Here Comes Trouble

11 May 2007 Roadtesting her new scooter and helmet in the house, Saffron decides the best way to keep me from going to the office is by attempting to hide my shoes.

My Little Sleeping Beauty

9 May 2007 Knocked out by 13 hours on the flight back to London. There's something magically calming about Saffron when she's asleep. It's not just that it's the only time she isn't chatting away, it's how she goes back to looking like a baby. I love watching her sleep even now, but always have trouble resisting the urge to kiss her awake or irritate her with her very own 'Wakey, wakey, it's the alarm'. Though she has recently come up with a new morning wake-up tune which she composed on her own. A few Sundays ago, as I was refusing her repeated attempts to lure me out of bed, she started singing a wake up song. Clearly impressed by her own creation, she then set out to write down the lyrics. About seven times over, as I realised when I finally roused several hours later and found myself covered in little notelets with lyrics. I have since used it back on her and I have to say she wasn't quite as thrilled when she was on the receiving end of the morning warbling.
This is how it goes (as written on the notelets):
Lazy head, get out of bed, la la la
Lazy head, get out of bed orels I'll call you lazy head
Lazy head, la la la.
Ring us if you need the tune.

Tattoos and Soft Boiled Eggs

4 February 2007 My little Heartlander enjoying her favourite local breakfast in Singapore - soft boiled eggs with light soya sauce and lashings of ground white pepper.

10 February 2007 A few weeks away from parental supervision and it's back to bedlam and tattoos.

Singapura oh Singapura

29 December 2006 Having triumphantly conquered the Selfridges Boxing Day sale in London, we returned to Singapore with Aunty Val for a short holiday. Here the weary travellers are snapped upon arrival by unrelenting relatives at Changi Airport, jet-lagged but still beautiful.

This is what happens when you're the first and only grandchild in the family. Everyone plays Dress Up Dolly with you.

From Sloane Square to Raffles Place.

More Tea, Vicar?

20 December 2006 Christmas tea with Nana at 22 Western Road. See for yourself the effect Cadbury Mini Rolls have on Aunty Val.

Dorothy Shoes

11 December 2006 Saffron living out her Wizard of Oz fantasy. (Don't mean to sound defensive but that really isn't me lurking in the background).

Sudden-Leigh-on-Sea

2 December 2006 One of our last few visits to Leigh. Snapshots of Irma's pizza and Nana's carpet courtesy of Saffron.

Poppy Appeal

11 November 2006 That was the year it began. Ever since then, every November during the Poppy Appeal, Saffron asks for a poppy to wear on her lapel. One of those things that's everywhere when you don't want one but can't find any for love or money when you actually do.

Going Underground

11 November 2006 All routes start from Sloane Square. Gallivanting around London with Aunty Val on the Tube.

Smells Like Soya Sauce

4 November 2006 Snapped here on her way to her weekly Chinese lessons, our little Confucius scholar happily looked forward to every Saturday morning. Though I soon found out that it was because she liked the biscuits they gave out during tea break. Worked out cheaper to buy her a packet of Custard Creams from Marks & Sparks than to hand over fistfuls of cash to the language teacher. Which explains why two years on, Saffron's Mandarin vocabulary hasn't moved on from 'Hu Die' (Butterfly).

Fragile - Handle with Care

29 October 2006

The Coolest Manny in Chelsea

29 October 2006 It's been such a long time since Uncle Tim was living with us at 55. The only thing that sticks in my mind is Saffron stealing into his room occasionally to rouse him from sweet slumber with a 'Wakey, wakey, it's the alarm'. That and the constant recycling of everything into art. The robot made from Jaffa cake cartons (Tim's, not mine) still hangs proudly on our kitchen gallery wall. It was a sad bad day when Uncle Tim had to pack up his bags and head back to equatorial pastures.

Here are the snaps of us having farewell lunch at Jamie Oliver's Fifteen (as in Fifteen out of a Hundred for taste, quality and service. Can you tell I've never been back?). Followed by the walk home after our last brunch together at The Chelsea Bun. As Saffron demonstrates, it was a fairly emotional day.

Yah but no but yah, innit?

14 October 2006 Like a pixellated phoenix rising from the ashes, our blog shakes off the dust from a year of hibernation, coughs and sputters back into life.
We're back in business, folks.
This sudden flurry (I use the word with artistic liberty) of activity begs the question 'Why? Why now?'. I suspect it's the heady combination of me desperately looking for compelling reasons not to get on with the work I actually have to do; my missing Saffron (she's out playing with the neighbours); and the growing little scraps of paper and 'Note to Self' memos on my Blackberry on the funniest little things that Saffron's been saying or the trouble she's been getting into.

Fast forward to April 2009 and our little minx is now five and a half years old. I don't often realise how much she's grown until I look through old drawings, scribbles or photographs.

Here in this picture taken by Uncle Tim back in October 2006 (no, that's not a typo), Saffron displays her incisive ability to pick up on the Next Big Thing with her Vicky Pollard impersonation. (From Little Britain, and if you even have to ask us what that is, we can't really be friends). Not long after, Kate Moss herself jumped on the bandwagon, channelled her inner chav, and starred as Vicky Pollard's sister in a Little Britain Special.

Thankfully, Saffron no longer wears high ponytails (she wears her hair short and still believes me when I say cutting her hair short only makes it grow longer faster. Don't judge me. You'd do the same if you had a sweaty daughter), has finally stopped hassling me for earrings and rather fortuitously, it turns out Kappa doesn't make polyester bright pink trackies for under-5s. We've left the world of Vicky Pollard behind and now want to be Avril Lavigne when we grow up.