Month: August 2012

gardening woe

Did you notice that I’ve been unusually quiet about the allotment? That’d be because it’s been a disastrous year. After a promising start (I got the seedlings going early, got the potatoes in on time), things went downhill.

Our going away for two and a half weeks in July didn’t help. Nor did the awful weather: very slow to get warm and then insanely wet except for a week, during our absence, of scorching heat. When I came back at the end of July, the weeds were strangling the potatoes, tomatoes and courgettes. The tomato plants looked finished. The courgettes had run to marrows and the foliage was devastated by snail and slug attack. The potatoes had largely succumbed to blight, or something similar, and had mostly withered and browned.

I did some salvage work, mostly weeding, supporting and feeding the tomatoes, taking diseased leaves off the courgettes. The tomatoes have recovered somewhat, and the courgettes have continued to crop well, as did the cucumbers in the greenhouse (the peppers, though, have done less well and are much liked by the slug and snail population, the like of which we’ve not seen here in Cambridge previously). But the allotment has been a depressing site with waist-high weeds growing in the potato rows and fallow beds.

This weekend, however, we set to bringing the potatoes in and started to sort the plot out for next year. We decided it would be good to look at this time as an opportunity to tidy up and make the allotment a place we’d all be happy to come to work and play. Isa did fantasic work clearing up the front end around the water butts and then around the sheds. It’s going to look great.

The potatoes fared a bit better than expected. Many were, unsurprisingly, undersized, but there were fewer rotten and wormy ones than expected. I should try to weigh them at some point.

 

the normal normalness of normality

The Hoopers are reunited in Cambridge. I went to pick the girls up on Sunday night and, given that we weren’t in bed before 2am, took Monday off. Which gave us all a chance to get back into the swing of things at a relaxed pace. Very relaxed in fact, as we didn’t get out of bed until 11am — quite possibly the longest lie in we’ve had since the kids were born. After brunch, we got on the bikes and took the scenic route into Cambridge to look for a birthday present for Raffie. We wandered around Trinity Street and the market and then went into St Michael’s cafe for lunch. Soup and potatoes. Very nice. How long before we all go screaming bonkers mad again? 🙂

 

 

 

 

phone home

P1110075Is something Lola has grown very fond of since I’ve been home and she left in Italy. I called her first, the morning after my return–she’d spent the night “alone” at Nonna’s as Mum and Neve were in hospital (“hostable”, as Lola has passibly now stopped saying). I asked how how she’d been and she told me how she’d been a little bit tearful on the way back from the airport but that Stefi had been there and made her feel better. (Stefi had stayed for the night, sleeping with Lola in Nonna’s bed.) Then she said something like, “now that I’m remembering it, I’m feeling a little bit tearful again,” which I found very affecting.

Lola went on to ask me how things were in Cambridge and we talked a bit about the allotment. She suggested that water and food might help the beleaguered tomatoes. After a while, we started saying our goodbyes, and then, just before she went, Lola said, “Oh, Dad, can you tell me your telephone number?”. So I gave her my number and she took it down and then read it back to me and then asked how to spell “phone” and “number”. She asked when she could call me and I think I said anytime tomorrow and we rang off.

Since when, she has been calling me every day and we’ve chatted in what feels like a very grown-up way. Which, as well as the lack of hpysical context, makes the squeeky voice sound particualrly and incongruously squeeky.

small change

This is the happy ending to this entry, which you may want to read first.

I spoke to Isa last night and she filled in the rest of the story which, as well as I remember, was this. The staff throughout the stay were fantastic. Three nurses attended on Neve while they waited for theatre, they painted her nails, played with her, got her paper and paint. Neve was calm and happy. Even on the table surrounded by doctors and nurses (and Isa) only the wiggling of her feet betrayed a little nervousness. They gave her gas and blissed her out and then she had the general and was wheeled in. dThe operation went smoothly and she came out within an hour and she and Isa were put in a room in paediatric. Isa was told she could share the (good sized) bed with Neve, or she could sleep in the armchair. Isa shared the bed with Neve and dozed while Neve slept. A cot was wheeled in in the early hours and a new patient and parent joined the room.

Neve and Isa slept on until they were woken by the beeping of the drip trolley, which had detected the end of its contents. Neve opened her eyes and said, “that’s a lovely cot isn’t it Mummy? Is it for little Nevey?” and then turned and went back to sleep. When she woke later she was happy and singy and spent a lovely day in a calm, air-conditioned room with good neighbours, TV, and lovely attentive staff. All the family came to visit during the day They wanted Neve to stay another night and Isa would have done so happily if it weren’t for Lola. So she signed Neve out and went off home, stopping at the gelateria to pick up Lola.

P1120256It was super-hot and super-humid and the house was full of relatives, doubly-excited due to Selena and Alvise’s return from honeymoon. Isa shut the door on them and watched a DVD with the kids.

Neve ate, sang and played as usual, showing no sign of discomfort. They had dinner and then had a long bath (a special treat as it had been showers only up to that point) and by the time they’d finished that the family had all gone except for Selena and Alvise and they had a chilled-out time with them chatting about the honeymoon and playing with the cinderella and Snow White dolls which they brought back for the girls.

Neve went happily to bed with Lola in Nonna’s room (where Lola had slept the previous night with Stefi). Which is something we could have tried earlier — there are possibly fewer mosquitoes there. Anyway, Neve slept soundly and seems to have come out of the experience as the same oh-so-very-happy-and-chirpy girl she was before. 🙂