Chapter One

In which Raymondpappa nearly gets his head blown up, Frankin meets a toad and Itch learns all about Swiss neutrality.

(Yes, we’re still reading the Moomins!)

Lovely couple of days; spent yesterday replanting lots of the things we brought from the last house into the garden (how i love having topsoil without weed seeds in it!) so the garden is looking like the beginning of something lived in. The pinks are out, my rose bush is about to flower, the foxgloves managed to get buds despite being sat in a bucket and the delphiniums are recovering nicely. The girls played out there all day really, a variety of games involving real money play, babies, Victorian history and stories they know. Max’s gran came for the afternoon, for lunch and to learn about the internet and they behaved delightfully, which was nice as she more often sees them out at other houses or in restaurants, where they are nice, but not really themselves. She seemed to enjoy their company and we all sat on the patio and enjoyed watching the birds flying around us. Birds are something of a novelty for us as our inner city living had really meant we hadn’t seen any garden birds at all, which was very sad. Here we have either House Martins or Swifts darting about, so we all sat out watching them and trying to ID them from a book.

Found it fascinating to sit talking to her about the way mothers were “instructed” during the war and how she holds it responsible for the nature of her eldest daughter. Gran was talking about the “crying baby in the garden in pram regardless” stuff, how she was made to keep breastfeeding despite plummetting mental health, a constant crying and losing weight baby and utter distress for them both. Eventually she went against what she was being “allowed” and got some formula, so solving the problem but was told she was a “bad mother” by the nurse. Now, whatever the real cause of whatever going on for them, it was astonishing to listen to a woman i know as incredibly strong and well, rather bolshy, certainly someone who has baulked tradition often, taking about being so browbeaten and distressed by medical “help.” She was living with her parents, during the war, not daring to co-sleep and all alone and it really must have been hell. 🙁 Anyway, she was describing Max’s mum and i found it incredible as she really could have been describing Fran – so either Fran’s nature is genetic, or we both ruined our eldests nerves by not doing what we new they needed because we were too busy listening to “help” 🙄

Fran and i also spent some time AC:WWing together, though i am getting a bit irritated that all my townspeople go on about Sarah and how nice she is, all the time! Still, we beachcombed, bug caught, fished and bred flowers together and generally did some mum/daughter bonding. I’m happy because i’ve paid off my next mortgage level, bred a pink flower and returned a lost kitten to her home town! 😆

Fran is feeling a bit fragile and is somewhat spotty too; we’ve had to have one of those chats, mainly about taking care of her skin with decent washing off of the food she still plasters herself in. She didn’t seem at all happy about some of the info she got really, but it worries me that even if all that stuff is someway off for her probably, given she still weighs 3stone 4lbs, she is likely to start hearing about puberty-related stuff from friends fairly soon and i don’t want her to feel embarrassed or confused. Anyway, today we blew off the cobwebs by going to the allotment. It is a shocking mess and i left it too long while hoping for an easy way out, but we didn’t do badly. The card we put down last week had made some of the stuff easy to get up, so we cleared that and planted a bag of potatoes and put more card down i two more places. Think we’ll have to just go slowly and try to prepare one bit each week with card, then properly clear it and plant it the week after. That way, we’ll be through in about 8 weeks!!!!! 🙄 Oh well… i’ve applied for an allotment nearer to where we live now, but it won’t be available till next year, so we’re making the best of it for now. Fran had a lovely time with two little girls down there, which was nice. While we were there we watched toads of various sizes, made friends with a Robin a la The Secret Garden and talked about lots of stuff, including putting down salt to destroy land of enemies, lifecycles and more. In fact, it’s been a real HE conversation weekend.

This afternoon we curled up with The Sound of Music and had an ALMIGHTY thunderstorm. Now, scared of them as i am in the open, i’m not scared inside, but we had hail and one flash of lightning then thunder that were SO close that everything in the house went off. Max had just stuck his head out the door at the time!!!! Anyway, it passed really quickly (hence getting caught in a storm with the tv on!) and we finished watching the film, covering the invasion of Austria, the Nazis and Swiss neutrality via an atlas while we were at it.

And now i have 23 parcels to pack, so i better go.