weekend roundup

1. rain. Greyness, and rain.

2. babies. That feeling of having a baby in the bed with you in the small hours. I'd almost forgotten it, but not really. It really is an all's-well-with-the-world feeling.

3. Shakespeare really loved his wife, although she had a face like the back of a bus, had they had buses then, "and was the 'town bike'." She's definitely all about transport, anyhow, one way or the other. The sonnets were a commission for some third party, duh, and she put up the money for the Folios to be published because she HAD to just to prove the whole darn sacrifice had been worth it in the first place and that the sonnets had been just a commission. See? The whole thing IS, that every great man has a great, unsung woman behind him, and we need to make this case for the great writers of England. So why not start at the top? Germaine Greer (Dr). I love her, really I do.

4. chocolate cake. To be precise, the squidgy chocolate log from Delia Smith c1990 (recipe that is, the cake was fresh today). It's gone now.

5. Cat Power. We were listening to her this morning, the baby and I, and then Chet Baker. Because on iTunes, Chet comes after Cat. It was all pretty mellow. For a while.

6. crying children. There did come a point when I had the baby crying her eyes out without cease in one room and a big girl crying her eyes out in the bathroom, but that wasn't without cease; she showed great good humour when I appealed to her on the grounds of the baby; & we did end up havig a lovely chat. But for a few minutes it was touch & go; and/or it was all go; except I didn't. Go. Mlle B said of the baby, in the tones usually reserved for incredulous insult: "how can you be so patient!" ("practice, my dear, practice...")

7. bottles. I have scooped many scoops of formula today.

8. teenagers.

9. dishes. I have cooked in them, made cups of tea for other people in them, washed them up, eaten off them (not so much), washed more of them, washed more of them. I have been down to the new Tea Rooms in Church St (N16), from whom I bought a most charming sugar bowl the other week that I'm in love with, because they said they had other dishes to match; pre-baby I had agreed to come in this afternoon. Well. Two small boxes full, 48pc in total. A pound a piece, or £20 the lot. Bargain! It seemed worth £20 not to have to decide which ones I wanted. And the nice lady brought them to my flat, where I let her in with a copiously weeping baby on one shoulder.

10. dampness. Come to think of it, that is a theme. Rain, crying, peeing babies, dishwashing, laundry-washing (see "peeing" previous), handwashing; my bath, with the baby in her buggy in the bathroom doorway, terrified that my aunt would arrive any second with her dog (which she didn't, thank God, because of the rain - there it is again); water boiled for the bottle, water cold to cool down the bottle; dribble. Dampness. The need for a dry little top.

11. words. Not the best ones. And often not in the best order.