Bodmacity

It’s exactly one week since we packed our bags and headed home from Texas. It was a lovely break. Three weeks is enough time to completely relax and forget about the issues at home. San Francisco was excellent, in fact, better than I expected it to be. We spent our days walking the streets and exploring the nooks and cranny’s of the city. Jake loved the parks and the open spaces.

Yosemite was stunning. I wish we had a bought a backpack-style carrier for Jake as there were many trails that we could not attempt with the pushchair.

Jake’s speech has really come on in the time we have been away. His potty use was very good. I don’t think we had one accident, although we were constantly pre-empting him by asking if he had to go.

While in the plane Jake put his hand on the steward’s wagon as he went past. This guy had taken a shine to Jake and he said “You touch my wagon?” and then did a pssthh with his finger on Jake’s tummy. Jake was a little worried at the time but this soon became a running joke whenever Jake was doing something he shouldn’t. For example when he was playing with the phone in the hotel room, hw would say “man pssthh me” and then laugh.

There were a couple of humorous Jake-isms, one when he thought he eyebrows had gone “mine eyebrows gone!!”(he was actually feeling the area above the eyebrows). Another time he woke and said in a croaky voice “Altoids”. The day before we had given him a cinnamon Altoid to suck while in the car.

Amy and Jake went to visit her mum yesterday for the weekend and so I was left on my tod. I was working from home and managed to do a good 9 hours work. In the morning I went with Amy and Jake to Brockley station. There was a bitter wind blowing across Hilly Fields. Not spring-like at all. There was also a smell of manure in the air which has been caused by farmers in mainland Europe spraying their crops. The aforementioned wind was aiding the pong by bringing it to these shores.

When we arrived I bought a coffee in The Broca and then picked up the Focus. The MOT and service cost £455. Ouch! :-(.

In the evening, after work I fancied a chili con-carne so cycled down to Tesco in Lewisham. Once there I realised I had left my wallet at home so cycled back to get it. I now realise that I am quite unfit since I stopped regular cycling last December. Time to start again in earnest. On the way back I timed the ride. It takes exactly 4 minutes to get down there by bike. This is much quicker than than the car.

Later I watched my latest Lovefilm rental, namely ‘Paradise Lost‘. I had no clue what it was about and was pleasantly surprised to find a low budget thriller/horror. The premise was that a group of backpackers find themselves stranded in a remote part of Brazil after their bus crashes. They stumble upon an idyllic beach with a bar and friendly locals. Of course scratch the surface and something altogether sinister emerges…

Back to important matters. Here is my list of chores for today:

1. Get pillow from Loft
2. Load car with old metal from alley
3. Load car with bits of concrete
4. Load car with bags of garden waste
5. Load car with bag of old batteries and small appliances
6. Go to dump
7. Get hair cut
8. Plant sunflowers
9. Put up trellis
10. Attach climbers to trellis

Chore update at 11:00am. Just got back from the dump. The car was in a right old state with lots of soil and rust over the boot and rear seats. I managed to get most of it off before the Dyson ran out of juice. I found a radish and 50p under the seat. Just having some toast before going to Bonds in Blackheath.

Chore update at 3:00pm. I’ve spent the last hour and a half working in the garden. My back started to ache so I’ve called it a day. I’ve managed all the chores except plant the sunflowers and plant the jasmine . I have prepared the area for the sun flowers next to the old shed, so it should be a quick job to do during the week. The flowering jasmine will have to wait.

I decided to cycle to Blackheath to get my haircut. It was a pleasant enough ride although quite windy on the heath. Not sure about the haircut. It didn’t take as long as it normally does. At least it’s done now though eh? :-). I’m just going now for a shower and then will head off to see my boy and Ames.

Jake is loving his train set. Every morning his pulls out the bag of trains and says “Daddy sit down!”. We have tried to curb this way of talking by asking him to say it nicely which he does. His role playing is coming on. He has a little campsite set with a tent, stove, car, caravan and campers. He puts the campers in the tent to sleep, wakes them and give them egg and tea. It is lovely to watch.

He is also loving his Thomas the Tank Engine books which Gabby bought. They are definitely his faves at the moment. This is in addition to Goldilocks and The Gingerbread Man. You cannot beat the classics. I guess that’s why they are deemed classic.

When I got home yesterday Jake helped me to plant two of the sunflowers. So far Sam’s is in the lead followed closely by Stanley then Martha and Gabriel and Tess. Poor Jake’s has yet to germinate :-(.

Last weekend was a little strange. I woke up on Sunday to see the whole area blanketed in snow. The cars were covered and it was a blizzard out there. Of course Jake was very excited. He has seen snow before but I’m sure he doesn’t remember. We all went downstairs for breakfast. I went out back to clear the snow off our climbers(no I haven’t planted them yet). Jake wanted to go out and play in his pyjamas :-).

We arranged to meet up in Hilly Fields with Trudi and Chand. We dressed Jake up in several layers of clothes including his bright red ‘paint suit’. On the way out we saw Keelan and Kerlena who had just come from a sledding expedition. They said we could borrow their sled. So, duly kitted up we set off.

Hilly fields was a winter wonderland, only it was spring! Jake had fun in the sled while we threw snowballs and made snowmen. After about ten minutes, Jake started to complain about the cold; “My so coooold!”, he said. I popped him in the sled and ran down a gentle incline. Halfway down I saw that Jake had fallen out and was face-down in the snow. This ended the days events as now he was very cold. We adjourned to Trudi’s for a nice cup of tea. Oh and we lost our camera :-(.

Later on when the snow was melting Amy went back and miraculously found the camera next to one of our snowmen. 🙂

The other day Jake was in our bed cuddling up in-between us, He turned to Amy and said:

“Hello Mummy, How are you?”.

Amy said “I’m fine. How are you?”.

To which Jake replied “My big happy”.

That’s got to be the cutest thing he has ever said 🙂

Amy has just phoned in tears saying “Jake has gone!!!”. I nearly had a heart attack thinking something awful had happened. The fact was that she saw him driving off with Gabby and Royston and got a little upset. He has gone away for a few days. I will miss him too 🙁

We went into Lewisham yesterday to get Jake’s birthday present and to pickup some items for the Teddy Bear’s Picnic party. On the way, just by the roundabout we saw a Virgin Air Ambulance on the grass. A large crowd had gathered. We pointed this out to Jake who at the time was ‘in the zone’ staring at a plastic bag on some other piece of detritus. By the time he realised, the Helicopter was out of sight. After parking up I bundled him out of the car just in time to see it fly away.

Jake kept exclaiming “More Hotoptoptor!” as it got smaller and smaller.

He has begun to say “Come on Daddy!” and “Daddy doing?” which is very sweet.

His cough is a little better but he has been in a bad mood due to another two molars coming through.

Yesterday we were having ‘bib-on’. Jake was excitedly telling me how he had a ‘baby coin’ to put in the piggy bank as well as a ‘daddy coin’. I guess this meant a 1p and a 2p. What a complete pet lamb!!

We had a nice evening. When I arrived he ran into the loungedsaying “flashing light!!” and “oding”. The router was indeed flashing due to our rubbish Virgin internet connection going down ‘again’. It’s good that he keeps me informed of these things ;-).

After supper we went upstairs to sit on the potty. He was very good, just sitting while I read him two stories and waited for the wee to come. One of his faves at the moment is “Clumsy Crab”. The wee eventually came and I tried to pop him to bed thinking that he already had two stories read to him. But no, he insisted on another story. I had to relent so we climbed under the covers of the bed while I read “Wheels on the bus”.

The garden work is going well. Paul has been working hard for two weeks now and has come a long way. We live on a hill and the garden slopes down and to the left. On the left hand side there was a crumbling wall and a decrepit path. We got a quote from Paul to level the garden as much as possible. He has done a stunning job. With the help of his orange digger he has pushed about 2 feet of soil from across the garden and towards the bottom. The crumbling wall has gone and the result is a much wider garden.

To shore up the extra soil he is in the process of laying long railway-type sleepers to act as retainers. Towards the end of the garden the sleepers will come into the centre and a couple of steps will be built. The main garden will then be turfed as far as the steps. The bit at the back will be left semi ‘wild’ as I plan to have a small veggie patch down there.

Our new shed is arriving tomorrow so I have taken the day off to help shift it to the bottom of the garden. It’s all very exciting!!

I’ve have started riding my bicycle again, just to Brockley to start with. The truth is I’ve started because I have got into the habit of getting up late these days. The later Ladywell train is so packed that it is preferrable to take the Brockley ‘slow burner’ to Clapham Junction via East Croydon. Hence the short ride to Brockers.

Now that the days are getting a little longer I am wondering whether to cycle to Waterloo and take the train from there. I think a dry-run is required, maybe at the weekend. I am not relishing the prospect of the Old Kent Road during peak commuter times or indeed the Bricklayers Arms roundabout.

The garden is coming along nicely. Our gardener Paul has levelled the garden, buried the old path and wall and as of yesterday, erected a line of retaining ‘sleepers’ along the left-hand side. I am looking forward to seeing it completed for Jake’s second birthday!!

Speaking of Jake, what are his latest doings?

His teeth are still coming, those molars are proving a little troublesome.
He has started to have little dialogues like this one

“Hello mummy/daddy/man, how are you?”
“I’m fine, how are you”

to which Jake responds
“My fine!”

He has taken to saying “what’s dat?” to almost everything 🙂

Jake has seemingly regressed in his potty training. He weed himself twice on the slider glider and once did a big fat poo in his pants. Along with this he has been very testing and not a little grumpy.

We found a new molar had come through so maybe he is just teething. Another reason might be that the “terrible twos” are starting. Whatever the reason he has been quite “trying”.

He was lovely last night though. We read three books. He loves “Each Peach Pear Plum”. He likes to point out the words he knows. He has learnt the word “lilypad” because that’s where the frog sits. He is interested in the frog because it has taken Baby Buntings radish. Naughty frog!

In the morning he snuggles up in bed with us and plays “tents”.