threescore

what would you do?

Our days are so short on earth. Why not treat today as if it had been given to you as a bonus gift? Celebrate living. Treasure the details. Don’t worry or complain. Observe. Listen. Love. Find ways of enjoying what is regular and laugh at cheap sentimental blogs.

So, I am doing a bit of admin. I just came across the council Register of Electors letters. You have to contact them to tell them that nothing has changed in your voting status and jury eligibility. Oops. I think this letter has been propping up the inbox for some weeks. So I try registering BY INTERNET as advised, and discover that I cannot. I try calling the FREEPHONE number and get a friendly eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeepclick. The click is the noise I make hanging up, but it is integral to the experience.

On the back of the letter I find a tiny telephone number and call it, full of apology for having a baby and not doing my paperwork yet. I discover that the letter was sent in September and that I already registered by internet and forgot to record it. So I apologise for pregnancy brain and forgettery (see May 3rd). Gulpclick.

I wonder what other paperwork I inadvertently did months ago and forgot about?

I wonder whether you have to do jury service if, like astronaut Jack R. Lousma, you were born on 29th February 1936 and are turning 72 today (or is it 18?). Then again, I doubt Lousma would be eligible to vote in Ipswich, being all American.

Yesterday I joined a Baby Buddies post-natal group where we were asked to give our children’s ages, names and reasons for names. I loved it! We had respellings of mother-in-law’s first names, foreign names, respellings of biblical names so they don’t sound too arky, made up names (deliberately difficult to spell and already regretted) and a little boy whose dad got to name him after a member of Pink Floyd if he was a boy. The mum had a girl’s name she liked, and it wasn’t David. She warned us not to enter into these kinds of contracts. It is good to know that the group babies will be exposed to much cultural stimulation, including language and music.

However, admin is not going to get discovered that it has already been done if I sit around one-handedly typing like this all morning. Must get on. Only 24 hours in a day.

Life is far too interesting to watch soap operas, I have decided.

You might find yourself in any given week, for example, realising that Eric Morecambe used to live on the same street as your sister. Or that your friend has just got a gay Hungarian au pair who cooks and cleans without being asked. Or that it is perfectly normal for a deaf lady to teach babies - who cannot walk or speak English - how to swim.

Life is too exciting to watch television. Except perhaps when breast-feeding and having lunch at the same time.  But I wish they would make soap operas more believable. I mean, how often do strangers stop and have conversations?

This week I counted at least five, it must be said. And one of them used to live next door to Eric.

Four and a half years ago I promised to love, honour and obey my husband, so when he placed a veto on my returning to work full-time I did not argue. It was unlikely that anyone could have talked me into it. We have tried to be prudent and allow for a part-time return to work for me. It seemed to make the most sense to us.

I have been getting used to the idea of going back to work, by keeping myself busy and visiting local nurseries.

This week I saw my Head, who told me that he cannot offer me part-time work as he has too many part-timers on the staff. I did not see this coming. Now I have to get used to the idea that I may not be working for a while at school. So I am investigating other ideas. Maybe things are working together for the best. I guess we may (or may not) understand with hindsight. I’d like to write a book with dad. I’d also like to spend time becoming a great mum. I’d also like to work abroad, fly a plane, speak another language fluently and have more children, but all these things are going to have to wait.

Today I did not have baked potatoes ready in time for lunch (there is a long and uninteresting story behind this), but I did have many family members over. I had foresight but circumstances kept interrupting. Yesterday we drove to London without checking the traffic and took 4 hours getting there, but one and a half getting back. I did not have foresight, or food in the car. From now on I will.

Lily, who finds my sister hilarious and laughs at her pulling faces, does not worry about what she will wear tomorrow or even about the hairs on her head. She just gets on with life and having her here is a wonderful learning process. She often sleeps well as she is very calm a lot of the time, but occasionally wakes at night and panics. When she summons me she knows she is safe and will be cared for. So we take one night at a time.

You find yourself using new words when you talk to young children, for example: smorgeous (to rhyme with gorgeous), sleepytime (sung high-high-low) and chickwhacking (only to be used when referring to a toy chicken strung from the handle of a certain person’s infant carrier).

Lily is conversant in Russian babble I discovered this week, as well as English. Intriguing.

A certain person is summoning me for a feed, before more sleepytime. Well, I can’t refuse; she is smorgeous.

Once upon a time I went shopping with dad last week. We parked in the parent-and-child parking, and as I was not a small child it was convenient that we also had Lily along with us.

Dad bought things like lentils and I bought things like chocolate and Lily didn’t buy anything but helped start conversations.

One of the things we found was a pack of game, such as one might use for making a game pie. (Not to be confused with International Pi day next month, dear reader.)

So very soon after I learnt how to make pastry and cooked a game pie. I did not pass Go and did not collect £200. It was not that sort of game. It was the sort of game where you find shot as you chew and you have to remember not to chew too hard, otherwise you take a chance and pay the dentist £100.

In order to make pastry for the first time in post-pregnancy memory, I had to use 2 egg yolks (the yellow bit) and leave the whites (the clear bit).

My husband, being a Clever Bloke, suggested that I use the remaining whites (still clear) to make a meringue. Ideally while the oven was still warm.

I read what St Delia of Norwich had to say and found the ingredients remarkably straightforward. 2 oz of caster sugar for each egg white (clear). ‘That’s fairly clear’ I thought. I did not think her idea of whisking until the eggs defied gravity suited my lifestyle of listening to a crying baby, so whusk until I felt ready to stop. At this point I added some of the sugar, and then all of it. I whusk and I whusk and I re-read the writings of St Delia and commited them to memory and I realised my error. There was no way I was going to create a meringue this way.

So I poured out the mixture (white) on to baking paper in a gooey line and cooked it. When I opened the oven this morning I discovered a surf board. So that was nice. Except it didn’t look very floaty or strong, and it was a bit little. So perhaps it was a cuttlefish in fact.