climbed the tower at the cathedral and then we had great tapas for lunch. In the afternoon we went to IVAM, the modern art museum, where there was a clever installation of neon lights, water and tv screens - hard to describe but very effective.
That night was wet, unbelievably, so we just went out for italian near the hotel - not particularly memorable.
On Sunday we went to the Oceanographic - a large aquarium split over several buildings. Introduced Sofia to beluga whales and walruses, as well as the obligatory dolphin show, but she was really more interested in the other people, who I'm sure she sees as her public! She has an equally large fan club in Spain as in England!
Sunday night we went into the old town for dinner and had our first really good evening meal - here we are eating some of it in the picture. Sunday was a lovely hot day as well so it was a very balmy evening and we ate outside.
Monday was mainly spent getting home - we went to the science museum in the morning because it was close to the hotel, but it wasn't great and we didn't stay long.
Sofia was an excellent travel companion - slept obligingly in her pushchair at dinner time (mostly!) and didn't object to sleeping in the travel cot the hotel provided. In fact the first morning she slept until 9 am and we nearly missed breakfast.
So, yes, we'll be doing it again soon.
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Valencia - our first family holiday
Jules and the bike
Just for Harold, here is Jules and his new bike. He refused to get back on and ride up the street again so this will have to do.
And now perhaps we can move on and talk about Valencia.
Saturday, August 04, 2007
Saturday, July 28, 2007
Sofia and Daisy
Daisy the donkey is the toy du jour, and favourite pushchair companion. Zippy the zebra is finally having his much-needed bath at the moment - in the washing machine in one of those little bags that you put washing tablets in. The Marshall Wace duck is in the machine as well, having been pooed on yesterday (not the best look if you're a white duck!)
Another 15 minutes until we know if either of them made it in one piece...
Blackberry pie
I'm not sure if a rampant blackberry crop is something to be proud of but the pie I made with them was delish! I also made the pastry with the magimix, so I felt very domesticated.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
High-quality baby seats - exhibit A
We took Sofia for her first swim at the pool on Sunday and she loved it. Plenty of giggling and not a bit worried by all the water, people, other babies, compulsory showers...
As of today she is 5.62 kg (12 pounds 6 oz.)
Monday, July 16, 2007
Getting to grips with Zippy
After two trips to Swiss Cottage today, Sofia is signed up for Aquatots swimming lessons, starting on 10 September.
Our first trip was wasted as we couldn't register for the lessons without Sofia getting a child membership for the leisure centre, and she couldn't get a membership card without her passport. Baby swimming lessons, passport...the connection is obvious, really, isn't it?
Anyway there were only four places left in the September classes, even though registration only opened today, but luckily we snuck in under the wire on my second trip (with the passport).
In other news, Zippy the zebra is getting a good workout, with lots of stretching.
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Reading in the beanbag
A few more photos are now up on flickr. This is Sofia's favourite book - she enjoys the different textures and the fact that she can turn the pages herself.
In other news, we have a fox as a regular visitor to our garden. Photos to come as soon as the wildlife photographer gets her act together...
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Sofia's new baby friend
On Saturday we met up with Adam, Angeline and Millie in a big park called Paddington Recreation Ground. Would you believe Millie is eight weeks younger than Sofia?
Friday, May 25, 2007
Friday, May 11, 2007
Club Scream and projectile poo
Afterwards we had lunch at Giraffe, which was lovely, and all the waiters were captivated by Sofia. I think she was smiling over my shoulder at them. One said I could have a free lunch if he could have her, but I didn't think that was a very good deal...
...Until this morning, that is, when my daughter pooed on me while i was changing her nappy. Somehow I sensed another poo was coming, so i positioned the dirty nappy underneath her in readiness but the poo shot out of her bottom at high speed, arcing over the nappy and the changing mat and landing on my hand and sleeve. No wonder I spend most of my life doing the washing!
Speaking of washing, I guess i'd better do some dishes so we can have tea.
Saturday, May 05, 2007
Signed, sealed and exchanged
We are officially very poor, but happy!
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
All smiles
We have a mortgage. Our solicitor has our deposit. We think we have a flat.
Hopefully we can actually exchange contracts tomorrow (Wednesday).
Sunday, April 29, 2007
Sofia update - 3.43kg and immunised
According to the growth charts in Sofia's red health record book, our daughter is smaller than 96% of eight-week-old babies. She's also smaller than her brand new friend Millie (Angeline's baby) who weighed 9.5lbs at birth on Tuesday.
However, Sofia's doctor says she's healthy in all other respects, even though he wants her to come back and be weighed again in three weeks time.
You can see why little kids don't like going to the doctor. First you have all your clothes taken off so you can be weighed by the weighing person, then you get dressed again only for the doctor to take off your clothes again and poke you all over, then you get dressed AGAIN and get sent through to the nurse, who takes your trousers off and jabs you with a needle in each thigh...
In other news, we're hoping to exchange contracts on the flat in Queens Park on Tuesday but this all depends on whether I can convince the bank to fax the mortgage offer to our solicitor tomorrow.
The vendors of the house our vendors are buying suddenly announced on Friday that unless we all exchanged contracts on Tuesday, they would be putting their house back on the market. So I had to ring the bank and see why our mortgage offer hadn't arrived yet and it turned out they hadn't even printed it out yet, dsespite saying the previous Tuesday that it had 'gone to offer and would be in the post'. So it's looking like it could be a stressful Monday and Tuesday on the phone at this end.
Here's hoping it all goes through OK, or Sofia and I will be pounding the streets, trying to find a new place to rent before we have to move out of this one. Which should be just about doable in the three weeks available.
We're all a bit stressed - can you tell?
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Growing things
Yesterday I planted out the first of my new herbs for the herb garden and this season's tomatoes (Italian plum tomatoes, this year).
The new tubs and herbs are a present from Sue, who went with me to Homebase on Wednesday to get all the tubs, compost etc. In the end we decided to leave Sofia watching the cricket with Harold and we just took the pushchair without the baby as we thought it would be useful for carrying everything home in.
Well, it was VERY useful but we did get some hard stares from passersby. I'm sure some of them thought we had a baby under the 60L bag of compost!
I'm also going to grow some purple basil and oregano from seed, and plant a tub of mixed salad leaves.
And the great thing is - this year noone will be speculating about whether all these tomatoes mean that my reproductive instincts are kicking in. I think we can say they have well and truly kicked now...
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Out and about in southeast England
We had lovely weather over Easter and took the opportunity to introduce Sofia to Whitstable, Rochester, Cambridge and Colchester. Nanny and Lolo also went to Stratford on Avon while we had a day off at home.
Here is our first family portrait, taken in the gardens of Clare College, Cambridge.
Monday, April 02, 2007
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Wom - red-blooded Gooner
Wom says a big thank you to his cousin Airini for the scarf and football.
He feels a lot less neglected now, although in all honesty he's had a hard three weeks of it and it's not going to get better any time soon.
It's a tough life, being a big brother...