Enjoying her first lollipop at Starbucks. (Unless of course some of you have been plying her with sweets when I'm not looking). 18 February 2006


A lesson in genetic predisposition. 13 February, 2006

4 February 2006

These days Saffron usually insists on getting dressed on her own. Often she picks out her outfits too. What surprises me is how she does up and undoes buttons with such dexterity. I'm not sure where or how she learnt it. Each time I watch her get dressed independently it dawns on me what a developmental milestone this is - my little baby doesn't need me to dress her anymore. She can even run up and down the stairs to fetch things on my behalf; switch on and off the lights as necessary; feed herself; and more recently, brush her own teeth AND spit out instead of swallow the toothpaste (any parent will understand why I'm so impressed). Fortunately for me, for the time being she still requires my help to warm her milk, read her stories at bedtime and make sure there's an undisrupted supply of nappies, berries and weetabix. So all's not lost (just yet).

Sharing the finer points of eating with chopsticks

An afternoon of walking down corridors full of stuffed birds left us ravenous (no pun intended) and with a serious craving for Crispy Aromatic Duck. After bidding farewell to the dinosaurs, we trotted off happily to the nearest chinese restaurant for a slap-up feast.

Natural History Museum

Stopping to say hello to her feathered (and taxidermised) friends.

4 February 2006

A day out at the Natural History Museum to say hello to the dinosaurs. It was all quite exciting; Saffron could hardly contain her enthusiasm and broke into a spontaneous jig in the foyer.

2 February 2006

What can I say. Help is expensive in London. Besides, Saffron hasn't started school yet and she's pretty good at dusting.

The clash of civilisations

I guess you could say we had a traditional Chinese New Year 'Lo Hei' this year. Except that where we didn't have shredded carrots we substituted with organic wild rocket salad. And where we didn't have a table or big dish we used aluminium foil and laid back copies of The Guardian on the floor. Each of us took it in turn to throw in the cinnamon powder, melon sugar, plum sauce, ginger in varying shades of worryingly lurid dayglo colours, pepper, sesame seeds (there's always too much of this), and 'golden coins' (there's never quite enough of this). Where some of us wished for world peace and an end to global warming, others - and I'm not saying who - cast their vote in favour of clear skin and obedient children. Saffron, meanwhile, was happy to chant 'Gong Xi Fa(i) Cai' and pick out all the smoked salmon. We liked it so much we 'Lo Hei'-ed three times in all.

One happy morning at Sausage & Mash, Spitalfields

29 January 2006

Never have truer words been said. You'll understand where we're coming from once you've had a meal at Sausage & Mash.

28 January 2006

28 January 2006

Iced Bun Bandit

Stop press. Before I go any further, I'd like to draw your attention to the slight correction, or elaboration if you like, to my entry below. It hadn't crossed my mind that readers would misconstrue my blood boiling and harmless swearing as directed at or the result of Saffron's perfectly acceptable - and adorable - behaviour. (How could you?) For the record, all my hissing and table-banging these days are directed almost exclusively at my laptop or the rather trying process of posting blog entries.

Moving swiftly on.

Pictured here is the scene which greeted us one Sunday afternoon when we went looking for Saffron after an alarming 10 minutes of silence. We were chatting quite happily with Nana in her kitchen as she was frying dinner (a shoal of fish and enough chips to make a grown man cry), when I realised that Saffron had very subtly extricated herself from our company and was nowhere to be found. When shouts for "Saffron? Saffron?" went unheeded, I made my way to the lounge and sure enough, found the bandit hunched over my now-open bag, its contents all over the carpet, paper bag from local baker's ripped apart with reckless abandon. As she looked up at me sheepishly, iced bun held gingerly in both hands, she didn't once stop licking the sugar icing and instead instinctively tightened her grip on the incriminating evidence. (I know where she's coming from. It's like if you know you're going to get in trouble for buying a handbag anyway, you might as well get it in black and brown, and a pair of shoes to match while you're at it.)

It was all very funny and quite honestly I was torn between giving her my "You've been very naughty and I'm mad at you" glare and lecture or rushing to snap a picture for posterity. You can see clearly where my parenting priorities lie.

27 January 2006

The Monument

For the last hour or so, as I've been waiting for this picture to upload, Saffron's been feeding me cherries, serenading me with 'I want a Hippopotamus for Christmas', running up and down the length of the house to BBC's 'Match of the Day' theme song, pleading with me to put on 'My life is brili-liant song' (James Blunt), sending text messages on my mobile to strangers, and now, as my blood is beginning to boil and my strongly-worded anti-technology/Hello/Blogspot mutterings become more audible*, she's climbed onto the sofa to snuggle up sweetly next to me.

So it's not for want of trying that I haven't been blogging. It's just that the fates have been conspiring against me and I haven't had much luck whenever i've tried to post entries and pictures. Honest.

Anyway, pictured here is Saffron's Lego tower which she cleverly christened 'Monument' after The Monument (which was built by Sir Christopher Wren in 1666 to commemorate the Great Fire of London**, and which, incidentally, is right where my office is located now).

*Correction: The anger was directed at the computer and the problematic process of blogging, and not at Saffron, needless to say.
** Take a housepoint, smart aleck.