Still here! Just... busy ( Read more... )

Another year older, but not necessarily another year wiser. I just keep chugging along ( Read more... )

We had a nice getaway in Lisbon in the first week of January, considering that the rainclouds followed us there, and that Bao was determined to be on her most challenging behaviour. The food, the interesting walks, the views, and the friendly people more than made up for it ( Read more... )

We had a little houseguest this weekend. An inanimate one, thankfully. It was Barnaby the Bear, a well-traveled teddy bear that belongs to The Bun's class. Barnaby goes home with a different child twice a week and they get to dress him up and take him on 'adventures'. He lives in a huge wicker picnic basket and has a rather comprehensive set of ( Read more... )

Yesterday afternoon, while driving home from school, Pulp's 'Disco 2000' was playing and the children were quiet for once, listening intently.

Jarvis Cocker: Your house was very small / With wood chip on the wall
Bao: Why is [sic] the house small? They had no money?
Me: [cracking up and trying to keep my eyes on the road]

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Let's all meet up in ( Read more... )

Writing about our half-term trip to London made me realise that I didn't write about that other trip to London, the one I did last month. Basically, a 48-hour-long whirlwind in the city with my friend C. She was in town for some work and I hadn't seen her since August in Singapore and this was too good an opportunity to miss. J agreed to take the ( Read more... )

We got back from London on Sunday night. I think the children both properly enjoyed this trip and it was worth it, really, taking them both to the Big Smoke even though I generally don't like taking children to crowded cities. J and I didn't have much of an agenda beyond eating well, and I didn't do much shopping at all. We just took it easy and ( Read more... )

Finding the motivation to write here has been a challenge in recent weeks. It's the usual factors at play - fatigue, reading, television, travel - and too few spare hours in a day. I've also been doing a lot of hard thinking about whether I should keep this journal going, or at least to lock it up, if I do. I recently found the very addictive GOMI ( Read more... )

With the arrival of the snow (that has er, now melted) I have gone into winter hibernation, hence the lack of posts. Well, there was also the back-to-back trips earlier in the month to Lisbon and London, both of which were amazing and well worth writing about ( Read more... )

Happy New Year! I'm so glad the festive season is slowly falling away behind us. J and I managed not to kill each other, although there were a couple of cold stand-offs at the beginning of last week. It worked out better than it did the previous year, and I distracted myself by potty-training Bao, so I think generally we all emerged in one piece. ( Read more... )