Where on Earth to Take the Kids?

Is a question every professional housegirlfriend across London asks herself on a daily basis. How on Earth will I get through London transport with a pushchair and luggage safely within the time bracket between morning and evening rush hour? Which stations have escalators or lifts? Where should I change underground lines so that my journey flows with minimum hassle? And, when I finally reach my destination, where the hell can I go for a coffee and chill out from all the bloody stress while the children are safe and entertained?!!!!!

 

FEAR NOT!!!! From the ashes, here rises http://babyaboutlondon.wordpress.com !!!!!

 

Sometimes(most of the time), it is very hard to know what to do with yourself when you have a toddler in tow. I can’t help thinking that a London guide for mums who, like me, get a bit tired of watching paint dry, is sorely needed. So, I am starting a new blog where contributors will be asked to review any child-friendly facilities such as restaurants, playgroups, activities, cafes, bars, pubs, etc. around the Big Smoke with the intention of making such decisions less stressful. Evidently any contributions will be duly credited. I often find it very tiring trying to come up with creative ideas of where to go and meet people, and trawling the internet is often not enough to ascertain whether a particular cafe is going to be the icing on the cake or Hell on Earth.

 

So let’s get together, parents, nannies, childminders, professional housegirlfriends of London! Get the party started, let the games begin. Send your reviews to professionalhousegirlfriend@yahoo.com

Wednesday, November 27th, 12.15 am

O screetch

train in the distance

hum of fridge

buzz of light

distant murmur of tv

cars driving far away

and a motorbike

and a siren.

and a train.

the sound of the wind

squeezing through the branches

of the bare oak tree

at the end of the garden.

Pimenta nos Olhos dos Outros…

The Boyf is addicted to ‘I’m a celebrity, get me out of here‘. Yes.

And I, disgraceful facebook addict, justify the egotistical pornography with the fact that I wouldn’t have anyone over the age of two to speak to until at least 7.30pm(‘Honey, I’m home!‘)for five days a week. Nevertheless, since the advent of Big Brother I have remained steadfast in my dislike for reality television, with a pride and sense of self-righteousness that has often bordered on snobbery.

 

So imagine my despair when I found myself in hysterics watching celebrities I have never heard of being forced to be covered in insects, reptiles and rodents, or having to ingest an appetising selection of jungle Tapas such as live scorpions and kangaroos’ penises(including balls, which on mastication apparently ejected streams of you-know-what).

 

I am now a rainforest rubbernecker.

 

What has become of me?

Let’s not throw the baby away with the bath water.

Jumpin’ for Joy

You would never guess from the sight of the ever-deepening lines of my once balmy and youthful visage that I am regressing in mental years. I blame it on children’s television. It has permeated the corners of my brain with such insiduous precision that I have only just taken account of the fact I seem to know every single theme tune available to the under aged spectator. No more cool underground music knowledge for me. No more knowing who is ‘the next big thing’ before anybody else.  And who would think? I even gave up on waiting for Axl Rose to release Chinese Democracy.

 

Tell you what, though. This one here is a corker. When I’m lying in my bed cuddled up with my son in the morning watching Milkshake, pulling my pillow over my head, this song will come on and before I know it I am up on my feet, doing a silly dance. What a tune!

Eureka!

I have found the antidote to my seasonal moroseness.

 

I’m moving in with Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. He says that since growing his own food he has attuned with the changing seasons, and found with them a sense of purpose. ’The very opposite of postmodernist disillusionment and consumerist fatigue’, I think, my eyes squinting to read the typeface on my laptop screen, my fingernails chewed to the quick from my dash through the London rush hour.

 

 

I have a very warm, soft spot for Hugh. All those years ago when he did the first River Cottage series he was a guilty pleasure that I relished in secret, lest my reputation as a rock’n'rolling teen were compromised. But there was something about the way he picked fresh roadkill from the hard shoulder for a hearty stew, or got his local carpenter or whatever to build an eel trap from a design found on an 18th Century manuscript, that made me fall in love with the man. Most of all his enthusiasm for the simple life, for being a glutton for the glut of Mother Nature and that.

 

Tonight’s show was no exception. Sadly, it was the last in his River Cottage Autumn series, but he got the Church of England to donate some land for would-be horticulturalists, made pig’s trotters look like a long-lost delicacy, inspired families on their journey to becoming self-sufficient smallholders, and, as if that weren’t enough to keep you going, made HOMEMADE PINK MARSHMALLOW FROM SCRATCH WITH NO ARTIFICIAL ADDITIVES!!!!!

 

According to one ruddy, round-faced boy on the show (pronounce with thick Bristol accent): ‘Your marshmallows are gooder than that they get in they packets’.

 

Is there no end to what this man can do? Hugh, if you’re reading this, will you please be my friend?

The Sound of Silence

Things have gone rather quiet around here. It is the sound of the breeze blowing through the naked branches whence the leaves have fallen, and the day turning dark at stupid o’ clock in the afternoon. I feel decadent like a New Woman in the 1890s with the apocalypse of Winter hanging over my immediate future.

 

 

It’s all decidedly Postmodern.

 

 

At times, the fissure I find in every single thing I question compels me to vomit out a million words in a practically involuntary manner; at others it stops me from finding any purpose in any single thing in the world, and suddenly I’m grappling at straws and I pull the carpet from under every argument I construct.

 

Depressing, innit? Pass the Cabernet Sauvignon, please.

 

Tomorrow will be better. I’m gonna buy me a nice new dress.