Small Town Life

It's a very small town, Saltburn. So much so that on his second day here, TLOML was approached in the supermarket by a friend of my sister's, with the words 'You must be A--'. My nephews' childminder saw us walking past the cafe she was in and told my sister later she'd spotted us. Newcomers like us must stick out like a sore thumb, with our fancy city ways.

It's true what they say about the North. People are friendlier here. They smile and say hello under all sorts of circumstances: anyone I pass on our street, or on the walk through the Valley Gardens, says hello, for starters. Checking out at the supermarket is not a quick transaction, but involves at least a few pleasantries. When I popped into the pet shop to buy Jack's special diet food the shopkeeper wrote down the name of a cheap website I could order it from, and  recommended a local vet - having asked me if I was new in town (again, I must have that look about me). I was in there for a good five minutes. Nipping into the butcher is an even longer job, though that's in part due to TLOML's willingness to talk meat. But also because, it being a small town, he knows my sister and my schoolfriend/landlady well, and enjoys a bit of a yarn about the joys of Saltburn life and the coming attractions (farmer's markets, airshows, and the like).

Pushing Lady P around starts even more conversations. People up here love a baby. She gets cooed over in every shop and cafe - and sometimes even just in passing on the street.

These two ladies are chucking her cheeks and removing her dummy because 'she looks much prettier without it'. If a stranger tried that in Camden TLOML would swing for them and I'd run a mile, pushing Lady P's chariot as fast as I could. But here in Saltburn we smile and nod. There is a tradition in the North to put silver into a baby's pram, but I promise we're not motivated by that. It's just nice the way the boundaries between strangers are so much lower here.

After years of living in cities - the past two in London and New York, both places where eye contact is considered an act of aggression - I am really rather enjoying the friendliness.

Farewell Fox Corner, Hello Saltburn

...with your strange and irritating quirks, your excessive rent, and your permanent gloom. (Warning: never rent a north facing flat on a sunny day. Never again will it seem so bright).

And hello Eden Street, with your lovely view of a church.

Behind this church sits a fish and chip shop - one of the top two chippies in Saltburn.

Hello to my little sister, and her twin boys, and her lovely husband. They live at one of the houses on the right of the below picture. We live a bit further along on the left. Convenient.

And hello to this view, which greets me when I push Lady P's chariot around the long way on my walk to the coffee shop:

All things considered, this move was not too painful. And as I hope my snapshots demonstrate, well worth the minor upheaval. It's going to be a lovely summer by the seaside.

Well, we haven't killed her yet, so...

I've gone all 'hands over ears shouting "la la la I can't hear you la la la" again. A bit like I did at the end of my pregnancy. From lapping up the newborn advice to, frankly, being ungratefully deaf to it.

There's just so much of it about. And again, I solicit it half the time, with all my tweeting and blogging about Lady P. But so much of the advice just seems impossible to follow. Especially the stuff in those goddamn baby books.

The only advice I like are recommendations along the lines of: 'I'd just go with the flow if I were you, you won't kill her' (though as we know, it'd be awfully easy to). I've gone from consulting every baby book available and constantly googling all Lady P's movements and 'symptons' to a rather more laissez faire approach. We recently switched formula, for Lady P's late night top-up feed, based on the fact our nearest supermarket didn't have the brand I had so carefully researched. It's safe to say we're relaxing a little bit here.

I'll leave you with a great example of a piece of baby care advice I am happy to ignore:

A separate baby kettle - because life isn't complicated enough!

Genetic inheritance

Good news! Not only is she incredibly advanced in many ways. Lady P also has royal lobes.

Royal lobes are, according to The (half Korean) Love Of My Life ones where the lobe is separate from the rest of you. Like Buddha, only less exaggerated.

TLOML, whose Korean heritage is a noble one, has them. That's where she gets them from, I suppose.

I, being of sturdy Anglo Saxon stock, have fully attached, serf-like lobes:

Little Lady P is a lucky girl indeed. I hope she picks up his athleticism, spatial reasoning and olive skin too.

Baggage

It's an interesting process, moving house. It makes you look at your possessions in a new light. It makes you examine stuff to see whether it's worth moving. You also reminisce about some objects' former lives, the purposes they've served or the spaces they've filled in earlier homes. There are a lot of sentences that start with 'Do you remember when we bought this..?'.

One item that surprisingly, became the subject of just such a conversation is this:

Yes, that's right, cling film.

We moved it here from New York, in the Spring of 2011. There's also some debate about whether we actually moved it from Malibu too. 'I'm sure we bought that in Gristedes when we arrived in New York.' 'Really? I thought we had it in Malibu.' Weird conversation to have about cling film, isn't it?

Either way, it's been with us for some time, this cling film. It'll run out some day I suppose - and we'll be all nostalgic when it does. Not least because I bet you can't even buy rolls that big here.