Day 4: Orange

The Rituals of Elsie

When I started thinking about my daily rituals this week, I immediately thought I didn't have any.  I spend so much time actively looking after my kids - cooking for them, clearing up after them, helping with homework, finding pieces of LEGO and Playmobil, taking them to and from school and activities - that I would honestly have said that there was no time for a daily ritual of my own.  Well, I do insist on a morning cup of coffee, but even that is gulped between spreading Nutella on toast and making the snacks for school.

Then, last Friday, I took the time to take some photos of me and my littlest spending our day together.  I realised that our day together has a lot of structure and that these "rituals" are very important to my littlest girl.  This is our typical Friday.  Let me talk you through it.

1.  I go get Elsie from her bed.  I am greeted with a big smile and often we have the following conversation - "Where's Elsie?"  - silence - "Oh there she is!"  (giggling) followed by, "Hello, Mummy!"  "Are you feeling cheeky today?"  (grabbing her cheek) "Leth!"

2.  Elsie has a cup of milk every morning.  It has to go in the "round and round" and she has to be picked up to watch it do its round and round thing.  When it pings, she opens the door, takes the cup out, places it out of the way, then closes the door.  She picks the cup up, I put her on the floor.  I ask, "What do you have to do?"  She answers, "Close it, shake it, open it, drink it."

3.  Before we go anywhere she gets her sandals and while I'm putting on the first one, she grabs the second and hides it behind her back.  It's brought out with a flourish and much giggling.  And an explanation for me ("Sandal, hiding, back, mummy!"), in case I thought it was real magic.

4.  She always gets a croissant to eat as we go around the supermarket.

5.  When we get back to the house in the car, by the time I get to her door to get her out, her eyes are squeezed tight shut.  In case I am in any doubt she tells me she is "sleeping" and stays that way, big grin on her face until I tickle her.

6.  We walk to playgroup together.  She holds my hand.

7.  Until she gets to the ditch.  Then she has to walk in the ditch.  Right to the end.

8.  She stops to look at the water in the barrier.  In each and every individual section of the barrier, I should mention.

9.  At playgroup we count the stairs as we walk up them together.  There are three sections of 6 stairs each.  We have been doing this for nigh on a year.  Today she said, "No.  My count them.  Three, six, three, six."

10.  Every Friday night since she could sit in her high chair she has made her own pizza for pizza night with her siblings.  More often than not, this involves eating as much topping as she can get away with before it goes on the pizza.

These little rituals sometimes take a lot of patience.  I would not like to calculate how much time we have spent going through the rigmarole of heating up her milk.  I'd probably find it quite depressing.  But the fact that these rituals are so important to her makes them worth doing.  If we have to miss one, maybe because we're in a rush to be somewhere, I can't stand to see her brave but disappointed face.  And like other rituals that seemed so all consuming (singing Incy Wincy Spider 400 times a day, for example) I'm aware that these too are fleeting, to be replaced by others and then forgotten by her, remaining important in my own mind only, when she was my littlest girl, and these things were everything to her.

yellow

A rare opportunity came our way and led to my husband and I spending last weekend alone, without children, in a posh hotel in Geneva.  This is the first night that we've spent without at least one of our children for nearly 8 years.  We did all sorts of things we had forgotten were possible.  We dined on curry after getting tipsy on fizzy wine before going out, we strolled around a flea market without buying a thing, we visited (but failed to understand) a modern art gallery, we drank hot chocolate in a posh Geneva chocolaterie and even managed to sneak in a beer at a pub in the afternoon.

But the highlight of my weekend was simply enjoying Channel 4's Sunday Brunch from the comfort of my bed while sipping a complimentary Nespresso or two.  I know technically I live in a hotel, but it doesn't quite compete somehow.

Anyhoo, yellow was my photographic theme of the week so here are some yellow things we came across as we tramped our way around the city.

spring

For those of you who don't know me, nearly four years ago my husband and I bought what we thought was the house of our dreams.  A big, old, rambling former hotel, it was a fixer-upper.  The roof leaked, the hot water boiler gave out on us during the first six months and half the house had neither heating nor electricity.  We soon discovered the windows let the rain in when the wind blew in a certain direction, which happened to be the direction that always brought rain.  

But something drew us to this old house.  There have been many moments over the past years when I have lost sight of what that something may have been.  These have included moments such as when we had to set the sprinkler up in the garden to have our first shower in a week, due to the inside shower leaking through the hall roof whenever it was used. Moments like the time I phoned the council in tears because for six weeks I had been bathing my children in a baby bath filled from the kettle and a national strike meant that our mains gas couldn't be connected.  Moments like the night the ancient and decrepit swimming pool burst and drained down the hill into the neighbours' garage.

It's nice to be reminded of the things we liked about the house because it is fair to say that this old house has caused us more infighting and stress than anything else we've gone through yet.  Bringing up small people, and doing up the inside of the house so that we have somewhere to do the bringing up of said small people is horribly time and energy consuming.  That's why the small insightful moments, when they come, are delightful. For instance, this week I was reminded how excited we were by the potential that the garden offered us.  

I spent a morning photographing what was going on in the garden and I think it's fair to say that spring is here.  But the best thing is that these signs of spring have not come from any kind of intentional gardening - they are things that have sprung up from what was here already, growing wild.  And they are beautiful.  Taking the time to seek them out has inspired me this week.  If my garden can contain such beautiful snippets without me trying, what can it be capable of showing us when I actually get round to getting it under control?  Maybe this year is the year for that.

Winter Colours

It was such a beautiful afternoon, I made the time to take a short walk (in between ballet lesson drop off and pick up) to record the winter colours in our village.

I should mention that my assistant posed for each and every one of these photos, even though she wasn't always in shot!  

The Year in Books: January

If you have happened to stumble on this little blog, you may have noticed that when I do get round to writing something (an infrequent occurrence I am sorry to say) that most recently it has been about books. If you have delved slightly further into my older posts you may have discovered that at one point in my life I loved to read. But then life kind of took over and I failed to find the time.

Last summer I came across a reading challenge and thought it looked like fun, so I signed up. And to cut a long story short, it seems to have given me back my reading mojo. And I also discovered that when I have a book on the go, I begin to feel a bit more like myself, like the genuine me and I am all the better for that.

Sadly, the reading challenge is having a bit of a break until summer. When I discovered this I panicked. Without some sort of goal would I still manage to make time for books? The answer is probably yes but to keep me from speculating I've decided to join in with The Year in Books over at Circle of Pine Trees, if Laura will be kind enough to have me. This means I will be posting my book choice at the start of each month, and aiming to read it before said month is out.

My January choice is Amy Sackville's Orkney chosen because it is about a couple who met at university honeymooning on one of the Orkney islands. Well, my husband and I met while both working for our university in Orkney and we returned to spend our honeymoon there a few years later. I can't let a good coincidence like that pass me by! I shall be back in February to let you know how I got on.

By the way, that's our new wood burner in the background.  It's been a dream to get one installed for quite some years and so far we are absolutely loving it.

More Challenging Reading

I've decided to launch myself straight into another of Megan's Reading Challenges.  My mum is visiting for a little while, and it's been great fun to discuss the potential books I might read for each category with her. She's a librarian and avid reader herself, and she has always helped me to choose my books, so much so that I often get a little bewildered if I have to choose a book all by myself from the huge selection that's out there.

Again, I've additionally challenged myself to limit myself to what's on my bookshelves at the minute. There are some categories I can't do this for so I'll be treating myself  (on my Kindle most likely!) Chocolat by Joanne Harris will be a reread.  I don't often do these but I'm already looking forward to sampling that lovely book again.

Here are my ideas, though I'm not always good to sticking to a plan, so these may well change as we go along.

5: Read a book that does not have "the," "a" or "an" in the title. — Confinement, Katherine McMahon (368 pages)
10: Read a book that has been featured in Oprah's Book Club. — The Book of Ruth, Jane Hamilton (328 pages)
10: Read a book that takes place in the country where you currently live. — The Elegance of the Hedgehog, Muriel Barbery (322 pages) (France)
15: Read an epistolary novel. — The Diary of Anne Frank, Anne Frank (352 pages)
15: Read a book first published in 2013. — Life After Life, Kate Atkinson (480 pages)
15: Read a book with something spooky in the title. — Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror, Chris Priestly (241 pages)
20: Read a book with "air," "water," "earth" or "fire" in the title. — Late Nights on Air, Elizabeth Hay (276 pages)
20: Read a book on which a television series has been based. — Orange is the New Black, Piper Kerman (298 pages)
25: Read a fiction book that has someone’s first and last name in the title. — The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, Rachel Joyce, (338 pages)
30: Read two books by the same author. — White Nights and Red Bones, Ann Cleeves (412 and 406 pages)
35: Read a fiction and non-fiction book about the same topic. — Chocolat Joanne Harris (382 pages) and

The Chocolate Connoisseur: For Everyone with a Passion for Chocolate, Chloe Doutre-Roussel (224 pages)

This time there is the added incentive that if I am an early finisher, I get to choose a category for the next challenge.  Nothing spurs me on like a reward so I'm already reading every chance I get.  But in addition to this challenge, I'm attempting to knit my daughters a Christmas present, and trying to squeeze in some French lessons.  The hall is half stripped of wallpaper and I'm about to embark on an introductory course to landscape gardening.  My littlest is teething and not sleeping as a consequence.  Time is not something I feel I have to hand at the moment.  But reading is something I love to make time for so we'll see how I go.