Idle Notes

Cooking

2012-01-21T12:45:00.000Z

Sleep

2012-01-21T12:40:00.003Z

Some portraits

2012-01-15T14:32:00.000Z

Christmas compendium

2011-12-31T13:08:00.001Z

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

2011-12-24T08:00:00.000Z

Happy Christmas Eve

In the garden

2011-12-03T19:13:00.001Z

Like parsnips, the sloe berry improves after a good frost. See also beets, chard and kale. Last week, it frosted, and as we have only sloe in our estate, not beets, parsnips, chard or kale - none of which, anyway, I think, make a good gin - today we harvested the hedge which protects the boundary of our land. It was a lovely winter's day: bright, chill, and probably another suitable adjective.

In a demonstration that Milo in no way takes after his father, he sat quietly for twenty minutes picking each leaf off the step individually and putting it in the bucket. In an action perhaps more genetically linked, at the end of that period he took all the leaves out of the bucket and put them back on the step.

The Zoo

2011-11-28T19:07:00.000Z

A tour of Whipsnade Zoo - in which Milo saw a real tiger, and said 'raaaargh'; and an old matriarchal chimpanzee pressed gifts of straw into his hand, through the glass, and gave him a final stroke goodbye; and he 'twit-twooed' some owls; 'whas-thated' a herd of elephants and a giraffe; ignored the wolves; and was quietly impressed by a pride of lions.

Leaf Sweeping - a troubled photo story

2011-11-19T16:39:00.000Z

"This is how you hold the brush, darling"

"Like this mother?"
"Both hands dear, both hands"

"When her back is turned - wallop"

"Gah, she caught me, now I have to pick them up by hand"

"An infinity of leaves to be collected - is this what life heralds?"

Early this morning in the playground

2011-11-06T19:36:00.000Z

Two leaves good

Halloween and other stories

2011-10-30T18:48:00.000Z

This blog can neatly be divided into things that happened today, things that happened yesterday, and the thing that happened before that.

This happened before that - it's a view of a rainbow from my office window

Whereas this happened yesterday. It's Milo on the phone - to borrow Fiona's joke, he's calling the cobs. My joke was: Hello, I can 'ear you.

Here, he laughs.

This is one of the reasons we had lunch yesterday; Sean and Lisa and Joseph came to visit. You see what effect clapping has.

He loved these balloons so much, the mother of the whoever it was who was having a birthday cut one free from the tree for him.

It was a love affair just like the Red Balloon, without the bullying, or the running away, or the balloon being red.

This is happening today. A walk on Primrose Hill, Clare, Milo and Monkey.

And this was why we were on Primrose Hill - a little festival for Halloween.

Autumn: views etc.

2011-10-23T20:26:00.001+01:00

We've just come back from a day trip to the grandparents. Snap.

I was in a bar on Friday night with this view. The view was 10 to the power 100 or so better than the bar.

This used to be the view from our room - now it's the view from Milo's room. He's much smaller than us and the room's much bigger than him and has a better view than our bedroom now, so I'm not sure what the percentage is. Still, as he's so efficient as an early morning alarum, we do get the benefit of all the autumn sunrises.

It's pretty much a red themed blog post today. This photo's from a week ago: an early morning trip to the park to give Clare a moment's peace.

Sunrise and baby

2011-10-16T11:13:00.000+01:00

Ah-mwah

2011-10-09T19:53:00.000+01:00

Today at Kew

2011-10-02T16:57:00.000+01:00

Peep-o!

2011-10-02T09:17:00.000+01:00

Obviously these are not consecutive photographs, but I'm sure you get the idea.

Portrait of the artist as a toddler

2011-09-23T14:46:00.000+01:00

A sunny day at the swings

2011-09-19T21:13:00.000+01:00

Weekends in the country

2011-09-11T19:52:00.000+01:00

can certainly be idyllic

Weekend with grandparents no. 2

2011-09-04T16:07:00.000+01:00

Weekend at grandparents

2011-09-01T20:47:00.000+01:00

Two good views

2011-08-26T18:36:00.000+01:00

I just delight in each new moment of parenthood

2011-08-14T19:10:00.000+01:00

Mother and Child

2011-08-03T21:26:00.002+01:00

The place we stayed

2011-08-03T21:07:00.002+01:00

one wing of a manor - but unreconstructed - had an even less reconstructed mansion in its grounds: a mediaeval ruin, perfect for exploring. Also a ruined church. I frightened myself to take these pictures; particularly when a buzzard burst out above my head with the screech of a thousand unhappy souls.

The Umbrella of Pembrokeshire

2011-08-03T20:58:00.000+01:00

It was really hot in Wales. Not as hot as it is now. But still, really hot. This umbrella became a motif of the holiday.

Paddling

2011-07-30T20:45:00.000+01:00

So, what with Milo learning to take his first independent steps and that on our holiday, other firsts are almost overshadowed. However, what he also did first was see the sea, and paddle in it. On day one, he loved the idea, on day two, it made him cry. Also, talking of walking: he can walk perfectly well - set him on his feet and he pads off like a hiker - but he doesn't like walking without a safety net. He holds on to one of our fingers for moral support, but without pressure, without weight. Deprived of a finger, he's managed perhaps seven or eight steps - then he realises what he's doing and throws himself at the floor. These images might belie the whole holding onto only one finger thing, but think on this: safety first - the sea can be unpredictable and dangerous.

In this series of photographs, you'll notice that his trouserings get fewer and fewer as the sea takes hold.

Two things

2011-07-30T20:28:00.000+01:00

Milo walks everywhere, but only when we're holding his hand. He stops routinely to ferret around on the ground, trying to eat gravel (it's impossible to walk up a gravel drive with him, he wants to eat each individual stone and will become so entranced by the scope and possibility of all the stones there are to eat that he'll sit right down and start sampling), pick up cobbles, generally poison himself.

He's happiest when he's carrying two things, one in each hand. He doesn't discriminate which things.

Puffins!

2011-07-30T20:10:00.003+01:00

I have a lot of a lot of photos to post of the summer holiday, so I thought to myself, let's (us=me) post them thematically, we can have baby ones and baby ones and baby ones and look: puffins.

And then, having looked at the post, I have this to say, why does the blogger image compression always ruin all my blasted photographs? If you clicky the top one for bigger, you'll see a puffin. If you do the same with the middle one, you'll see a puffin flying with a fish in its mouth. Now really, wouldn't you have preferred to have seen those without the extra clicking step?

Birthday

2011-07-17T18:53:00.000+01:00

Some people haven't had birthdays before - other, of course - than the day of their birth, which, being zero, tends not to count. At the very least, everyone who had something to say on the matter, said to Milo, happy first birthday, which implies that the day of his birth wasn't, as I think I've mentioned, actually a birthday. So, unbirthdayed for the entirety of his life, yesterday Milo woke up to presents and fuss. He was partial to both.

Last time we'd tried to give him anything wrapped, Christmas, I think, he was bemused by the concept, and tried to eat it. See for yourself how things have changed.

We were supposed to have a party in Queens Park, by the bandstand, with trestle-tables and bunting and cakes and strawberries and jelly (I don't think anyone thought of jelly) and cupcakes made to a baby recipe and running around in the grass and it rained. It rained like the famous deluge (though not 'til later - at the beginning, when we called off the party in the park, it just rained steadily). So we called off the party in the park and, because Violet was born on exactly the same day as Milo, we had a little party in her house instead.

Here, you see, the two of them blow out their candle. With hindsight, there ought to have been two candles, one each.

Today

2011-07-10T19:12:00.001+01:00

So

2011-07-05T20:19:00.002+01:00

I've joined facebook, massively belatedly - that is to say, so very, very much more than massively - and it's left me wondering: why both, what's the USP of this blog, when on that social place, I can do the very same thing. And I concluded, I concluded that here I could post more photographs, and post them with more commentary. For example: this is a series of photos of Milo rifling my desk drawers. And now I can explain them - Milo walks, we've established that. He walks through grabbing someone's fingers, one on each hand, hoiking himself up, and trip-trap trip-trap he's away. Usually, his walking leads to the study - first, to stare in the wastepaperbasket: a pause, torso at 30 degrees to the legs, then onto the table, where he will sit (arms up in the air, plaintive expression, hands waving, arms waving, grimace), where he will sit and systematically take everything out of both drawers. He analyses each object before deciding to drop it to the left of the chair, or the right. I, beneath him, the lap he sits upon, systematically remove from his grasp, paperclips, scalpel blades (wrapped), scissors, staples, compass.

Sometimes one just comes home to a number of cats

2011-07-01T18:45:00.003+01:00

Or as Milo would have it, cAT-cAT-cAT-cAT-cAT-cAT-cAT-cAT-cAT-cAT-cAT-cAT

This may be of limited interest

2011-06-30T17:49:00.004+01:00

Unless you're interested in babies walking up stairs. However, in this instance, with this audience, I'd wager there'll be a taker or two.

Maybe a week ago, maybe two, maybe one and a half, maybe you get where I'm going: I'm going nowhere, because I don't know when it happened, which is why I'm bracketing the date like a gunner trying to knock a coco-nut off with only three little BB shots, or in the field, with, I don't know, a howitzer, and a man with binoculars behind me, maybe trying to hit an enemy trench, or an enemy tree, or even a frenemy, running away, so maybe a week or two weeks ago, Milo started to walk. It's not like walking unaided, but it's not the tentative one or two steps that other babies take. This is good, because he can't crawl, and all other babies his age can. So having him do something they can't gives us an immense sense of parental pride and self-worth.

So he walks. You hold on to his arms, and when his feet touch the floor they paddle away at a rate of knots and he can't keep up with them, his body leans backwards and his feet trot forwards, and in a sense, he now has considerable freedom. So long as he can persuade someone to hold his arms, he can go wherever he wants, and investigate things, stopping to take things out of waste paper baskets, say, or hold onto bannisters, or check that everything's okay in the washing machine. When he reaches doorways he pauses to consider whether to go in or carry on, always looking and looking for something new to investigate. Going up the stairs, obviously, it's slower, but he's got a nice technique.

It's suddenly summer

2011-06-26T10:27:00.001+01:00

Standing up ain't no thang

2011-06-22T19:26:00.000+01:00

Cat - Cat - Cat - Dat - Dat - Cat

2011-06-15T19:30:00.004+01:00

Milo spoke his first word yesterday - we nominated yesterday as the day to recognise, but in truth there are error bars. For some time he has had a particular sort of phoneme that he used whenever he saw a cat: dat, gat, dah, da, ga, dee. Yesterday we agreed there's a seventy percent chance that he'll say cat rather than anything else, and that that's what counts.

This photo perhaps explains his choice of entry into language.

Mother and Child

2011-06-09T16:30:00.002+01:00

Today Milo learnt to crawl... backwards

2011-06-09T16:24:00.001+01:00

He's over the moon

Trobridge

2011-06-05T14:42:00.003+01:00

We've just done a walking tour of vernacular architect Ernest Trobridge's Kingsbury houses. He began his career with pleasant thatched cottages of green elm.

Then he found himself on a tangent

One wonders who's enjoying this the more

2011-05-30T17:36:00.000+01:00

This is a new thing

2011-05-22T09:36:00.000+01:00

I just took this photo

2011-05-17T17:42:00.004+01:00

in my parents' garden.

Week off - so far so good

2011-05-17T09:11:00.001+01:00

Oxonarcadia

2011-05-01T16:22:00.006+01:00

We've just been to Oxford, and come back again. We wanted to see Fiona and Mike, primarily. Also important were her parents' wonderful arts and crafts house with the opportunity, for a baby, to sit on a lawn and eat leaves and grass (and leaves of grass), and, obviously, wear daisy-crowns. The other thing was May Day, loaded with ritual, and demanding a five in the morning wake up so that we could watch and listen to the choir singing from Magdalen Tower, which, I mean, really, we're up at five every morning anyway with Milo, so this just gave us company.

I will sum up the sentiment of the weekend with a quote from P. G. Wodehouse, "to-morrow'll be of all the year the maddest, merriest day, for I'm to be Queen of the May, mother, I'm to be Queen of the May". Only, in our case, rather in the past tense.

Talking

2011-04-22T17:38:00.002+01:00

Is this really what conversation has come to?

Wildlife in our garden

2011-04-22T07:59:00.006+01:00

And you just knew I was going to do this

Sunny day in the park

2011-04-20T09:47:00.001+01:00

An aside

2011-04-13T19:04:00.011+01:00

Or possibly the main feature, I'd like to show some people who aren't Milo. Of course, that necessitates showing Milo too, but that's fine, because he's lovely. For example, here he is, being lovely on the plane. We were terrified. Dreading the flight and possibly hours of screaming until the pilot, under pressure from a delegation of passengers, kindly asked us to leave and held open the emergency exit for us while we were over the Tyrols. Instead, Milo smiled at everyone, had a chat with the guy sitting across the aisle from us and promptly fell asleep.

Walking behind our hotel took us through a mountain valley - actually walking in any direction from our hotel took us through a mountain valley - but the one behind was nicely self-contained. En route, I had a knapsack with narration. At the far end, the narrator stopped for a feed.

Also at the far end, there were marmots, and also en route, there was this footprint. Now I have some experience of the world, and I would say that marmots can't leave footprints that big.

So, also, the baby was cute.

And also - I think I might have mentioned this - the hotel had childcare. This was an incredible thing, to leave Milo with Claudia, here, or with Waltraub, or Hedwig, and have a walk, or drinks, or play a game, and to come back, and find him sitting seriously, surrounded by toys. Not just the time to ourselves, even half an hour, for ludo, or an hour, for scrabble, or two and a half for a walk to the nearest castle, but what it leads to: to ~~boarding school~~. Not to boarding school, says Clare, but maybe to a childminder.

This, then, was the walk to the nearest castle. Quite, as I believe they say, quite a backdrop.

Waterbaby: some small commentary

2011-04-08T18:57:00.003+01:00

Milo's been going to swimming lessons since Christmas in London. He finds it whole-body-dancingly wonderful (but sometimes cries). I've never been able to take decent photos or videos of him, mainly because he goes when I'm at work, and on the rare occasion that I've been when on holiday, somehow the crowded pool of mothers and tiny babies precludes photography. In our hotel, just now, however, there was a pool with a view of the mountains, if you squinted past the shrubbery, and plenty of leisure for me and Clare and Milo to splash about and take pictures. He is so very excited in the water - secretly I want to let go and see if he can swim unaided. The good father in me keeps a tight hold, but it's a source of some regret that I haven't tried the experiment. Maybe when he's fifteen.

Some mountains without commentary

2011-04-08T18:50:00.003+01:00

Back from the Alps

2011-04-08T16:44:00.001+01:00

And I have a lot and a lot of photos - which will come. First I wanted to show this video, which has, I think, undeniable charm. I dropped the video camera onto the bottom of the pool and Milo swam above it. In a way, it reminds me of those iPhones sent into space on a balloon, only more based around a swimming pool in the sunshine, and a baby, our baby, doggy-paddling.

Standing Up and Bouncing

2011-03-19T14:04:00.004Z

Kew, You, Barney McGrew

2011-03-17T19:40:00.008Z

Here are some photos without commentary.

Here's some commentary: my parents came to visit, and one of the things we did was we went to Kew. All those photos? They were from Kew. The next photo? It's from Kew. The one after is from our house. Mainly, Milo is the subject. He was the subject of the weekend, too, and he was feverish, and that was indescribably awful, and still he is a little ill. Coughing and coughing, it breaks my heart. But not fevered any more.

Then, I saw this on a wall I walked by. I calculate two layers of advertising. Maybe there are more.

And this, it's Jean's birthday lunch in the National Portrait Gallery restaurant. They've got a good view.

Writing weekend

2011-03-06T18:16:00.009Z

We went away this weekend, to a writing retreat - and this was the view from our window. I wonder if you can guess where we where?

Inside, we lived like kings. A giant, russet headed king, like the one shown. Does this help?

This photo is a maguffin. But it was our house. A helpful red herring?

How about now?

Why yes, we did stay in Hampton Court Palace for the weekend. It was fantastic - we got up early - of course we did, we have a Milo, and the house and the gardens were ours for the taking. Look at this, not a soul to be seen. We hey nonny nonnied about the place like good king Hal himself.

Of course, it wasn't so sunny at seven in the morning. Still, we were magnanimous when the hoi, dare I say it, polloi were let in.

I do dare say it, because next weekend, if I were to go back, I'd be just as hoiey.

So I'll not be going back next weekend.

A lovely sunny day

2011-02-27T14:54:00.010Z

At some time in the hour of six this morning, when we all woke up because it's such a great fun thing to do, the sky was peachy in its beauty. No clouds, just a lazy sun about the roofs of London. Oh, what an obvious equation was presented to us: sun+sunday=HIKING! The first bally walk in the hills (you call the Chilterns hills, I mean, really, do you?) since Milo was born. He's big enough to be carried on my back, and hardy enough to let the warm February sunshine beat down upon his auburn locks. Hurrah hurrah, we shouted, as we packed ourselves into the car and hightailed it into Buckinghamshire. We stopped in Amersham, filled our knapsack to the brim with the finest morsels from the finest deli - remarked to the assistant, what a beautiful day it is for a picnic - and strolled gallantly into the wilderness (really? In Buckinghamshire?). Walking with Milo was a treat, a delight; and what a herald for the spring to come.

We walked and walked, the picnic weighing heavily upon Clare's shoulders. In the distance, the sky turned livid. Here you can see the picnic, the shoulders, and a sky of mixed clouds. Out of the frame is the livid part, hovering like an attentive valet. Like a knut who's tied his tie just perfectly, we ignored it.

And then - in a moment unphotographed because I was striding back through the mud with a screaming baby strapped to my chest, vainly sheltering him under Clare's raincoat carried like a tent before me, while she held tightly to our scotch eggs - in two varieties - and a ham hock pie, all wrapped in a disintegrating paper bag - then, reader, it rained. The sunny day that had lured us, siren-like, into the countryside, it dumped an ocean of freezing rain upon our innocent heads.

So that happened.

A few days ago, this happened. If you know the geography of our house, a traffic jam at the bottom of our garden will cause you a little concern.

Playground

2011-02-20T14:43:00.003Z

Milo went to the playground in Roundwood Park this morning. It's the moment I've been waiting for, when I get to play on the rides too. Though not as wholly exciting as Queens Park, Roundwood has teeny-weeny swings. Milo l-o-v-e-s them.

Later, he got to walk home on my shoulders. Truly a new life has begun for us.

Gathering of the clans

2011-02-15T19:43:00.000Z

We met in Clare's sister's house in Wakefield, all of us: the entire Siddalls and Sandlings, Grandparents, Aunts and us. Well, aunt, singular. And the wider, can I say, diaspora was missing too, all the great aunts and great uncles and great great uncles and so on into the infinity of family connections. But those of us close to Milo, as close as blood can tie us, we were all there in Jean's house. How about that, I thought, the whole rum lot of us in the same room for the first time in three years it must be, nearly four, and a baby the cause of it. It's impossible to keep away from him. Especially when he's got your nose in his sights.

He's got a thing for noses at the moment. He takes fast hold of each cheek and pulls himself in, maw agape. It's terrifying, really it is, like the shark from Jaws, but slow and dribbly, and with masses of excitement in his eye rather than, say, having the cold inert stare of the average Carcharodon.

We all had lunch. Of course, days centre around lunches, particularly days where people come from all over to look at babies. In this case: takeaway. You try being an aunt cooking for eight, one of whom is the sort of baby who gets in the way.

They come not only to look at babies, but to support them in their standing en pointe. Until yesterday, I would have said: Milo's nearly seven months old, and he can't roll over (and until five days ago I would have said Milo's nearly seven months old and he can't sit up), but he can stand up only supporting himself with his little hands. His little, knuckle-dimpled hands. Now, today, he can roll over, and sit up, and when he's eating, he can swap food from hand to hand to improve the trajectory into his mouth. It's remarkable. Nothing changes, and then it all does, all at once.

The reason why he wasn't rolling over was that he sticks his arms in a flying position when he's lying down. It's cute, but ineffective.

I like his travel highchair. It's made by Phil & Teds - as a manufactory second only to Ted and Ben of beer - and it just hangs there. It's jolly convenient and an aesthetic wonder.

Driving back, we stopped at Newstead Abbey. This is interesting, because in my first job in a landscape architecture practice, I was responsible for the masterplan for their HLF funding, at least some of it, at least at some point in the project's life. I couldn't really tell what benefit I brought, except now all the bins and signage matched. Not an insignificant contribution to the well-being of Byron's old homestead, you must admit that much.

Finally, oh, those shark eyes.

Save Kensal Rise Library

2011-02-06T09:32:00.009Z

Seemingly, being a parent is incompatible with (a) composing lengthy blog posts, (b) taking photographs of anything other than one's child and (c) some kind of joke about not being able to complete any task one starts. This, today, this post here is an attempt to remedy all three of those. My prescription is this: snowdrops. Just you tell me where the baby is in this photo. Exactly.

So, first we start with the snowdrops, then we start with yesterday, which was Save the Library day, or something, at least it was Save Kensal Rise Library day, so we went there, and Milo adored it. There were hundreds of people, and hundreds of balloons, and he liked both categories, though perhaps the balloons a little more. As you see here: he held his balloon as we listened to stories, and he held his balloon when we got home.

We took books out of the library - one of them, That's Not My Penguin seems to be developing into an intricately structured masterpiece, almost mathematical in its combinatorics. I say seems to be, we've only managed to get halfway through because the prose got too dense. This photograph is by way of illustration, it predates the library visit, but the book is just as illuminating. I think it was called That's Not My Train.

Last time we spoke, Milo was sitting in his highchair. Indeed, it inspired a great deal of excitement in Charlotte from Stokke. I'm not sure if he was eating, then. I suspect not. I mean, obviously he ate, he wasn't some kind of mystic, but he wasn't eating real food. Now he is: three times a day he has, say, porridge, and then vegetables and then yogurt and then fruit and then breadcrusts and it's intolerably exciting. This photograph here is yesterday: he was eating a side of carrots. In many ways, I'm sparing your sensibilities. It's a graphic photo, I own that, but the one's from five minutes later, with food up his nose and over his cheeks and down his chin and on his highchair and everywhere on the table - those photographs I am not showing. We don't all have a strong constitution.

Later, or last week, Kensal Rise became more exciting than food. Two things happened, both explosive, one recorded in some detail, the other noted in mere flashes - a footprint here, a word spoken there. First of all, this: a mentally ill woman took revenge on one of our local cafes, and drove her car right into it. Thankfully no-one was hurt. Then: a police sting on Chamberlayne Road. Undercover policemen disguised as windowcleaners, mopedistes and, oh, something else, pounced on a car of armed robbers on the high street, smashed in it's windows, dragged the miscreants to the ground, probably shouted some stuff. Clare saw the immediate aftermath - one of her friends saw the entire thing. Do I sound like a gossip? Does Kensal Rise sound like Point Break?

What happened last? Well, Clare and Milo and I went to the Barbican. Turns out he's a fan of a modernist utopia, too.

This is what comes of reading menus

2011-01-15T18:27:00.002Z

Tripp Trapp

2011-01-07T16:13:00.002Z

Milo only sat in his new high chair for the first time this afternoon and he's already bagged my seat at the table, and is reading my Economist.

On the theme of Milo reading menus

2011-01-05T18:46:00.001Z

Ooh, hasn't he grown?

A very merry Christmas

2010-12-28T12:59:00.002Z

and a happy &c.

I think that this

2010-12-27T16:23:00.002Z

is a nice pan-generational photo

Trellick Tower, Winter 2010

2010-12-18T12:32:00.002Z

Yesterday

This Morning

Now

2009, 2008, 2007

With his new bouncer,

2010-12-05T19:07:00.007Z

Milo can stand tall.

Just not that tall.

This is

2010-11-30T20:44:00.001Z

a video of Milo laughing when I blow raspberries on the back of his head

Ingestre Pavilion

2010-11-27T13:08:00.014Z

We spent the past week in Ingestre Pavilion - by far the warmest of the Landmark Trust houses. We know it's true because every entry in the logbooks said it, and thank heavens it was, because with one fatted baby and a septuagenarian birthday boy who'd come down entirely ill, a house as cold as some of the others we've been to would have been just dreadful. It was a beautiful building - they whisper William Kent might have had a hand in the front of it - the back, though, is entirely modern (hence the warmth) but plentiful dramatic. In particular, the double height octagonal sitting room + balcony, designed for the purposes of family photography.

High ceilings also meant that Milo could take to the air without danger. And look at those windows, would you.

Those windows: also designed for family photography.

Apparently walking in the area is problematical, full of fierce landowners. But there's a little bit of woodland right outside that captures the sunlight just so, if your party isn't up to anything more strenuous, which ours wasn't.

Also right outside was the moon and columns. Ah! Those columns. We've stayed in plenty of Landmarks: Brinkburn Mill, Manor Farm & Laughton Place, to name them all three, except, of course, it's not all three for Clare, who stayed in another one which I didn't and so I can't remember its name; we've stayed in plenty (three, in my case, and four, in Clare's, a rather parsimonious plenty, perhaps); we've stayed in plenty but this had the best columns. And was the warmest. Manor Farm, for example, was so cold, I wore my entire week's worth of clothes at the same time. In bed.

I took some details, of the moon, and, oy, of the most rosy cheeked, long-golden-eyelashed, snub nosed little baby around.

What a difference four months makes

2010-11-16T12:25:00.002Z

This fog just gets better and better

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This is our foggy London garden

2010-11-16T08:32:00.001Z

Got

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halfway through stripping the bed, and then Milo and I thought, you know what, it's been a long hard week, let's just order a curry.

Earlier, on Sunday, Clare's Knitterati came around to sew and knit at our house. It was A-One idyllic.

Girt Big Smile

2010-11-07T08:52:00.006Z

It's necessarily difficult to get a good photo of Milo smiling; either I'm too involved in the pure phenomenon to take a photo or if I break the moment, he finds the camera in front of my face a good reason to stop rejoicing. Last night I was successful in part. The light is off, the photos a little blurred and a lot grainy, but look: m'boy smiles.

Care and the Community

2010-11-01T07:48:00.004Z

There was rather a lot of illness in the house this week, that is why we start with subdued photos. Here, you see, a tired person and a tired baby and an attention-seeky cat, and beneath it there is a person so sick and tired that they're entirely asleep, and a baby being asleep and also being cute.

By Sunday we went to a halloween party to see if we couldn't either scare the bejeezus out of Milo or frighten ourselves into health again. It was quite frightening.

Kew Two

2010-10-24T14:13:00.003+01:00

It seems that going to Kew is just so very much more attractive than going anywhere else, allowing a multi-layered interpretation of 'attractive', which is to say: it's damned pretty, and it's also damned easy with Milo. Which is two levels of meaning, rather than many, and so perhaps you might think that I was bringing ambiguity or false advertising into the intro, to which I say, look, Prune's climbing up my trouser leg!

Milo at Three Months

2010-10-20T11:55:00.003+01:00

This baby is both fat and giant

But may I point out his sapphire-blue eyes?

Me and My Family

2010-10-07T15:02:00.004+01:00

A Guest Post
by
Milo Augustin Sandling

"Me and My Mamma"

"Me and Pop"

Kew

2010-09-25T22:19:00.007+01:00

Today was glorious, it was glorious when we woke up, and when we had lunch and bathed the baby and did the laundry and the other domestic necessities: it was cold and clear and the skies were pure perfect blue. So we went to Kew: indeed, we woke up early, discounted going for a drive, almost went to Hampstead Heath, and then realised if we went left, on the train, rather than right, we'd get to Kew in almost the same time, which is no time at all, and then we'd be heaven in the sunshine. By the time we turned left, rather than right, after the laundry, bath &c., the clouds had swarmed in but lo! They glanced harmlessly off our sheer enjoyment of life. This was the what we were doing, that we liked so much, and that made all three of us happy:
1/Walking in an allée

2/ Being warm and asleep and cosseted: but having a cold nose

3/ Colour: lots of it, all around in striations

4/This is just a new bit that we hadn't seen before

5/ Catching shadows, with a view to eating later

What a difference two months make

2010-09-22T13:33:00.003+01:00

Queens Park Day

2010-09-12T16:41:00.004+01:00

Today was Queens Park day. Milo slept through it, but I have my suspicions that in a year or two he's going to find it quite the most exciting thing that he can ever experience: sun, donkeys, Lester from The Wire, cakes and acrobats. Lester from The Wire was doing the announcements for a while, and we stood next to his tent debating whether to ask for a wear of his cardigan or a sensible and cynical stare. We chickened out, instead I made this video of him speaking. It's a good opportunity to look at Milo sleeping though, is it not?

I have no idea why it has landscaped a portrait video - I can only apologise.

I would

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share with you some photographs of our increasingly fat baby.

And now that those photos have been looked at, here is a picture of Otto and Milo, born two weeks apart, or perhaps three. They will be brothers in arms, I shouldn't wonder, although hopefully not actually, more brothers in a shared date, and not living too far from one another: equidistant from the Westfield Centre, Shepherds Bush, which is really something to identify oneself with, I shouldn't think.

O

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What a sleepy baby.

Grandparents

2010-08-30T18:02:00.010+01:00

Milo took his longest car journey this weekend, to visit his grandparents and to escape the circling helicopters and press of humanity that accompanies the Notting Hill Carnival. It was great. Not the car journey, so much, but rather having a child, and him being a grandson, and spending time with a mother and father suddenly become grandma and pa.

Then, we drove home, and Milo had a bath. He seems to like baths; also drinking milk; also looking at things; also dancing around; I think he likes it when I go woooooooooooooooooooo and spin him in a circle. At least, he certainly looks interested though I might be misinterpreting alarm. He likes to lie on his back and wave his arms around. He certainly smiles at raspberries blown on his belly, and my father said that setting up an infinity of Milos between two mirrors inspired fascination. He doesn't like the usual things: dirty nappies; not drinking milk; not being asleep. The sum of his likes massively outnumber his dislikes.

Incidentally, I took this photo perhaps a week ago. It's Milo.

Photos are being taken

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and then I'm a'postin' of 'em

At last

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the confluence of the cat and the baby

This photo, I like

2010-08-13T08:15:00.002+01:00

Movies

2010-08-05T16:01:00.004+01:00

Milo had two firsts yesterday and today - good lord, everything is a first for the boy, he's miniscule, he's barely done anything, he's a naïf, lost in the world - today he had his first drive in the country, to include a walk in a meadow. Yesterday we walked in a thunderstorm. Having done these two things, his knowledge of the world has increased exponentially.

Oh look, what a tiny baby

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Whenever we go for a walk, we're followed, cometlike, by a tail of faintly heard, tiny, tiny, look at that tiny, tiny, and did you see that tiny baby. It does make us feel smug.

Today Milo went to the Farmers' Market

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And then to the park

And then he went all the way home for a little nap

Milo

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has just a touch of jaundice, so we've been giving him sunbaths at the bottom of the garden. He's entirely foetal.

Milo, Clare and Prune

2010-07-21T15:10:00.001+01:00

They're in the garden.

In Full, Milo Augustin Sandling

2010-07-20T12:40:00.003+01:00

Things are going just swell in the Family Sandling, Milo's feeding and sleeping and growing up big.

His understanding of the world is deep, deep: he looks at faces with blue blue eyes and he sees such important things in them; he has the reflexes and the punches of a prizefighter; and he talks like a natural. Mainly, he says he doesn't like things: nah, nah, nah, nah; but occasionally he really doesn't like things, naaaaaaaaaaaaaaah. This makes me think he takes after his father.

Milo Sandling

2010-07-17T18:12:00.007+01:00

—Born 7.40 Friday morning - 16 July 2010 - 2.61kg (5lb 12oz - it turns out, those of you who got the message by text, that converting metric to imperial just ain't my thing) - labour: 4.5hrs—

Seen below: shortly post-birth; leaving the hospital this afternoon; being at home; and then being at home a bit bigger.

He is wholly healthy and well, Clare is wholly healthy and well. And now there are three.

Here's

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Clare yesterday.* We're going to have a baby soon.

*It was our anniversary: half the bump was fine dining.

I don't want you to think

2010-07-06T19:57:00.007+01:00

that I spend my time (a) documenting Britain's military might and (b) modes of tranport and (c) the red arrows, but here are the red arrows again. They flew over my head with a great roar when I was walking down Pall Mall, I don't know why, and I managed to reach into my pocket just in time to snap their tail smoke.

Then this weekend, Jon and Nancy and we went mudlarking, in Bermondsey, as a kind of farewell to the heady days of summer when you can just take off and go mudlarking, even though this had been organised weeks in advance and was carefully calibrated with the tide times, but the point remains, that with a zero year old, I don't know if you can expose them to the miasma.

Anyway, we had a nice time and I found this, which I think is probably made in Africa for some tourist, but I hope I really really hope that it's actually a Roman leopard. But I know in my heart it isn't.

Oh, and then earlier, I had a nap, and this was on a different day, and Prune slept on or near my head. Pretty much on, but when I moved, more like in between near and touching.

Sylvie Tickles and Garden

2010-06-26T18:16:00.003+01:00

I never show the cats anymore, it gives the appearance of neglect, and it's so utterly remiss of me. By gum they're not neglected, they're tickled every day in the sunshine.

David Nash

2010-06-24T18:41:00.004+01:00

A week ago, or thereabouts, Clare and I drove up to stay with my parents. It was sunny, we were practicing for carrying a baby with us, we wanted to see David Nash at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. So then I took some photos, and now I'm arranging them in my head. Do I start with Nash, or with little running goslings, or my mother, and Clare, and flowers? Goslings-Nash-goslings-family? Family-goslings Nash? I liked Nash, some of it. I really like my family. The little geese! Blimey, you should have seen them run. Here, have a cascade.

Now here's some more Nash, reflected in a window. Some of the things of his that I really liked were in here: mostly they were inside, little simple boxes, or the chainsawed pillars. When he gets too decorative, that I don't like so much.

This is the back of James. FLASH.

This is a poppy in a field. Possible a field of wheat. There were more poppies, but I only took a photo of this one.

This is a gosling, that's almost a goose. Frightening little begger, neither one thing nor the other, and all squawking. The running goslings, perhaps there were twenty of them, with four or five adults. We walked with them (they ran) through a field and down to the water. Then they all swam about.

Then this, this is my mum and Clare again. I liked the one before, I thought Clare looked particularly nice. In this one, my mother has an excellent laugh on. I think she's probably quite excited about what's coming.

These have just flown by

2010-06-12T13:12:00.001+01:00

And these have just grown

Picnicstyle weekend

2010-06-08T14:48:00.009+01:00

Hello. This weekend, first of all, was sunny, tremendously so and Jean, Clare's sister was visiting. She expressed astonishment at the size of the infant, unborn, and then we went and had a picnic in Queens Park, and played pitch and putt, and Malte, a friend from childhood, and Germany, the son of my parents' friends, he was there too, just, having been up until 7 in one of the reason he came over here, a London nightclub. We did these things, here, you can see us on the golf course.

Now also, I've just got a video camera, not an amazing one, but a little thing, for sticking in my pocket. It turns out I don't know what to do with it. I've no scenarios to film and I find iMovie bewildering: either it doesn't do enough, or I can't find out how to do it, without reading the manual, of which I've no intention. So, in homage to Turner's Rain Steam and Speed, that phenomenal expression of modernity, I give you the epilepsy inducing Cats, Train and Golf

This

2010-05-22T19:10:00.003+01:00

is not too far away from our house. We saw it this afternoon, and it made us both belly laugh. Perhaps it will you, too.

This fox guy: he stencils foxes in the neighbourhood. I don't like graffiti, but I have an affection for his. Even more so now.

He's back

2010-05-05T08:00:00.003+01:00

Or she. And the adorable creature also gives me a chance to show off the verdancy of the garden: