Concrete

Note golden curl breaking up the brutalist precincts.

The Blenheim Races

Run! Daddy, Run!

I'm running, I'm running.

More run? Maybe just take my coat off. Run run run...

...and off you fall...

...maybe just take your coat off.

More run, daddy, more run... Daddy? More run?

Oy gevalt.

...and off you fall...

...maybe just sit down for a moment...

Yay! We won...

...More run? Daddy? Maybe I'll just lie down for a moment.


Can I rest the internal monologue now?


So, we went for a drive today, to Blenheim, because spring had arrived, no question, and the crocuses in our garden and the snowdrops provoked greedy thoughts of acres of bulbs and lawns and sunshine. It was heavenly, for the backdrop, which was fine, of course, but everybody knows that already, and because Milo's agency was entire: he walked through the parterres (he wasn't supposed to walk through the parterres), and played peep-o around an agéd tree, and did his own thing, and did things with us, and it wasn't our carting around a more-or-less willing baby but a boy running and exploring and unable to catch a pheasant because, well - have you ever seen Rocky? - and laughing. If this is what spring is like, I'll take some more.

You wouldn't have thought this was Kentish Town

Oh. My. God. A honking great goose.

A very sunny winter morning

We've put two chairs by a window to create an effective window seat in the style of neo-classical daybed. It permits previously unimaginable observation of the trains "hello, t-ain", "good-bye, t'ain", "good-bye, e'body". "More t'ain?", "More, big, t'ain?".

Skype has been around for sooo long, why do I still feel that we're living like the Jetsons every time we use it? Here, Milo gives a hole-punch to his grandparents.

The first snowman

Cooking

Sleep

Some portraits

Christmas compendium

We had Christmas at Aunt Jean's house. Above is the moment Milo got his first present from his first stocking: the story is already well-told, but let me return to it: the second present, a little rattle, filled his other hand, and when we came to present number three, a who-knows-what, he held up his arms to indicate plenitude, shook his head severely, and said no. No more presents for Milo, because two is quite enough. Ultimately, we forced the other presents upon him, because it was Christmas, and we'd bought lots and lots, and yet we knew, as we did so, that we were watching innocence spoil.

This, you might say, is après les déluges, or at the very least, in the middle of it.

Christmas is for sharing - be it with man or rabbit. Here, the delighted infant makes free with his pear and the delighted rabbit makes free with the generosity. 

The two adventurers discover the pear-thief's lair.

To quote Lou Costello: oh boy oh boy oh boy.

What a picture.

Putting the baby? Why no! Spinning the baby: the putt is merely a risk factor. 

Aunt Jean - Dzean, according to the one in the photograph above - lives in Wakefield, home to the new Hepworth gallery - and very charming it is too.

Very charming.

Both looking out...

...and looking in.

Though, naturally, the playground is the very best bit.

Post-Wakefield, my parents - with stolen glasses,

and nature classes.

No evil heard,

or seen. But an opportunity left open for its verbalisation...

It's the annual Trellick Tower picture

Happy Christmas Eve