The time has come, yet again, to resurrect this blog from the land of forgotten objects – with a new look, courtesy of Blogger’s improved template design function (new since my last visit in, oh, 2009… what happened to 2010?).
A new blog look isn’t the only thing that has changed since last time – just about every aspect of my life has as well. In the last 13 months I have started a new job, got married, moved to a different country, bought a house, and, most life-changing of all, had a baby. He has a rather grand name, but I still mainly refer to him as little one sweet – a practice which started while he was still in my belly and I sang what little I could remember of the carol “Oh, little one sweet” in the shower. “Oh, little one sweet, oh, little one mild…” – the rest I made up. He probably thinks his name is Sweet, just as he probably thinks Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall lives with us – we have been watching the entire River Cottage oeuvre over the past few months and HFW’s voice will be almost as familiar to little one as his own daddy’s.
Having spent what might have been little one’s best night to date (he woke up a mere two times to feed between 9pm and 7am), constantly waking up to realise that no, there was no baby in my arms and I was actually allowed if not able go back to sleep, I started thinking about writing again. Brilliant sentences, none of which I can now recall, were fighting for attention in my sleep-deprived mind.
I had in past months given serious thought to writing about my new “Good Life” of gardening, vegetable growing, jam-making, foraging and cooking in the same organised fashion as I once chronicled the fortunes of Tottenham Hotspur FC, but this may have to wait until I’ve developed some more skill in said areas, and found time to put in the work. Maybe in the spring, when our growing season has a fighting chance of starting in time. The other day I pulled our first baby carrots out of the ground. Considering the fact that this was in October, after the first frost, you may imagine what a delayed botch-job the garden has been this year. I blame the fact that we moved into the house in April and had our hands full. My hands are obviously still pretty full but have this week found new moments of emptiness: little one sweet has discovered the delights of lying on his back and admiring a mobile. No, not an iPhone, but a rather classy number with strings and wooden animals. Incidentally, it, along with all other mobiles I’ve seen, is designed so that it only looks like animals when viewed from the side, i.e. from the adult’s point of view. Little one just sees random shapes, oblivious to the fact that those fascinating black blobs are in fact the undercarriages of penguins. Thankfully he, at 8 weeks old, doesn’t care. Black blobs are the business. Sometimes they even move, which generates a little chuckle and some more intent staring. His mummy, suddenly redundant for half an hour, sits next to him and writes.
So, is it possible to be a new parent in charge of a blog and write about something other than nappies and the contents thereof? Let’s see. I have to go and change a nappy now.
