Cereals with Podkin

Lockdown 3 through winter is tedious. None of the novelty of the first one, less of the fear now that we've all had covid, and very little outside play because of the cold. It has, though, led to an increase in reading in our house - particularly for Eddie.

Breakfast with Frodo in December

With his Christmas money he chose to invest in a selection of Beano annuals that he reads over and over again. 

After zipping through The Hobbit last year, we are still reading Lord of the Rings together by night. I have a feeling that will go on for many months. We have only read about two hundred pages so far - no need to even bend the spine of the book yet.

Cereals with Podkin

But is a fantasy series by Kieran Larwood that has really captivated him. They are his 'favourite series of books ever in the world.' He read the first book, about a character called 'Podkin', three times in a row. It was the least I could do to secretly order the next story in the series. 

When the second book arrived he threw his arms around me in a spontaneous demonstration of happiness. Yesterday he spent a solid three hours reading it in the morning and then wouldn't come and eat his lunch until he had finished the final seven pages of book two. When he eventually did come and sit down he was very quiet. He told me afterwards that it was because he nearly cried at the end so he couldn't really talk. 

This morning he skipped cheerfully down to breakfast with book three. 'Cereals with Podkin are a great combination, aren't they?' he said.

Now, in fairness, the weather is rubbish so he can't go outside, and he is too young to meet a friend outdoors as his siblings are able to do from time to time. 'Screentime' doesn't begin until 3pm in the afternoon and all devices are banned until then, so there really is very little to 'do' but read, write or draw. 

Still. His writer-English teacher mum is very happy. Especially since he now wants to be a 'bard' when he grows up. Cheers, Podkin!

Currently Reading: A Promised Land by Barack Obama (but should probably switch to The Legend of Podkin One Ear :o)

Different Colour Pens

 Eddie has just revealed a secret about his homework.

I don't know whether to be shocked by his deception or admiring of his ingenuity.

Before I explain, I need you to know that this confession has an important caveat: Eddie is, without question, a bookworm - and in any hours where he is not allowed on his tablet or the PlayStation he will be found with his head in a book.  I'm just saying...

So, he is required to complete his reading journal each week, updating it with the titles of books he is reading, perhaps the number of pages, and some comment about the book.

As third child, he is often left to fend for himself and doesn't have quite the level of attention that his siblings might have done, but for once I remembered to check up on the reading journal.

'Have you filled it in for this week?  Your teacher would like to see them on Monday.'

'Yes, don't worry, it's all up to date.'

'Oh, good.'

'Yeah, once a week I just fill it up with random titles that I've been reading. I put lots of entries and use different colour pens so that she thinks I've done it on different days.'

Help. I now can't unhear that disclosure.

Currently reading: My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante

Ready for Reading - Covid Time

Schools closed yesterday.

Now we prepare for 'remote learning' to begin. Eddie and Gertie have stocked up their shelves with books to read, while Gilby prepares to do plenty of garden football challenges.

I sometimes wonder why two out of the three are readers. In a way they all are, but Gilby prefers sporting autobiography while the others are happy with a novel. And he has to be coerced into reading while the others snatch every available opportunity.

Though Gilby was game enough to go to school as a female book character for the second year running on World Book Day. This time as 'Gangster Granny' (last year he was The Boy in the Dress). My pearls and high heels did not survive the day.

In an online 'decluttering' (now that there is covid-time to do that sort of thing) I found this video clip of an early reading session:

Eddie is four, I think (though he is so small that he seems younger), and Gertie must be eight.  I love that Gertie gets a little bit cross with her brother for not finishing a word, and that he seems incapable of sitting still, even for a second. Still, some early seeds of reading love were being sown in both directions.

Four years later Eddie's working his way through the third in the Harry Potter series and begging me to buy him a wand.

'Twelve pounds for a stick?' was Hearth-father's unimpressed response. I think remote learning day two might involve whittling a wand from oak.




Currently Reading: The Heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyne

Advent Books Adventure

Since Gertie was tiny I have wrapped twenty-four advent books ('pre-loved', in newspaper) and put them under the tree. I can't remember where I first saw the idea and stole it from, but it has become a real tradition in our house.

As they grew up, sometimes Gertie read the books to her siblings, rather than me reading. Last year, all three of them took it in turns to read the story out loud. 

But even Eddie is getting a bit big for picture books now. 

I didn't want to let the tradition die, but I also didn't know what to do to make it work this year. A book a day each seemed ridiculous (that would, after all, mean 72 books. I couldn't find, let alone afford that); and their interests are so different at 8, 10 and 12 years old that I couldn't see a way of pleasing them all with just one. Perhaps I could rotate them? But there still wouldn't be that lovely shared moment.

Suddenly, Agatha Christie books began appearing in the post. Anonymously. I couldn't work it out. Maternal Hearth Grandfather is the only one who sends books anonymously, and so we always know that they are from him. They must have been sent in error. 

But I was around 12 years old when I started devouring them, I realised. As had MHGF. Suddenly I had a little pile of them. And some old Arsenal annuals turned up. Perfect for Gilby.  Random years: 2008, 2013. And some Beano and Dandy annuals. Older, but exactly what Eddie would enjoy. All of a sudden, a book each for every day of December up until Christmas didn't seem so impossible.

So I went for it. A quick trip to the Lions Bookstore (thirty books for three quid) and plenty of newspaper later, we were there.

And then this sort of thing started happening:

I mean, they're not snuggled up together like they used to be, but you can't have everything. 

And this happened, when I wasn't looking and should really have been time for bed:

The only hiccough came when Eddie confessed about a week in that he was 'a bit behind with his advent books'. I think he thought he had to read the whole thing in one day to be ready to qualify for the next one. Whoops. I have reassured him that he can pick and choose.

So, for at least twenty minutes a night, silence reigns in our house. The only sound is the occasional turning of a page. Ssshhhh.

Currently reading: An American Marriage by Tayari Jones

The Last Lap

Eddie sat on my lap this morning, unprompted, to read a book and do a puzzle. He just tapped my legs for me to  uncross them and climbed up. It was a nice feeling and it suddenly occurred to me that it had been the first time he has done that for a while. I breathed in the still-babyish smell at the back of his neck greedily. He probably thinks that his mother is a weirdo.

He turns seven at the end of September, but has always been much littler than his siblings were at the same age, so he still gets carried up to bed sometimes, or picked up towards the end of a long walk. I wasn't physically able to carry Gertie or Gilby at the same age. It has been a long, long time since one of them sat on my lap. So it strikes me that I am on the countdown for lap-sitting. 

I hope that wasn't the last one.

The Cost of Reading

As it is the end of the first week back I am playing perfect mother and am on it with the reading and the homework. This will last for another week and a half, approximately, when we will return to hastily scribbled made-up entries in the reading log and Sunday night homework conversations conducted through gritted teeth, but right now I am in the zone.

Biff, Chip and Kipper have a lot to answer for. Eddie was reading the fairly innocuous-sounding Victorian Adventure. The magic key began to do its thing and the children found themselves at Buckingham Palace in the nineteenth century. Spoiler alert: After getting arrested they are mysteriously released. Gran appears near the end as she is also in the adventure and has made friends with Queen Victoria. (Obvs.) The problem page was this one:

Eddie stumbled over the word 'scones'; in part because he didn't know what they were.

"Well," said I, "that is a problem easily rectified!" And off we went to a lovely little tea shop on the banks of the Arun. "I'll just force down an afternoon tea for the sake of your reading homework..."

I know how to take one for the team...

Moody skies, though.


Currently reading: The Secret History by Donna Tartt

Malfunctioning Jumpsuits

Eddie's latest obsession is with wearing a vampire bat costume that he got at Halloween last year.

For the last few days he has lived in it.  Including during yesterday's 26 degree heat. On the plus side, this meant that I didn't have to be overly concerned about sunscreen - since it covers more or less every inch of him.

Here he is, bottom left, wielding his devilish pitchfork. (He does that metaphorically, most days, but this is an actual one.  Or at least one made out of plastic.)

This morning, whilst getting ready for gymnastics (in obligatory bat costume - Grandfather was taking him, I didn't have to worry about explaining that one...) he noticed that the label said it was a 'jump suit'.

I was impressed. This reading lark is really taking effect.

Except that he had a major concern.  'So, it says it is a 'jump suit', but it doesn't actually jump.  Do we need to take it back?


Currently reading: A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James

And More on Reading

Just...a magical moment.

It may only have had thirteen letters of the alphabet in it, but, just in time for World Book Day one young man is mightily pleased with himself:

The journey begins...

Currently reading: Exposure by Helen Dunmore

On Reading

What if the English teacher, reading researcher and four-book-club member produced a non-reading child?

Gertie reads for England. I can't stop her. It causes late nights and all pocket money spent in the Lions charity bookstore. Thank goodness for them.

Gilby has to be bribed. Literally. Like - 'If you read me a chapter then you can watch another match on Match of the Day' (or play FIFA for half an hour, or anything else football related.)

Though I did catch him doing this:

Which I suspect means that he will take after his father in terms of reading habits.

Currently reading: Pica by Jeff Gardiner

Snapshot Review of Children

I feel as though I have known, from earliest days, the personalities of the little people in my household.

Among the zillion wonders of parenthood is the one about bringing up siblings in ostensibly the same environment, (alas, income hasn't changed dramatically in the last nine years) with the same genetic 'ingredients' and the same routines and values - only to find that, in spite of looking like peas in a pod, they couldn't be more different.

I have made predictions about the futures of Eddie, Gilbert and Gertie and, in the interests of not creating a self-fulfilling prophecy I shall elect not to repeat them. I merely offer a little snapshot as we near the end of 2015.

Gertie has come home from school today pleased with the carol-singing performance she gave at the old people's home. She practised her flute for a bit, intermittently lamented the immaturity of her brothers and then settled down with one of her new (read 'second-hand') books from the Lyons books store (10p each - ever a bargain).

Gilby (having blackened his fifth clean shirt of the week and lost his bookbag) was musing on the way to the Lyons book store about whether the Arsenal book he had his eye on last time would still be there (a weighty pictorial history at 30p; I love this charity shop).  On considering the awful possibility that someone else may have bought it, he consoled himself with the notion that if someone else had indeed made the purchase, that would mean that at least there was another Arsenal fan like him close by.

Eddie had a twinkle in his eye when I collected him from nursery.  'It's official,' explained one of the teachers. 'Eddie has a girlfriend. At this afternoon's nativity rehearsal he was found backstage kissing her.'

He's four.



Currently reading: The Taxidermist's Daughter by Kate Mosse and Little Red Chairs by Edna O'Brien (Two on the go due to December book-club clash)

Festival Fever

The summer of festival fun has begun. First stop was the Hay Festival.

"There's no such thing as fun for all the family," is, I believe, a Jerry Seinfeld quote, and something I have thus far held to be true.

Going to the Hay Literary Festival was a twenty year ambition of mine and when I finally  made it last year, I determined to bring the family back to experience it as soon as I could.  Accommodation is at a premium in the little town during festival time and we found ourselves with no option but to camp. Our few family camping forays have proved...somewhat challenging, so when I was offered an upgrade to a 'yurt', I seized it.

The first day passed in a frenzy of activity. There was face-painting and cartwheel-turning and letters to climb and dinosaur stories and and books to be bought and ice-creams to be eaten and Letters Live for Hearth-mother featuring performances by Sandi Toksvig, Stephen Fry and Jude Law. 

 

There was even, and this is where we get to the 'fun for all the family' part, a selection of West country ciders for Hearth-father to taste. Though 'taste' suggests a little more delicacy in consumption than perhaps might have been observed in reality.

We were all exhausted at the end of day one and I spent one of the best nights I've had for months - in the comfort of the yurt's double bed with cosy wood-burner at its foot.

Even more to do on day two, with writers to meet and journals to be wrecked and faces to be painted, and a pub-supper. See, something for everyone.

Then marshmallows to be toasted around a campfire before bedtime.

Two weeks until the Isle of Wight festival (though we are child-free that weekend, so it will be an altogether different experience)...

I love summer!



Currently reading: Cruel Summer by James Dawson

As Easy as ABC

Gilby has been getting a little fed up with his big sister's reading prowess of late. She has taken over the reading of the bedtime story, to all intents and purposes and is decidedly 'showy-offy' about her abilities, using a really patronising tone to explain which episode of Little Bear they are watching as she reads the credit sequence. Her little brother is not allowed to be the teacher when they play schools as her superior knowledge means that Gertie herself must always play this part.

Gilby, three next month and entirely filled with his own sense of self-importance, (deservedly, as he points out that he can now climb by himself up into his car seat) has decided to take matters into his own hands.

He has begun to earnestly 'write his name' on his drawings as Gertie does. And, although a close inspection will reveal that this is nothing more than a series of zig-zagged lines, we all have to agree that it does, indeed, spell 'Gilby'.

And earlier this week he picked out all the Oxford Reading Tree Stage One books into a big pile, brought them to me and demanded that I teach him to read right there and then. He folded his arms determinedly in a 'bring it on' stance and prepared to do battle with the books. Since he knows all the characters and all the stories inside out, he was able to sound convincing from memory quite quickly and then sat back when he had 'read' a couple, completely satisified with his own literacy progress.

If only it were that simple...

In the Beginning was the Word

Gertie loves reading.  She has whizzed through the Oxford Reading Tree stages with remarkable speed and fluency through her reception year.  No bad thing, since I have had more than enough of Biff and Chip and that magic key beginning to glow.  But she is certainly a voracious reader, if such a thing can be said of one who has just turned five.  

For the last year or so we have been doing a book at bedtime.  Daddy does the bedtime story with Gertie and Gilby together whilst I am feeding Eddie.  But then, once all the goodnight kisses have been done, I sneak back into Gertie's room and we have a chapter or two of a grown up book.  I say 'grown up'; I mean things like Roald Dahl, Anne Fine or The Worst Witch.  Roald Dahl is the biggest hit.  We have worked our way through The Magic Finger, The Twits, Fantastic Mr Fox, George's Marvellous Medicine and James and the Giant Peach.  We are part of the way through Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and Gertie's engagement with the story is utterly magical to witness.  At this point I should probably give a spoiler alert as I discuss some of the narrative devices in the novel!

We reached the chapters after we have met all the horrible winning children, where Charlie longs to get the final golden ticket.  As each Wonka bar was consumed without golden ticket success, she got more upset. Her disappointment on his birthday was palpable.  Her confident prediction that Charlie would surely get the golden ticket when he first found the fifty-pence-piece was quickly shattered, then met with disbelief.

The delayed climax of the night of the winning chapter coincided with an evening when Daddy was home late, so we swapped roles: me doing the official bedtime story with the boys as well, then Daddy stepping in for the secret bedtime read.  So I missed the actual moment.  But I could hear Gertie's shouting, fist-clenching victory salute from downstairs.  Her joy when he finally does triumph was unparalleled.  She just had to share it with someone! 

I was summoned upstairs for some important news with a little wink from Daddy.  There was a great solemnity as Gertie called me in, but she couldn't stop the excitement from bubbling in to her little voice as she broke the news to me. 

I'll cherish the moment forever: the absolute enchantment of reading.  I am delighted she has discovered it so young.

Crash, Bang, B*ll*cks!

As usual I am entertained by the relative linguistic expertise of both my children, surely one of the 'joys of motherhood'.

Gertie, newly elected to the School Council (just how exactly does that happen on Day 5 of one's school career?) came home for the weekend, marched up to the fridge and formed the word 'Friday' with the plastic magnetic letters, much to the astonishment of her mother. Two weeks' worth of education and she appears to be able to read, write and spell.

Meanwhile, Gilby has increased the use of one of his favourite phrases: 'Crash, Bang, Wallop!'; his immediate response to any loud noise, bang or dropped item. Except that he mispronounces it so that it sounds much more like, "Crash, bang, bollocks!"

Personally, I think that this is a much more articulate response to smashing something, or even life's general frustrations, and have therefore adopted it myself.

My due date has come and gone without so much as a teasing cramp...so frankly, all I have to say is, "Crash, bang, bollocks!"

40 Weeks Pregnant: Mouth is sore from excessive fresh pineapple consumption, to no avail.
Currently reading: Still Alice by Lisa Genova

The Pied Piper of Languedoc

Well here we are in the south of France once more, staying at a fabulous house complete with pool in a tiny French village in the Languedoc region. All idyllic, and there are still two weeks to go.

The particular joy of this place is that it contains enough rooms to accommodate both sets of grandparents plus an aunt and uncle and neice or nephew or two. Admittedly, in some families this could represent a vision of hell, but with the constant vying for the attention of the grandchildren, Big-Fat-Enormously-Heavily-Pregnant-Mummy gets to have some proper rest and relaxation.

And my mother (or 'Nano' to the grandchildren) appears to have turned into the pied piper of Hamelin, merrily leading all the children off in the early morning to get the freshly-baked baguettes, pains au chocolat and croissants for le petit dejeuner, thereby leaving parents who inevitably stayed up too late the night before to have an extra hour's peace in bed. Though she brings them back later, so this legend has a slightlier happier outcome than its German counterpart.

Need to supervise a two-year-old and a four-year-old in the pool whilst you get on with the important business of sunbathing? Then there's an uncle or older neice on hand to fulfil that role. Bliss.

I just hope this baby doesn't come early. Usually I'm wishing these last few weeks away, just wanting to get on with the business of meeting the new arrival. Not this time!

36 weeks pregnant: Wondering if participating in the extremely competitive volleyball tournament was the most sensible idea, and pondering exactly how one can achive an all over tan when clearly lying on one's stomach is a physical impossibility.

Currently reading: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

A Failure

A year ago I signed up to the 100+ Reading Challenge promoted here, pledging to try to read 100 books in a year. I fell sadly short at only 71, but looking at the lists February and September were the months that let me down. In February my maternity leave ended and I went back to work full time, and in September I began at a new school. Not excuses, but explanations as to why my reading patterns changed so much in those months!

January
1. Messiah by Boris Starling
2. Salmon Fishing in the Yemen by Paul Torday
3. Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
4. Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier
5. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
6. The Reader by Bernard Schlink
7. No Second Chance by Harlan Coben
8. Dead Tomorrow by Peter James

February
9. Two Caravans by Marina Lewycka
10. Suite Francais by Irene Nemirovsky
11. Raise the Red Lantern by Su Tong
12. Brooklyn by Colm Toibin

March
13. The Daydreamer by Ian McEwan
14. Over by Margaret Forster
15. Dubliners by James Joyce
16. Beyond the Nightingale Floor by Lian Hearn
17. The Lonely Londoners by Sam Selvon
18. Hold Tight by Harlan Coben

April
19. My Life Closed Twice by Nigel Williams
20. Lucia, Lucia by Adriana Trigiani
21. Innocence by Ian McEwan
22. Nineteen Eighty Four by George Orwell
23. Mr Pip by Lloyd Jones
24. The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards
25. Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

May
26. Cheating at Canasta by William Trevor
27. In Between the Sheets by Ian McEwan
28. The intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl by Belle de Jour

June
29. Possession by Peter James
30. Identity by Milan Kundera
31. DNA by Dennis Kelly
32. Martyn Pig by Kevin Brooks
33. Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas
34. Heroes by Robert Cormier
35. Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby
36. The Behaviour of Moths by Poppy Adams

July
37. Bloodline by Mark Billingham
38. The White Tiger by Aravind Aviga
39. The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway
40. Solar by Ian McEwan
41. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

August
42. The Wrong Boy by Willy Russell
43. The Idea of Perfection by Kate Grenville
44. Expresso Tales by Alexander McCall Smith
45. England, England by Julian Barnes
46. Once in a House on Fire by Andrea Ashworth
47. Poetry Please editied by Charles Causley
48. The Snow Door by Charles Ashton
49. Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

September
50. The People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks
51. A Scavenger's Tale by Rachel Anderson

October
52. The Crowfield Curse by Pat Walsh
53. The Warden by Antony Trollope
54. The Good Husband of Zebra Drive by Alexander McCall Smith
55. The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter
56. Why the Whales Came by Michael Morpurgo
57. Barefoot Gen by Keiji Nakazawa

November
58. Tales of Beedle the Bard by J K Rowling
59. Tribes by Catherine McPhail
60. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
61. Snobs by Julian Fellowes
62. The Body on the Beach by Simon Brett
63. The Five People you Meet in Heaven by Mitch Absolom
64. Murder in the Museum by Simon Brett

December
65. The Hand that First Held Mine by Maggie O'Farrell
66. Body Surfing by Anita Shreve
67. The Snowman by Jo Nesbo
68. The Day After, Barefoot Gen Volume II by Keiji Nakazawa
69. Dead Like You by Peter James
70. One Good Turn by Kate Atkinson
71. Not the End of the World by Kate Atkinson

A quick scan of the titles shows a high proportion of crime fiction. Peter James and Simon Brett I enjoy because they are local. The stand-out read was The Snowman by Jo Nesbo, which I found to be a real thriller, a sinister, genuine 'page turner' that left me not wanting to be alone at night and which I felt to be far superior to Steig Larsson, to whom he is regularly compared. The other one I thoroughly enjoyed was Messiah by Boris Starling, but since he promised to read and give me some advice on my own crime novel over a year ago, and hasn't, I'm feeling less charitable towards this writer than I was!

I also noticed how many of the classics I seem to return to. Some of this is as a result of my job; I always re-read any book that I happen to be teaching. There was a disproportionately large number of titles by Ian McEwan, one of my favourite writers, though this year's novel Solar, that I was so excited about, didn't live up to my expectations.

My other favourite books of the year would be The Hand that First Held Mine by Maggie O'Farrell. I enjoyed the structure of this dual narrative, and the way that you were kept guessing about how the two stories were intertwined until the final pages. One Good Turn by Kate Atkinson was also memorable: A twist on my usual crime fiction fare, with a whole host of characters to whom I felt some sympathy. Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was engaging and unsettling and I am delighted to see it on the GCSE syllabus this year. Two Caravans was probably the funniest thing I read, and Lucia, Lucia the most heart-warming. Tess of the d'Urbervilles is a book that I return to again and again, so it was a tragic pleasure to read once more in preparation for my A-level literature group.

I hate not meeting a challenge and will definitely make 100 in 2011!

Gilby's New Game

Gilby's communicative skills are developing fast, and I am definitely guilty of not giving him the same attention that his elder sister received. He doesn't get the quantity of books read to him, and it is hard to find that precious solo time when I am completely focused on him, and not splitting myself between the two. This does not seem to have hindered him though, and whilst slow to walk, he is gabbling for Britain , acquiring new (and surprising) words daily.

The fact remains, however, that he is a boy, and essentially likes to hit things. He will make as much noise as possible and seems to have an instinct to destroy...pretty much anything that comes into his path.

His new favourite game fits into these categories. He has made it up himself and it has very simple rules: He likes to gather together as many people as he can (Mum, Dad and big sis at once, if possible) and pat them firmly and repeatedly on the head whilst saying, 'Ow!' on their behalf. He will occasionally hit himself over the head, in the interests of fair play.

The amusement this game causes is difficult to describe. He seems to think that his victims derive some kind of anticipatory thrill from not knowing who will be next to be smacked over the head. It can provide high levels of entertainment for much longer than you might imagine...though only, generally, for one person.

And it doesn't work particularly effective if one of the 'hittees' is suffering from a hangover.

Hot Cross Mum

A week ago I was delighted by Gertie's reading development. That was half term, and now that she is back at pre-school, I am cross.

She has a little 'communication' book, you see. The idea is that we write stuff in there relating to Gertie: special requirements, concerns, anything that her carers might need to know about. It's a good idea, though I don't really know how it works because I've never had occasion to use it before. But with the young lady making a sudden breakthough with her reading, I thought I should alert the staff so that they might encourage her to spell or sound out words if she was sitting with a book. So I made a little note to that effect.

Oh dear.

Because then I had THE SUMMONS. And THE TALK. About how the staff are not allowed to 'do' any letters or numbers or anything that might remotely be considered educational with the children. At all. Under any circumstances. Regardless of how excited they might seem to be about it. Oh.

And now I seem to have had my 'communication book' confiscated. Which seems to have put an end to any...communication.

Still, I did get to go swimming with Gertie over half term, which meant that I also got to smile as I heard her complain about how her ears were 'turned off' afterwards and she couldn't listen properly. She kept pressing them like buttons to turn them back on, so I guess that might have helped the water to drain away, because she announced in the car on the way home, to everyone's great relief, that they were 'back on'.

La-la-la-la-la-la

Every mum gets really excited when her child does something for the first time and there are so many important milestones. We reached another one of those today.

But first, a quick example from the past. Ridiculous as it now sounds, Gilby's first poo was one such moment. How can you be proud of an ordinary bodily function, you ask. Well, easily, as it happens. Due to some minor complications at birth, the powers that be at the hospital were insisting that the young man had filled a nappy before they would allow us to leave.

In fact, we took it upon ourselves to discharge from the ward before that happened, and I think he was nearly a week old before the momentous occasion occurred. I was thrilled to finally see a little portion of the tarry black stuff. Needless to say, over the past fifteen months he has more than made up for this early reluctance in the nappy department.

But today's milestone was REALLY, really exciting: Gertie made a breakthrough with her reading.

She has been fantastic at learning her alphabet and can recite her ABCs. She could also recognise the letters in her name. But today, finally, she has started to put those letters together to 'read' her first few words. It is amazing. I am absolutely delighted. She is nearly three and a half. I have no idea if this is good, or late, or normal, and frankly I don't really care. It has just made me want to tell everyone I meet. And sing 'La-la-la-la-la-la' to the tune of La Donna E Mobile or something equally showy-offy.


I think of the doors that reading opens up. She is already happy to sit for hours pretend-reading her books; how much more thrilling will it be when she can actually read them?

And of course, with the delight comes the inevitable guilt. It is half term and so I am on holiday and at home with her spending time playing and learning and reading, instead of thrusting her in front of Peppa Pig before a quick bedtime story.

It just leads me to wonder what would happen if I was actually here all the time....

A Personal Challenge in the Public Domain

I have decided to sign up to the 2010 Reading Challenge, to read 100 books in a year. You can find details here.

At first this sounded like no problem; after all, I read all the time.

Well, no, actually, I don't. I like to think that I do, and I certainly did in my pre-motherhood life, but now reading is a luxury that happens only in snatched moments. The pile of 'to read' books has grown and grown over the last couple of years.

And actually, 100 books in a year realistically means two books a week. I don't think I managed even half that in 2009, which means that this really will be a challenge.

So I will make time to read this year. Proper time. Consciously sitting down to read and trying not to feel guilty about it. And not just when I am on holiday.

I have begun well so far, having already completed Messiah by Boris Starling (I am a sucker for a good crime novel), Salmon Fishing in the Yemen by Paul Torday (my book club's next book - interesting, but too much of a boy's book in narrative terms) and a re-reading of Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy which I will be studying with my A-level group when I go back to work next week.

I have also begun Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier, which was a lovely, unexpected Christmas present.

And it means that I will get through some of that enormous outstanding pile. I am particularly looking forward to Audrey Niffenegger's new book as I loved The Time Traveller's Wife, and The Behaviour of Moths by Poppy Adams; I remember reading good reviews of it. I have been meaning to pick up the Gormenghast books by Mervyn Peake for about four years. This year I will!

Any other recommendations gratefully received...