It's A Shoe-On

We don't get out much. 

Even less, since the night time shenanigans began in earnest for Gilby in the run up to Christmas.  Nine weeks of interrupted sleep seems a lifetime, and I wouldn't want to inflict one of those tortured evenings on an unsuspecting baby-sitter.  But given that we have Lady Visa, our au pair, we thought we'd try it last night.  Just round to friends' for supper; a few streets away.  Easy to return if things kicked off back at home. We took the unusual precaution of pre-ordering a taxi, on the off-chance that one or two glasses of alcohol might be consumed.

We returned, relaxed(!) and refreshed at about quarter past eleven (phew - late night!) to find Gilby crying his eyes out, one shoe on, sitting by the back door trying desperately to pull the other shoe on.  Ouch.  That is the combined pain of my heart hurting, and the piercing stab of guilt. 

He was incoherent, but I'm assuming he must have wandered into our bedroom, realised that we weren't there, and, without checking Lady Visa, decided that he had been abandoned.His three year old mind had then hatched a wild plan to head out into the dark night to come and find us.  We live on a main road in the middle of nowhere.  Fast cars and no people!

Once we had calmed him down, he whispered in my ear that he was 'sorry for being naughty and for putting my shoes on, actually...'.  Ouch, ouch, ouch!

Sigh.  So there's guilt and there's...guilt.  It will be a while until we try to go out again, methinks.

Welly Rack

This is the latest installation at our house:

My twenty-year old self would have mocked such symbols blatently promoting domesticity. Nearly two decades later I find it strangely comforting: suggesting order from chaos and dog-walking and safely splashing in muddy puddles.

Actually, I think it just makes me feel grown-up...

Blue Shoes

I am delighted to be responding to Josie's Writing Workshop prompts this week at Sleep is For the Weak, because here is someone inviting me to talk about shoes: A dangerous topic, since, like most women, I have a long and complex relationship with my footwear. The challenge is to identify shoes which somehow reflect your personality. I wonder how a pair of shoes that you choose to wear could not reveal something of you in someway...

These objets d'art are my current favourites.

Bright blue and always commented upon.

Saved for special occasions like Gilby's baptism and some summer weddings. But only with the dress that you can just about see in the picture that has the same electric blue tones.

So what exactly do they say about me? Poised, sophisticated, impossibly glamorous, a little bit showy but not afraid to make a statement, perhaps? I wish.

In fact what they say is 'bought really cheaply at TK Maxx, pretending to be something they're not, and the straps at the back need to be continually hoisted up when no one is looking.'

Just about sums it all up really.

I thank you.