Bootcamp

TLOML is flying home as I post this. Hurray and hurrah for that. He's been gone for just over a fortnight, busy wining and dining clients and colleagues on the West Coast and in Argentina. In the name of building professional relationships he has probably consumed a small herd of Black Angus, a couple of cases of Malbec and several casks of Lagavulin.

Meanwhile Lady P and I have been on a sort of bootcamp, pretty much devoid of meat and alcohol. For me, that is. She was never a great meat eater anyway. Her bootcamp has included a high intensity nap training programme, and the introduction of a fairly strict schedule. The nap training involves letting her cry for a minute or two before soothing her, and repeating that cycle till she falls asleep alone. The schedule ensures she gets plenty of sleep and I'm never caught short suddenly needing to feed her, for example, on a station platform (I've done that once and don't want to have to do it again. Those benches just aren't very comfortable).

I've flirted with both this nap training thing, and the schedule, several times in the past few weeks. But there's always been a reason - we're on holiday, growth spurts, she's just had a jab, I can't bear to hear her cry for even 10 seconds etc - not to stick to it. In fact I started it in earnest by accident. It was one of those mornings when I thought she was asleep, and then heard her crying from the shower. By the time I'd rinsed the conditioner from my hair and wrapped a towel around me, she was starting to quiet down. I stood by the nursery door and listened. Miraculously, she nodded off with a sweet, sad little whimper.

I decided she was ready. No more being boobed to sleep and put down as slowly and delicately as if I were defusing a bomb. With careful use of the oven timer, set to beep after she's been crying for 1, then 2, then 3 minutes, and some steely resolve, we cracked it in a couple of days. And although it was hard to hear her cry for a minute or two, she rarely cried for three. Overall it was a heck of a lot faster than wheeling her buggy furiously round Saltburn willing her to nod off. And now I have the holy grail of early parenthood, a baby who can be put down for her nap awake and will fall asleep on her own.* What's more, she sleeps for a solid two hours at lunchtime, and is an awful lot smilier in the afternoons as a result.

The longest minutes I ever knew

So much for Lady P's bootcamp. As for me, well, as usual I've made the best of being bereft by going on a mini health kick of my own. Lots of salads, even more fruit than usual, plenty of early nights and a bit of disciplined exercise. It's not that TLOML is terribly bad for my health - he enjoys a lovely fish supper, and encourages me to go off running, and so on. But there are just a few more late night whisky and cheese sessions, and buttery scrambled egg breakfasts, and steak dinners when he is around. While he's gone I eat less, sleep more, and actually do my sit ups while Lady P's having tummy time. I guess a little bit of boredom is good for my health.

My bootcamp essentials - these and a fridge full of tomatoes

The transformative effect of bootcamp has been less dramatic on me than on Lady P, but I am definitely a little trimmer than I was when he left.

As I said, TLOML gets home today. I've stocked up on cheese and ice-cream, and am planning an elaborate dinner. Hmmmm. I'm afraid I'm going to slip into my old hedonistic ways again. Let's just hope Lady P doesn't fall off her wagon too.

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*I realise I am tempting fate by writing this, after just a few days of napping success. According to the law of parent bragging, by the time you read this she'll have reverted and we'll be cluster feeding and rocking her to sleep again. Yikes!

Cousins

We moved to Saltburn for the summer for a number of reasons. Economics and the fact that it's a lovely little town are but two of those reasons. The proximity of family was another.

Now, I love my family dearly, but I never felt the need to live spitting distance from them before. Still, we had this vague feeling that, with a new baby, it would be rather nice to be close by.

We were so right. It's not just that it's great for me - especially when TLOML is off on his travels - to be able to go to my mum's for Sunday lunch, or that my sister pops round unannounced with a Wispa when I've had a hard day of buggy-pushing.

It turns out that it's also rather marvellous for Lady P. I had thought she was too young to form a relationship with her aunt, uncle, cousins, and grandparents, but oh how wrong I was. She already knows them well, and enjoys many a cosy cuddle with her grown up relatives.

Cuddles with Aunty

But it's the socialising with her cousins that really makes me - and I hope, her - happy. How much more fun it is to go for coffee not just with your mother, aunt, and uncle but with your rufty tufty twin cousins for company too? Sometimes the kids outnumber the grown ups, and that must be very nice for them I imagine.

Hanging with the big boys

I happen to know the boys like hanging with Lady P too. Ollie told me last week that included in the space rocket he was drawing was not only him, his brother and his dad, but his baby cousin too. Sweet!

And look at Eddie, in a moment he may have thought was unobserved, waving the cat toy at Lady P to try to amuse her. Not sure it''s working for her, but I love the sentiment.

That blur is the cat toy, being waved furiously

Yes, all in all there's a lot to be said for living near family. And it's not just for the free babysitting.

Yorkshire Mix

Yorkshire folk have a reputation for being tight. I used to wonder why. Now I'm back in God's County, though, I'm starting to get some ideas.

This is a 'jar sweet' (as in, sweets you buy by weight, from a large jar), called Yorkshire Mixture.

I have never seen Yorkshire Mix for sale outside of Yorkshire. You can buy it in our local corner shop, the one where you have to order the fish two days in advance. It's an odd little shop - the shelves are half empty and it looks a bit rubbish and yet, despite having a limited selection it's actually good stuff. And they sell some locally baked cakes, plus locally grown veg. And of course a range of sweets in jars.

Anyway, back to the Yorkshire Mix. It's basically the odds and ends, misshapes and factory floor sweepings from all the other jar sweets. And this is our great county's official sweet. It says it all, doesn't it?

Baby bore

Finally free to travel, TLOML is making up for almost a year's absence from his client's offices with an extended trip. He's gone for a little over two weeks, hitting up clients in LA, Vegas and San Francisco, and visiting his colleagues in Argentina.

Lady P and I are keeping ourselves busy in his absence, but we do miss TLOML. In fact, there isn't space on all the interwebs put together to list all the ways we miss him.

One of those ways, in particular, is that when he is here I can talk constantly about the minutiae of Lady P's activities, to someone whose job it is to care. I'm not just talking about cute stuff like the way she started staring at her hand underwater in her bath, or how she turned from her front to her back. I mean the deadly dull stuff like bowel movements, naps (length, location, amount of fussing), feeds (volume, timing, number of burps).

I know I'm cute, but let's face it, my nappies just aren't that interesting

Usually these little updates are just background noise while gin and tonics are being mixed, cups of tea made, or we're wandering around the supermarket.

While TLOML is away, I send them on email instead. It's tantamount to a bombardment some days. I can send half a dozen emails or more, in a day, outlining Lady P's behaviour. A particular highlight for him, I'm sure, was the one telling him she did 3 poos in 20 hours. To his credit he responded, and not with a request for me to cease and desist. Still, I'm not sure how many more of these missives he'll want to receive. I probably need to rein myself in.

And yet what can I do? I can't stop thinking about this stuff. It is quite literally my full time job.

In the absence of TLOML I am seeing even more than usual of my favourite little sister, and she's doing a valiant stand-in job when it comes to tolerating the baby blatherings. But I see her eyes glaze over after ten minutes or so of my elaborating on exactly why I think Lady P woke at 4.15am.

I suppose that's why people join those mother and baby groups - so they can talk about this stuff with a bunch of people who want to talk about it. The thing is, I don't want to talk about it. It's boring (that's why I have avoided those baby groups). I just can't help myself.

So I have decided to quit. Go cold turkey. No more nappy news emails, and no more unrequested* updates on overnight activities. It won't be easy but it must be done. I am resolved!

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Note the use of 'unrequested': pity the fool who ventures to ask the question 'how's she sleeping'. Man have I got some stories for them.

The yarn bomber strikes again

We may not have the cultural profile of London, NY or LA, but Saltburn has a thriving arts scene all of its own. The main attraction appears to be the yarnbomber.

I've posted before about the yarnbomber - the Royal embarrassment and Olympics displays of last summer. I thought you'd like to see up close some of the treats that that cluster of people on the pier are examining.

It's a sort of homage to Saltburn and seaside life.

Local star Meg the surfdog, and her owner

Those donkeys I mentioned

A heroic lifeboatman

A seagull turning its back on fish and chips (rather unlikely, that)

A full catch. Didn't know they caught octopus here. Wonder why it's so darn hard to buy then.

Alright, it ain't LACMA, nor the Tate, nor the Guggenheim. But this knitted art is worth more than all those galleries' contents to me - for they will raise a daily smile.