CANTEEN

On Sunday morning Ibolya took Ruby and I for a special St Valentine's Day breakfast at Canteen on Baker Street. It's a really terrific place; spacious, child-friendly, superb service, nicely designed and a tremendous breakfast. Were also joined by some Frenchmen on their way to the rugby. After breakfast we did some shopping down Marylebone High Street and then returned home to finish a Valentine's love-hunt, Ibolya had organised, which made me find clues in different parts of the house and ended with me finding a shiny new iPod under a pillow in our spare room.
There are some days when the music you play, or maybe it's the choices you make, just sound absolutely incredible and what we listened to this Sunday sounded sublime.
We started Valentine's Day in a romantic mood with 'The Essential Andy Williams' and I still can't get 'Happy Heart' out of my head. We then had a little, light weight, jazz funk with 'Best of Spyro Gyra'. Then went Latin/Blues/Rock with Santana's first, self titled, album 'Santana'.
We played with Ruby in the long room to some Hungarian/Jazz/Folk fusion, which Ruby really got into. While I was cooking tea we listened to Electric Light Orchestra 'All Over The World', which sounded unbelievably good. Our Valentine's duck dinner was served to repeated plays of Omar's 'There's Nothing Like This'. Then to round things off we had Ruby's bathtime and bedtime accompanied with 'The Best of Burt Bacharach' sounding absolutely out of this world and music from the gods. It's a best of which uses Burt's Abbey Road instrumentals, with the odd sung chorus and some of Burt's terrible singing but it allows melodies and arrangements to shine through in all their magnificence.

Elthorne Avenue

We spent a wonderful Saturday afternoon at Jane and Matthew's and were treated to a sumptuous roast pork lunch. We took along a butternut squash cake Ibolya had made, which was delicious. After her afternoon sleep, Matthew and I took Ruby, Emilia, Hugo, Beatrice and Emma to the park. Ruby had a great time on the swings and loved going down the slide.

Ruby Walks!

We're marking Friday 12th February 2010 as the officical day Ruby started walking.
It was the first day where she repeatedly let go of furniture and took a few, unaided, steps, without encouragement and just because she wants to.
Here she is on Saturday morning, furniture surfing in the front room and doing a little, uneasy, walking.

New Radicals

My iPod threw up this magnificent late 90's track this morning, on my cycle into work and it just reminded what a phenomenally uplifting, life-enhancing, anthemic, song this is and what happy memories I have of significant times I've heard it.
I hope you like it too

Martin Parr

The Rocket Gallery, on Shorditch High Street, is showing a retrospective of Martin Parr's photobooks. For me, he's not only the greatest living British photographer but one of the very greatest living Englishmen there is. Here's his brilliant website where you can have a flip through his books (Bored Couples, The Last Resort and Autoportrait are some of my favourites).
And here are a few bad reproductions from, his career defining, The Last Resort; his survey of the English on Holiday in New Brighton in the early 80's.

Ibolya's School Pictures

Ibolya dug out her old school pictures the other day and we had so much fun looking at them that I had to get her to scan them so I could stick them on here. I didn't just enjoy playing 'where's wally' and trying to find my beautiful wife amongst the little Hungarian school children (and finding the odd looking, bespectacled, little urchin, that I'm now married to) but loved all the details in and around the pictures. The fearsome looking school mistress with the proto-Winehouse beehive, the teacher in the middle of the class in picture 4 and 5 that's the spitting image of Joan, Stephen and mine's ex-landlady, the absence of any Roma children in the final picture. But also the great pictures on the wall and the, very soviet, toy tractors in the first photo.


1978

1979

1980

1981

1982

1985

Weekend at Home

Although this weekend was as good, as recent good weekends have been, it wasn't necessarily that photogenic. Here's a quick run down of what happened.
Lorena and Vittoriano came for dinner on Thursday night and Shirri and Laura came for dinner on Friday. Ruby had her best friend Maisie over for a sleep-over on Friday night and she was a perfect house guest. All four of us, and Maisie's Mum and Dad, went for a swim on Saturday morning. After lunch and a quick clean of the house, Holly popped over for coffee and a play with her son Dexter.
After tea and putting Ruby to bed, we tried to watch the film 'Valkyrie' but fell asleep half way through.
On Sunday - Ibolya got up early to go to Chiswick car boot sale with Kate, while Dan and I took the girls for a slap-up breakfast, a wander round Queen's Park farmers market and then a play at the Moberley multi-sensory room. Ibolya came back with a couple of beautiful Midwinter serving dishes, a new car seat for Ruby and a Rubick's cube. Mid afternoon, we all went to bed and had a luxurious 2 hour sleep. I made a big creamy chicken and butternut squash gratin for dinner and Ruby loved the peas.

Scan

We had the 20 week scan this morning and to our enormous relief, all's well with little bubba. He was moving around a lot so it took a long time for the technician to take all the measurements and do a good count of limbs, internal organs and bones. But eveything's all present and correct and it was so exciting and emotional to see front on views of his face, see him open his mouth and take in a little amniotic fluid. At one point he was sucking his fingers and we could see his pounding little heart, beating away and all the wriggles and movements he can make in his cramped, dark, womb. It really makes you feel privileged to be able to have a glimpse into his world and to marvel as this little life develops inside my wife's tummy.
Must just add enormous congratulations to our friends Rachel and Oliver who gave birth to Charles Edward on Friday.

Week 19

I've been getting a bit behind with my little bubba updates and we're already half way through the pregnancy! Tomorrow we're back at St Mary's for our Week 20 scan when we get to see our little girl or boy again.
I can't wait to see how much she's grown and what she'll be doing when we invade her internal little world. She's been making her presence known this week and Ibolya's felt quite a few, reassuring, little kicks and thumps. She's about 14.2cm long now, growing a centimeter a week and weighs around 240g.