Month: November 2007

Lola took the sponge and washed her own feet in the bath tonight. Then,
with Isa prompting, did her hands, her knees, her shoulders.

Her vocabulary is growing quickly now, and she’ll pick up on words that
she likes and play with them. She’s starting to string two words
together more often now (while, as you may have noted, I do so less and
less) — usually stuff like “this: nice” or “daddy: snack”.

She’s had a really rotten couple of days, though, with a terrible nappy
rash, diarrhea, a bunged up nose, a temperature, and a cough. I came
home yesterday and she was sitting on the sofa with Isa looking very
folorn — she hadn’t stood up all day, nor worn a nappy as it was too
painful, and she was avoiding peeing as that obviously stung. And she
had a fiercly red face that was quite scary.

I’m happy to report she’s considerably better today.

She gathers all her toys from around her cot (Leone, Gabriella the
giraffe, the clockwork lamb, Fillipo Floppo, and a couple of other
nameless soft things) and, while kneeling in her sleeping bag, piles
them in front of her. She then collapses on top of them. If any escapes,
she rearranges the pile until she’s lying on them all. Then she sleeps.

491 Miles

[just discovered this unfinished, unposted entry intended for July…]

Sacre bleu, eet is now many weeks since we returned from the Isle of Wight
and, subsequently, Somerset and I ‘ave still yet to write anything about
it. Plus ça change…

Well, it was the 4th of July that I picked up the brand new Ford Fiesta
that would bear us on our tiny adventure — independence day, indeed. We
weren’t to leave until the next day but I wanted a little time to get
acclimatised to driving again after three years abstinence.

We left Crouch End around 7am on Thursday and were in Bonchurch by
lunchtime. Lola enjoyed the trip, having special fun on the ferry. We
were accompanied part of the way accross the Solent by a flight of
common tern. I saw the birds and was looking them up in my book when a
fellow passenger came accross to ask what they were. He mistook me for
an expert.

A quick and easy drive across the island had us at the chalet in time
for lunch, though lunch had to wait while we went through the checklist
and turned on the electricity, water, immersion heater, and generally
got the place ready for habitation. Lola had lots of fun playing on
the mattress and generally helping sort out the bedrooms.

That done, we decided to head off to Ventnor to grab some lunch (for us:
I guess we fed Lola before we went)

lovely setting/chalet; great for Lola to wander around

Thurs: rain and wind and waves; pub in ventnor;
Fri: yachts; steephill; secret place; windy; drive out to car park
Sat: local lazing; ventnor suze and jewelry; Somerfields again
Sun: trip to needles and yarmouth
Mon: off to Grandma and Grandpa
Tues: fun in somerset
Weds: homeward