Category: journal

Neve Elenda Hooper, as she is known by Lola, is an explorificator. The treachorous regions she prefers are those dominated by looming bleach bottles or teetering towers of pans, or the abandoned muddy hulks of shoes, wellies and vast three-wheeled buggies, or the impossible verticality of stairs.

With her distinctive three-limbed gait (left leg tucked under, presumably to be deployed as a spare when required) and whooping excitedly, she has mapped out her world with the ferocious zeal of an Elizabethan cartographer. But without the ruff.

Finally, I have found the time to get my servers running in our new house in Cambridge. Yes: we have moved! After about a year of fairly serious looking (during which we got to know the M11 fairly well) and a couple of false starts, we completed on our 1930s end-terrace in early November. Immediately, we got the builders in to make the two downstairs rooms into one, and the decorators to remove the ubiqitous blown-vinyl wallpaper in favour of various almost-whites everywhere – inluding the floorboards as we’d had all the carpet removed.

With stunning naivety, we arranged with the (woefully inept, it transpired) removal company to move in three weeks later. Of course, the builders overran and the decorators were backed up behind them. We ended up moving in, with all our stuff and with Isa’s mum and sister staying, to a house full of brick dust and acro-jacks. I’d spent the previous week going up to Cambridge almost daily, sometimes with Dedi, trying to move thinga along: stripping wallpaper, clearing rubble, doing some wiring, and desperately trying to make it habitable. And failing. It was bearable for an ex-squatter such as I, but for Isa, with a six-month-old Neve and a demanding three-year-old, it was impossible. For four days, she gamely made a go of it with the help of Nonna and Dedi but, once they’d gone, the situation was impossible and I drove the family to my parents’ in Somerset, returning alone to continue the battle.

It was two weeks before they returned, a few days before christmas, to a house still unfinished. I think the final coat went on the kitchen floor a day before xmas eve.

hiiihihugygtuuyuyuyuuhuhyuuuujjytyytr4r4erereweeedhjjmjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjfddsssdsxddxddffbnjkk,
kmjyyhybbhjmmm,l.;.;lppppppppppppppppppppppppgfjktytkj5r8lkuk8ullklok;ijht’ijkluuu8;
77uu;h;;ul[#uuphkuyujoiu8iu

frer drfgg hbgbggbggbbbggbgbggbggbgbgvv cvcgvcv ccc bhvgv gvhugugkutuijtuyuyryryrryyryyryyyyyyyyyyyyyyy vggggggggggggggglojjiiuuyiyiuiujlooooooooooooooooootyrtgfrttrer gvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvgvvvvvvbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbigiugufyuygvy8908iuihythui klm nnlvjhiugjufujfyfyhugtuj5t6y6fttfhjkkpo[”##lkikgfgg

“Can I help you to do work?”

“Not really — you have to know about computers.”

“I *do* know about computers!”

“Oh, what do you know?”

“They run from batteries. And they don’t work. And they don’t know.”

I think she’s got the job!

Down at the butchers, buying meat to make a bollito/stock, I couldn’t resist spending £2.50 on a pigeon as I’d never cooked one. I’m glad I did (though my girls were a little less glad). Here’s what I did:

Took the legs and the breast off (which is dead easy to do) and put them to one side in a bowl with extra virgin olive oil and a crushed clove of garlic while I chopped half a small onion (v small dice, about 2 tbsp). Then got the frying pan nice and hot, sizzle a lump of butter in it and then fry the breasts (I fried the legs as well, but I’m not sure it was worth it).

It only takes a minute or two, though one should add a few minutes to Isa’s portion. When done, remove from pan and keep warm. Throw the onion into the pan and fry fast for a couple of mins then throw in a couple of tablespoons of our apricot brandy (we had a couple of kilos of dried apricots hanging around so, a few months ago, we put them in kilner jars with some cinnamon sticks and covered them with brandy. I tried it for the first time this Saturday as we didn’t have the straight brandy which I was intending to use — absolutely delicious).

Then pour in a little cream, mix well; arrange pigeon breast, sliced, on toast; pour over sauce. Drool, eat, etc.

Then throw the rest of the pigeon carcass into the frying pan and brown before chucking into the stock — it really adds to the stock.

“Giraffe, giraffe, standing on the ocean”.

“Show me the ocean, tra-la-la-la-la!”

Little Nevicosa (or, to use the full Latin name, Nevecatus Nevecatum)
is not a sleepy girl. She is not, to paraphrase Charlie and Lola,
sleepy at seven o’clock, or at eight thirty. Nor is she sleepy at ten
o’clock, 11 o’clock, or even 12 o’clock.

Quite frankly, the idea that you might consider putting her down in
her cot is really rather annoying. The act itself is a mortal insult
which will incurr a forced pennance lasting up to an hour.

Hum. Perhaps I can better afford to make light of it, as it is Isa who
takes the load during the nights. Currently, there is little I can do
to calm Neve when she starts crying. Occasionally, I’ll be lucky but,
more often than not, there’s no respite ubtil she’s in Mummy’s magic
arms

There is a Neve in New Orleans
And another in Timbuctoo
But there is no Neve in this wide world
That we love as much as you.

(Buckets available on application)

No, this is Annie’s bed. Oh; who’s Annie. I think he’s the snanky whos
lives at the same door.

Is Neve going to be left handed? She seems greatly to favour using her
left hand, almost to the point of exclusion of the right. When she’s
practising her Karate moves, it’s always the left that is slicing the
air in front of her eyes. And when little cat gets one on the nose, it’s
always Neve’s fast left hand that delivers.