December 2008

December 30th, 2008

the Astrid Dimension



Sunday was Astrid’s second birthday. Monday mummy and daddy noticed Astrid has got even cuter. Again. Sunday morning mummy couldn’t pull herself together to stop crying. She cried and cried and cried and just wanted to stop all this sickness and make everyone better again and to go home and never be so silly as to leave ever again. But we tried to make a nice birthday for Astrid. We wrapped up warm, got Astrid into the buggy. Shoes off, sleeping bag on. All snug little bugglie. The cold wind made our runny noses cold. We walked up to Hampstead and were all suddenly very very hungry and we went to we cannot believe it MacDonalds for chips. For birthday chips.

Astrid likes birthday chips in the warm. With tomato sauce. Astrid is a big fan of tomato sauce on anything. Astrid is even a big fan of tomato sauce on its own. Astrid also likes strawberries, yoghurt, sausages, roast pork, rice crackers with peanut butter, rice crackers with vegemite. Astrid loves tomatoes and she likes soup. She like to dunk her buttered vogels bread in her soup. Her favourite soup is tomato soup. Astrid used to love asparagus but she doesn’t any more. Strawberries are her favourite. Bananas are also quite good. Usually whatever mummy is eating is best, but it must be fed to Astrid by daddy using mummy’s fork.

Astrid can say no very well. She can shake her head most profusely. Sometimes that might also mean yes. Astrid is also good at pointing. Often she’ll point up to the kitchen cupboard, which we think means vegemite. Sometimes it also means banana. Pointing at the biscuit tin often means rice cracker. Pointing at the fridge might mean yoghurt. Or strawberries. Or jam. Often we are totally wrong and Astrid ends up with a pile of The Wrong Food. And, she also likes peas.

Sometimes.

Astrid whilst good at shaking her head, as in I… Am… Shaking… My… Head… And… That… Is… A… Definite… No… doesn’t have such an action for yes. So we taught her the Astrid wiggle, which involves shaking the body and head from the waist up from side to side. The Astrid wiggle means yes. These past weeks however we seem to have lost the Astrid wiggle. Lost in time along with our favourite ever Astrid passtime, the Astrid purr.

Astrid likes Teletubbies again. She gave them up at one but they’re back in her good books it would appear. In the Night Garden is quite good, but her absolute favourite is The Simpsons. Which she watches with Daddy every night at 7 o’clock. Her second favourite thing to watch is the DVD lead-in for In The Night Garden. We think it’s the music.

Astrid is very well dressed. The labels Astrid will wear are Anemone, 6.5st and a+b. She also wears Flora and Henri and Nature Baby. She is especially fond of Linnet fabrics, Nani Iro, merino and charcoal cotton. Her current favourite outfit is Linnet wool trousers lined with grey organic double gauze, with Petit Bateau tights in aubergine, navy stripe singlet and navy stripe bodysuit by Nature Baby, with either her a+b yellow wool floral Linnet smock top, or her 6.5st pink Linnet apron top.

Astrid we believe is saving up her sentences for later. She understands everything that’s going on. That we do know. After lunch every day she will gather everyone’s shoes and hand each person their correct shoes and socks so everyone can go out. Astrid likes to tidy things up. She’s very good at clearing up at the end of the day, putting books back on shelves, toys back in boxes, rubbish in the bin. She doesn’t like to leave any mess lying around and all laundry is put in the laundry basket before we go downstairs in the morning.

So far we’ve been graced with a smattering of words. Tiger was the first. Now we’ve had bin, apple, water, mummy, daddy, hello, hiya, yah yah yah yah yah (at the same time as the Astrid Wiggle) – but no word for no yet.

Well, young Astrid – it’s been quite the year for all of us, you’ve learnt to walk, started to talk, we’ve moved countries, made lots of new friends,  entertained a lot of people here who find your quirky little habits very endearing, soldiered through this awful English winter, you’ve made sure your parents are kept very busy and filled our lives with your mad humour, your enormous grin, your cheerful smile and your sweet love for life and for us and the pussy cats.

We love having you, the Astrid Dimension, in our lives – you just get better every day. And long may this adventure continue.

Happy birthday beautiful girl !!!!
We love you so very much xoxox

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December 23rd, 2008

The happy hum

My sewing machine came to a very noisy grinding halt the other day. It was only a few hours later Polly’s vintage Husqvarna was humming along happily, finishing the quilt for my niece, and the Christmas presents that had been cut and overlocked – all waiting for finishing.



Little double gauze and cotton jersey trousers – two pairs made, more pyjamas for Astrid, muslin wraps for the baby. All week I’ve been grateful I bought good fabric last year when I had some money. Things like nani iro suzuran field bias tape, a bolt of purple flower double gauze from Linnet, neatly folded italian wool carefully tucked into bags – one piece just enough to make winter trousers for a two year old, another perfect for a small coat, pink and white pindot voile for lining, a bit left over to make hankies, metres of soft, light organic japanese cotton voile, pretty florals and soft grey flanels, linens in rose quartz and mulberry for teatowels and napkins.



Lovely treasures from Japan. Lovely treasures with which to clothe and surround ourselves with.

I bought a box from muji to file my yarn in. I’ll have to show you that another day. And the sewing. When the light’s better. And then I can tell you about meeting Melissa, who carried my muji shopping around Soho for me, about Yvonne coming to stay and our trip to Loop and Cath Kidston and Skandium. But now I’m going back downstairs to finish cooking dinner, to blow my nose another thousand times and to get some rest.

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December 13th, 2008

To the islands



porcelain flower by ande – astrid’s second grandma

A few people have asked me why we came here, as in back to London. A few reasons really. One of the main reasons, in fact the very most main reason that was the one that overrode all the doubts that arose in the weeks before we left was the reason that I needed to get my UK passport and be back here before my visa ran out to apply for it. Something I had qualified for in 2001 and never actually got around to filling in all the bits on the form and sending it off. I’d always said it was ‘my degree’. Something I also never got. Yes, so maybe I spoke too soon about it being like my degree after all. The last time we came back I’d been advised I just had to stay a year and I could get my passport. However. Rules change. And it would appear the rules have changed. According to the letter I received today.

So now I need to be back three years. Well five actually now. Because I’m no longer married to the person I originally came here with and I’ve been out of the country too long. So yes marrying him was my degree. You learn a lot living on the North Peckham estates for three years you do. But I still haven’t learnt to grab the bull by the horns. Get things while I can. No, I still sail along, thinking things will always be there. Like a friend who sold 20 acres of waterfront land on Waiheke for a pittance twenty years ago thinking they could easily buy more later. But it doesn’t really matter. Life goes on. We’ve had fun here. It would certainly have saved us a bit of aggro if we’d stayed in New Zealand, but there are many good things here. A nice working holiday. A lot of good yarn. We’ll stay here a few more months. We did need to come here. We really did. We’ve done a lot of shedding which needed doing. But now the life plan is saying to move back to New Zealand.

The life plan that is taking the shape of a wonderful adventure. It’s always been a wonderful adventure. The life plan that will see us move not back to our old house, but to the place that is really in our hearts, our spiritual home, my childhood home – a place we can stand and look out over the water, across clay cliffs to peninsulas, to the islands. A place to enjoy childhoods. Traditions and knowledge to be passed on to our children. Memories to be born. The special “New Zealandness” of growing up by the beach, of walking in the bush, of swimming in rivers, of barefoot adventures on hot asphalt, gingerly crossing prickle-filled summer lawns.

Cream horns in Opotiki. The jetty at Tolaga Bay. Windy sands at Ninety Mile Beach. Baches untouched since they were built in the 50s. Clambering around endless rocks along endless bays. Freshly dug pipis, but only one or two. A garden with fruit trees, hydrangeas and nerines. Fish and chips at Cheltenham looking out to Rangitoto at sunset, toes tucked into the cool sand. Poking little finger tips into anemones in rock pools. Gorse. Toi toi. Freezing cold swims on Christmas day. Jelly tips. Fru jus. Lemonade popsicles.

Yes.

To the islands. To the islands it will be.

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December 4th, 2008

So, what did you do today Charlotte?



Forgotten Tales from Hedgehog Fibres – I love this

Well, I dropped Astrid off at Lorraine’s, went for coffee and knitted a couple of inches of Astrid’s wrist warmers. Then I came home, sent an email or two, during the course of which I wrote a list of things I wanted to do and things I had to do. Got the post and spent the next half hour trying to convince myself my new plum cashmere custom yarn is a semi-solid. Then I put the bugaboo and the maclaren on ebay. Then I wound yarn – with a winder, but still no swift, which involves unwinding the wool in little trails over a chair and around my tiny room, wind, repeat, avoid playful cats.



I ordered some lovely camel for a christmas hat, as in present, not themed. I made another cup of tea and sat down with a Biona maple syrup waffle biscuit, decided to take photos of said wool and current knitting projects and then I sat down to write a long overdue blog post which isn’t about any of the blog post subjects I’ve been mulling over the past week at all. And then put everything on flickr and ravelry for good measure.

Yesterday on the other hand I made a dress, finished a bag and little pyjama pants and a blanket and a little hat.

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