Friday, March 28, 2008

Celeb Spotting and Market Hopping

I saw my first famous person this week. Well, other than the Queen, but that was hardly an unexpected siting, driving down to Ascot. This week, I almost literally bumped into Michel Roux as I was walking down Maidenhead High Street. This is the elder Michel Roux, not his nephew. It took me nearly until I had passed him to recognise him, as obviously I wasn't really on the lookout. All I really noted was that he was wearing bright orange cords and is a bit shorter than I expected. I don't know what I expected to be honest. I think living with G, who is pretty tall, makes me think the average is taller than it is. No, I didn't ask him for a free lunch at Le Gavroche or The Waterside Inn, but it did cross my mind.
I had to laugh that the first British celebrity I spot is a chef. That speaks volumes of what I watch on TV. Apparently there was some actress whose path we always used to cross when we walked the the Long Walk but I never actually noticed her nor knew her name when I was told. Chefs are much more my cup of tea.

In a food related tangent, the Cookham Country Market will be closing down in April, according to the Cookham website (this is not a permanent link). I'm really a bit sad about this. I didn't go to it super regularly or anything, but I did go several times and it was always nice to go there and pick up a pie, or some jam or chutney or what have you. They will continue, but once a month in Bourne End. I really don't know why it's going to Bourne End rather than staying in Cookham. If it's only going to be once a month, wouldn't there be enough custom in Cookham for it? The market was one of those pros on a very long list of why I like living in Cookham and it's sad to cross something off that list.

Sunday, March 16, 2008

A couple of updates

Lena is coming on in leaps and bounds in every way. She has a small vocabulary of about five words (mama, dada, more, slide, up) and a few signs to communicate with. She is walking quite well and really enjoys singing nursery rhymes now. So below you can see a few videos of her in action.

This first one is her doing the actions to Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. You'll notice that she's ahead of the song since she knows it so well.


And this video is of her walking a circuit in the living room. Facebook viewers will have seen this one already.


In other updates, the leak in the roof above our bathroom has reappeared. We got a cheap and simple fix to the problem, as we are looking at putting on an extension on top of it, so it seemed a bit silly to spend several hundred pounds on something that would be ripped out in a few months. And admittedly, the leak isn't where it was repaired, but a different location nearby. It's only because it's been raining quite a bit recently compared to our dry and sunny February that I've noticed it. So action will again have to be taken. Sigh.

Saturday, March 01, 2008

A dirty story

The weather has been quite nice lately. It was apparently the sunniest February on record for the UK. It's gotten me itchy to plant things and get things growing in our backyard and in my allotment. I started off some pepper plant seeds a few weeks ago and was very pleased to find that all of them had sprouted. My secret? A wet paper towel in a plastic tray, covered with plastic wrap and put into our boiler cupboard. A steady 25-30°C and hey presto! Seeds grew. So obviously paper towel isn't the best nutrient base for seeds, so I transferred them today to some pots with soil. Along with them, I planted 4 different types of tomato seeds in soil as well. They were all sitting on our bed, catching a few rays before being put to bed in the cupboard.

Off I went to take a bath after potting the seeds and planting a few other things like sage in the backyard. Before I went to the bath, I got Lena up out of her crib from her nap. She enjoys standing on her chair and looking out to the street, especially after napping. So I left her there and told G. where she was before going off to my bath. G. was downstairs playing a computer game. As I got into the bath, I had a passing thought that it was awfully quiet in the rest of the house. But I decided that I had passed on the baton and wasn't going to interfere.

About 20 minutes later, I heard G. go upstairs and several exclamations from him. Soon he came down and brought Lena into the bathroom. Her hands, feet and mouth were covered with soil, along with a light dusting on all her clothes. She had crossed from her room to our and gotten into the pots, tracking dirt all over our bedroom. I was 5% sad about the plant setback, but 95% amused by what had happened. Lena joined me in the bath while G. worked on cleaning up the mess. He commented that she had been really quiet all the time she was upstairs. I told him that whenever she is quiet for too long, I always go up to see why she's being quiet. Not really the way I'd choose to get that message across, but hopefully effective for the future.