Let us eat cake

Sugar lovers will be delighted to learn that a new cake shop is due to open on Wilton Way. I say, a new one, as if the road is a concentration of patisserie. At the moment, you can pick up a Mr Kiplings from Costcutter, and that's about it. However, from this Saturday, Violet will be dispensing posh cup cakes, teas and coffees from the strange blocky building about half way along the street. This brings to two the number of cafes on the road, and if I remember rightly from Phil and Kirstie, the appearance of such outlets is a sure sign that the area is on the up. Mind you, it was starting from a low base. It's not so long ago that Wilton Way was the area's dumping ground for stolen cars - I wonder where they're left now. Currently Violet sells its cakes on Broadway Market, so it should be interesting to see if it can become a through the week destination for cake lovers. I shall certainly check them out, if only to see if I can pinch their icing recipe.

(Please note, the pictured cupcakes are for display purposes only and are not indicative of the merchandise that is likely to be sold at Violet. These were from a school fete and cost 30p each. Violet's are about £2.50 each, a price that would have Mrs Holiday's mum and dad needing a sit down. I think we'll be sticking to the Mr Kipling's with them.)

I'm a FOB

... father of boys that is. At least I think that's how I should now refer to myself as Mrs Holiday informs me that she is mother of boys or MOB in Mumsnet speak. (As an aside, who delegated Mumsnet to the role of spokessite for all parents? Lazy journos I'm guessing).

Our latest Hackney addition was born on Easter Sunday in Homerton Hospital's new birthing centre. This is a shiny, sparkly set up with lots of space and every conceivable (pardon the pun) mod con. Well, maybe that's stretching it a bit, but we were afforded a large room with a double bed, bouncy ball, ensuite bathroom and a strange labour chair/multigym. The midwife was really good, even though my heart sank slightly when she introduced herself as an agency worker. However Penny was encouraging, informative and just plain nice, even if she was a little scatterbrained.

Which may account for the loss of our labour notes. This was a big negative, firstly because of the obvious shabbiness of the processes that allowed it to happen - how the flip can you lose something like that? But also because it delayed us getting out and home, which is all anybody wants, especially a second time mum with another child plaintively asking for her to come home when he visits.

Anyway, it seems a long time ago now, even though it's less than three weeks. The time since then has been ups and downs. New Hackneybaby is sleeping better than his brother did, but has developed colic, which is never fun. Having an older brother adds a new layer of complexity to things as well. You don't want to neglect the older sibling, although he suddenly seems so much older and more able in comparison. Big brother is being pretty good so far, expressing his love for the baby constantly, although I suspect it is more to do with the fact that he's cottoned on to what we want to hear than any abiding sibling love.

Having said that, I think they will be great together. I'm conscious of not wishing the time away, but it will be great when us boys can do a bit more together. For now, inbetween the screams and projectile liquids (don't ask), it's nice, and the pace of everything has slowed right down. And as the spring beds in and we get a few nicer days, I think it's going to be a great summer.

Play time in Hackney

One of the unexpected consequences of the demise of Woolworths just over a year ago has been the effect on independent toy shops.Woolies was once the biggest retailer of toys in the UK and that gap has to be filled somehow.

Luckily for those of us who like to see our high streets filled with something other than identikit chain stores, local toy shops seem to be flourishing in Hackney. Three in particular come to mind:

Buggies and Bikes in Broadway Market

The Toybox in Victoria Park

Three Potato Four in Newington Green

The great thing about these shops is that they all have a character of their own. Without wanting to sound too poncey about it, the owners seem to care about toys and almost curate their stock rather than simply ordering from a giant toy catalogue. The selection of toys is individual to each, so you don't get that sense of deja vu when you walk in the door.

I remember how magical I found toy shops when I was a child. There was a great sense of the importance of every purchase - carefully weighing up what you could afford, whether it was going to impress your friends, and whether your parents would let you buy it. (Mine had a thing against 'plastic rubbish' which was quite odd as my dad was foreman in a plastic injection moulding factory that made a lot of Fisher Price toys. These were not classed as rubbish, but the competition inevitably was.)

The Toybox is probably our favourite as it is the shop we visit most often. My son loves a little table of Wow trucks and lorries that is a honeypot for all the children who visit. Wow toys themselves are quite expensive, but the shop has lots of great pocket money purchases, including a range of collectable wooden fruit and vegetables that are displayed in a cute greengrocer's rack. Overall the shop appeals to children's imaginations with toys that will stand the test of time.

Another interesting aspect of these new toys shops is that they are not just toy shops. Partly out of economic necessity I suppose, they have added other aspects to their business models. With Toybox and Three Potato Four, it's children's hairdressing. Buggies and Bikes runs a range of classes and activities for parents and kids that makes it more of a destination for parents.


Another shop that is worth a visit is Merry Go Round in Clarence Road. Not strictly a toy shop, it stocks second hand children's items from clothes and buggies to books and toys. It's amazing to see how much you can save by picking up something nearly new. Somebody's trash can be your treasure.

Play is an important part of childhood and it's not all about buying stuff. A visit to a great toy shop can be a stimulating experience in its own right to a two year old.

No coincidences in Sinclair world

Local author Iain Sinclair was signing the paperback copy of his book Hackney, That Red Rose Empire outside our local bookshop at the weekend. However I missed it due to an antenatal class at Homerton hospital. Well, my wife attended the class, while I walked the corridors of the spookily empty hospital explaining to our two year old the various things we saw.

(We're at the endless questions stage. "What's that daddy?"
"It's a chair."
"But what is it daddy?"
"Well, it's a chair actually."
"What does it do?"
Etc)

Actually, come to think of it, the experience was quite Sinclairian.

It was a shame to miss it though. Firstly, I wanted to see if he actually made it, or was blocked from Broadway Market by the council's henchmen. Apparently they took offence at his dim view of the Olympics and barred him from speaking in council venues when the book came out in hardback. They took a dim view of a lengthy piece he'd written in the London Review of Books voicing his concerns about the 'Lympics.

Secondly, having read the book I feel like I'm sort of stalking Iain, or he's stalking me. It's an odd sensation to have your stomping ground mapped so assiduously. My history in Hackney is just over ten years, whereas Iain's dates back to the Sixties or Seventies. We've both seen changes.

This was brought home to me the other week when I was browsing a book of photos of Hackney from the early Eighties. One of the black and white shots was of the playground next to the Pub on the Park. This is a favourite of ours and somewhere I've seen Iain Sinclair a couple of times with his wife and grandchild (I told you this post was stalkerish. In my defence, he mentions his grandchildren in the book, and their birth in Homerton Hospital. He is also highly visible in Hackney as he walks constantly around the borough).

Anyway, the playground in the picture was a rather depressing and bare place with a slide and some swings on a patch of scruffy grass. See Iain, some things do get better over time.

I suppose the point I'm working towards is that there are no coincidences in Sinclair world, so it was probably just as well that I didn't make it to the book signing. Who knows what might have happened. The earth might have folded in on itself or something.

The book itself is fascinating, although being so familiar with the area, I found that his slightly dyspeptic view of the borough didn't chime with my own. This hasn't been the case when I've read his other books - it's his unique perspective that I enjoy. But if his philosophy is about anything, it's about how we relate to our surroundings, and I guess I'm a bit of a happy, clappy Hackney champion. Hell, I even think the Olympics will be great. Yes the Lea Valley will have lost an urban wilderness, but it would have been developed sometime and somehow. At least with 2012 there is something of a grand plan in place, and I'm a sucker for those.

Maybe I'm too literal in how I think of psychogeography, but I was surprised that he didn't mention the effect of the borough's murder rate on Hackneyites. In the relatively short time that I've lived here I'm struck by the number of places that I now associate with death. Within a few hundred yards of here in any direction there are places where, usually young men have died. In front of the town hall, London Fields, Dalston Shopping Centre, Amhurst Road...

As I walk the borough I find it hard to dissociate myself from this violence, and yet I remain a great fan of Hackney and its people. It's a complex place.

How musical bumps saved me from the recession

I've been slightly distracted over the past 18 months, what with bringing up baby and being a semi-stay at home dad. In an earlier post, I'd predicted that it was maybe a good time to ease back on work commitments, as there wasn't much of it about anyway. Hmmm, that one's come back to bite me on the bum.

The thing I've found about trying to combine childcare and work is that you have to be careful that you don't end up shortchanging both. There have been times when I was crying out for somebody to take J off my hands for a little while (and I was lucky enough to have a friend who did just that on a few occasions - thanks Alecia. Unfortunately she's gone back to Australia).

You can end up rushing work, or not giving it the mythical 110 per cent. Sometimes that doesn't matter - good enough can be good enough. At other times, I wonder if I've put myself back in the pecking order, or completely dropped off people's radar. It's not a good time for that to happen.

Splitting your loyalties means that you sometimes end up resenting your child because you can't devote extra time to a project, but it has also been a great release valve. As work slowed down, I found that the days when I was full time dadding were very calming. I came to realise (and was told in no uncertain terms by my wife) that that was my priority. There's no point sitting around feeling sorry for yourself when you have a toddler to entertain. It's a lot easier for everyone if you just leave your work baggage at the door of musical bumps, or whatever class, playgroup or kiddie event you are attending and just get on with it.

It seems counter intuitive, but I'm sure that I would have been a lot more stressed if I didn't have a child as I watched work drain away during the recession. I've always felt that I was doing something worthwhile, even if the pay was lousy.

Now, however I'm back to being available five days a week, and my wife is on maternity leave with pay that will not last forever. I really have to pick up the slack. Luckily, I feel slightly tempered to the new reality of work. There's really no point getting uptight, especially with another one on the way. That will be stress enough.

Going potty

I had been dreading this period of bringing up baby (although J no longer seems like a baby, or even a toddler. More a premature stroppy teenager).
You hear such horror stories about potty training. People say they are chained to the house, their children initiate dirty protests*, or they simply scream in horror at the sight of a potty and refuse to entertain the idea of sitting on this alien throne.
We've either been extremely lucky or we're just 'king brilliant parents because (touch wood) it has been a relatively untroublesome affair. We've had a potty kicking about the house since J was just over one. The thinking was that if he got used to it then come the dreaded time, he wouldn't be afraid of it's awesome power. And so it proved to be. He has variously used it as a hat, a store for his toys, and a comfy seat for his teddy. I don't think he has eaten out of it, but I wouldn't bet the farm on it.
The only problem with the potty was that, even at a relatively young age, it seemed too small for his baby bum. I bristle at the idea that he's a lard bucket - he really isn't and seems perfectly formed to biased old me - but I don't understand how his dimensions are so out of whack with the design of this particular poe (John Lewis one with a car on it, thanks for asking).
When we got serious about training, my wife invested in a Mothercare one with removable bowl, for easy washing, which initially looked a much better option. But even this seems to have been designed for a different shaped child. Perhaps he has rugby player's thighs and it makes it difficult for him to sit down and point percy at the porcelain (or injection moulded plastic in this case - maybe really posh kids have Armitage Shanks poes). We have had liquids squirting in all directions. There's definitely a gap in the market for a potty that works - Dragons Den here I come.
The good news is that all this fiddliness hasn't put him off - pee in the pot - Yes; poo in the pot - Yes; stand in the pot after first two - er... There have been few accidents so far, certainly fewer than I was anticipating (the floaters in the bath the other night were comical rather than anything, and there has been no repeat yet). He has even woken up in the night asking for a wee wee, rather than wet the nappy that we still put him in for sleeping.
Proud? You betcha. I only hope that the arrival of Alfie (as imminent newbie has been christened by big brother) doesn't cause a backward step.

* This phrase always reminds me of my uncle's description of my dad's journey into modern art/modish interior decor. When we first moved to England from Scotland, he decided to mark the break from the auld country with a rediscovered artistic streak. Quite literally in this case as he decorated the master bedroom with a poo brown surrealistic swirl that went round all four walls and was visible to bemused passers by on our estate. Oh dad, how I miss you and how you'd love our little man.

Number twos

It's six weeks to go before our second child is born. The difference between this pregnancy and the last one has been quite marked. The first time round it seemed as if we lived every day of experience in detail marking off the various milestones - scans, midwife visits, antenatal and NCT classes - one at a time and revelling in the newness of it all. This time, it only seems like yesterday that we found out we were expecting again, and suddenly we are here. I keep feeling as if I haven't been paying attention or that there are huge gaps in our preparation. Shouldn't we be doing more stuff?
If truth be told, this time round we are fairly relaxed about everything, whereas last time the whole experience was couched in slightly negative terms. What if something went wrong? How would we cope? It was almost as if we didn't want to get too complacent about having a child in case we jinxed the process. I'm sure it's superstition that is common to a lot of first time parents. There's a slight nagging in the back of your mind - "What if something bad happens?"
Of course, as with the majority of pregnancies nothing bad did happen and we had a beautiful and healthy baby boy.
I don't know if our relaxed nature this time is because we have supreme faith in the medical community and our own procreational abilities, or because we don't have the energy for the emotional rollercoaster ride of the first time round. It's not that we don't care as much, but it's certainly hard to live at such at heightened pitch when you have a two year old toddler at your side.
Especially one you are trying to potty train before his sibling arrives.

Party bags

One thing I won't miss from nursery are the bags of goodies (or should I say baddies) that the children get when it's somebody's birthday. It's a very sweet gesture (in more ways that one) but it is a real headache trying to hide this dietary WMD from J as he pesters me for it on the way home.
All the usual offenders are there - sweets, crisps, soft drinks. It's not that I'm a snob (oh, okay. Guilty), but most of this stuff I wouldn't eat myself and I've got a taste for trash. So why should I let him eat it?
This evening's offering was something called Calypso Spring Water Drink, which sounded relatively healthy, so I popped the straw through the foil lid and took a sip before giving it to him. Big mistake! It tasted like liquid saccharin - disgusting. Unfortunately by this point I was committed to handing it over to an expectant toddler, which I did, feeling a bit like Dr Crippin. As it was, the drink was so horrible that even J couldn't manage more than a few sips.
At least it makes me feel less bad about his preference for OJ over good old fashioned water. Of course, he only gets watered down OJ...

The end of the road

This is my last week as Mr Mum.
My wife is seven and a half months pregnant with our second child (I can't remember if I've mentioned this!) and finishes work on Friday. J will also stop going to nursery at this time. Two reasons: financial constraints of surviving on one salary, and a chance for mum to assuage her guilt about him being cared for by someone else in the first place.
As for me, I'll have to get cracking and hope that I can now fill my five days with paid activity, which certainly hasn't been the case of late. I've had the slight excuse of looking after our son for two days and being tied to the nursery drop and collect schedule for the other three - now that's gone. With the missus in the house, I'll also have to look active rather than avoiding work.
I shall miss our time together though. When we started doing it, he wasn't walking, had a handful of words and was very clingy to mummy. Now he's running and jumping, can have a fairly sophisticated conversation, and is a lot more independent. It really has happened very quickly, and I've been privileged to have a front seat on events.

How much?

I suppose we all eventually become our parents, and one area where I am definitely my mother's son is in my attitude to money. Becoming a parent has led to me imagining her old refrain "Do you think I'm made of money?"on many occasions, not least when you are having to cough up an exorbitant sum for children's food.
A case in point was a trip on Saturday to the Natural History Museum. As is often the case, we actually had a packed lunch prepared for J so didn't have to buy him anything. However we were going to get lunch for ourselves. Nothing fancy, just a sandwich, or a bagel... HOW MUCH????!!!
This time, I don't think I was just showing my age, not at £7.95 for a bleedin' oversized Cheerio with a bit of chicken and salad. The upshot was that we just bought a hot beverage each and sat there smuggling bites of his ham sandwich under the watchful eye of the food police. Actually, my wife was quite brazen about eating hers. She had a sort of mad look in her eye that almost dared the waiter to confront her - unleash hell!
What was really galling was that the cafe in question was run by the same company that has the franchise for the Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green, where prices are very reasonable, the food is excellent, and consequently many parents spend their hard-earned there.
So in future, it will be smuggled sandwiches for all of us, and we'll save the money for a sticky bun from Greggs on the way home. You're never far away from one.

Trolleys

For some time now I've noticed that there seems to be a large number of people who travel round the borough pulling trolley suitcases. As far as I know, Hackney is not a major transit point for travellers - we don't even have a Tube station. Who are they? Where do they come from? And more importantly, where do they go?
Maybe there's a particularly big itinerant population sofa surfing and forced to spend their days walking the cold and mean streets in search of warmth.
(If so, I'd try the library).

IT Hackney style

I'm not much of an IT guy, so whenever anything goes wrong with my kit, I'm pretty much in the same position as a maiden aunt taking her Polo to the garage. I've basically got 'Fleece me' on my forehead.
My other laptop went on the blink recently, so I decided that rather than take it to PC World, as I did last time for a very expensive mother board replacement - whatever that means! - I'd try the dodgy looking PC and Mac Doctor nearby. It was a bit of an eye opener. The guy claimed that he wasn't that busy, but for the next 20 minutes I was in there, there was a succession of picaresque characters with various queries and requests, from the hardcore IT geeks to the more naive than me.
My favourite was an East End geezer who was doing his best Ray Winston impression.
Slaps hand on counter. "I wanna buy a laptop. Cheapest one you've got."
IT guy: "Cash?"
EEG: "Don't make me open that bag." Points laughingly to a large, suspicious looking holdall and mimes holding a shotgun. "I'll 'ave to shoot ya!"
ITG: "This is the cheapest I've got at the moment."
EEG: "Thinkpad. Sweet! £299. It's not worth that. I'll give you a monkey..."
Etc...
Anyway, the owner seemed alright and more straight up than other IT shops I've dealt with - as if I'd really know the difference. He also confirmed that the HP machine I have is a pile of crap. That's the last time I buy on looks. Give me functionality and the streamline appeal of a breeze block in future.
And speaking of form over function, it will be interesting to see how the world reacts to Apple latest offering, the iPad (I can't believe I went back to cap that P). I'm surely not the first person to snigger over it's vaguely sanitary towel name. Maybe they should get Clare Rayner to endorse it. It does strike me that after years of everything electrical getting smaller, clunky is now the new black. Still, at least you could wallop somebody with it if they tried to purloin it.
I wonder who will be the first person I see at our local trendy coffee shop with one.

The Long Goodbye

I've lived in Hackney for more than ten years, but there's a good chance that I won't be here at this time next year. My wife is expecting our second child in a couple of months time. We're just recovering from the space thief that is number one son, so the prospect of this one (son or daughter) arriving wanting to know where it will park its kit means we will be house hunting soon.
It looks likely that we won't be able to afford the kind of place that we need or want within the bounds of 'London's most happening borough'. Which is kind of ironic considering that I moved here at first because it was the only place I could afford after being cruelly dumped by my ex - I'm not bitter, even though it was only about 12 years ago.
Right from the off however, I realised that I had lucked out - which was very fortunate as I'd only ever seen the flat I'd bought, and its surrounds in the dark. Rather than hiding a multitude of sins, the dark concealed some great features. I'm within walking distance of one lovely park, which in the absence of a garden, is my green space, and there are two other large parks and innumerable smaller ones nearby. There are some great runs for my periodic attempts to get fit, and there were some fantastic boozers for the times when I couldn't be bothered. A lot of these have changed - some for the better, some less so - as Hackney has too. It has the Empire, although for how much longer, we don't know.
Without wishing to sound too corny, the thing I hadn't reckoned on was how vibrant an area it is to live in. Hardly surprising given the culture clash round here - traditional East End/Vietnamese/Caribbean/new East European arrivals/Hassidic Jews/Bangladeshi/Africans/Turks/Irish and quite a few Germans it always seems to me. Which is odd given their historical relationship with this part of the Great Wen.
Of course, it's the newest arrivals - people like me unfortunately - who have been responsible for the kind of changes that will probably now drive me out. As Hackney has become a byword for hip, arty, vibrant (sorry, I don't have my thesaurus handy) urban living, the house prices have shot up. There are a lot of people who will have made a packet in property round here. I've done alright, I reckon, but I shall miss living here, and although we could be here for another year yet, I'm missing it already.

The snow is back

They're calling it the New Ice Age round these parts. Well they might be if they weren't sliding all over the place in inappropriate footwear. That's one of the things I love about London - how unprepared everybody is for bad weather. You're more likely to see somebody with a copy of Metro over their head than a brolly when it rains. And even though it's like a ice rink out there, the high heels, open toed sandals and canvas trainers are still being sported (wo)manfully.
It doesn't stop Hackney folk from enjoying the weather though. London Fields is filling up nicely with ice sculptures that pay tribute to the aristic bent of locals. My personal favourite was a large ice squirrel smoking a pipe. Genius.
My own rather vanilla snowman paled in comparison, but J enjoyed helping me make it. He's two years old now and quite the little artistic director while yours truly did all of the work. I did have a bit of assistance from a truanting 12 year old who was looking for a somebody to have a snowball fight with. I eventually had to oblige as he had such a hangdog expression that I felt guilty. At any rate I must have been great fun as afterwards he was pestering me for details about when I was coming out to play again. He even offered to give me his mobile phone number! Don't parents have the talk with their kids any more?

A little bit of paradise in Hackney

... well actually Tower Hamlets. The annual Paradise Gardens fete in Victoria Park has come round again. We're off to meet lots of parents and their offspring.
Hoping the London Elvises are there.

Bob Crow is a dude

There is a certain type of person who is ready to applaud the pluck of the French for standing up for what they believe in - blocking channel ports, dumping sheep carcasses on the doorsteps of government departments, smashing up McDonald's, and so on.
Why oh why can't we be a bit more like them, they whinge. Why are the British so compliant?
But when we get an honest to goodness show of power from a group of British workers looking to exercise their rights, it's suddenly a different matter.
Well you can't have it both ways. I know that the recent Tube strike is a massive inconvenience to thousands of Londoners, including my wife, who doubled the time her usual journey to work took. But I've got to admit a sneaking respect for the RMT and boss Bob Crow for being being able to do it.
There's a great profile of him here which only increases my admiration for him. I particularly like the way he is unapologetic about the fact that some of his members seem to be paid quite well already. (The strike wasn't simply about money anyway).
The implication, which he swats away like Obama did his fly, is that nobody can seriously believe that a working class oik needs £40K for driving a train. Surely they'll only spend it on Sky, Rothmans and Lambrini.
Divide and rule brothers. 'Twas ever thus.
There is a particularly irksome comment on this that always pokes its chinless head up whenever there is industrial action. I can only assume that Paul Weller wants to twat these seabirds. Biting satire it aint.
I realise that everything I've written is slightly undermined by the fact that I live in Tube-free Hackney, and work from home... but power to the workers anyway.

"We hate kids..."

I read a couple of articles recently that made me think, and also depressed me a bit.

The first is this one by Polly Vernon, who doesn't seem to be allowed to go a month without writing about how put upon she feels by society's insistence that everybody should have kids. The other is by Jon Ronson and relates the tale of how he had to leave a restaurant that refused to allow his 10-year old son in.

What is quite depressing about both is the feedback from readers who seem largely (70 per cent?) hostile to the notion of children and quite freely band about stereotypes of parents who are immune to the havoc their marauding ankle biters wreck on the lives of the childfree. They also perpetuate the myth that anybody with kids is so blissfully smug about their fecundity that they are incapable of being aware of anybody else's feelings, or simply not caring.

In my experience of parenthood - 19 months and counting - that's the last thing that most parents are. You become hyper aware of your place in the scheme of things, and also that not everybody is as besotted by your offspring as you occasionally are. Spending months wheeling a tank-sized buggy around quickly gets you enough looks to make you realise that you are a problem to some people.

I just don't recognise this idea that parents impose their world view on everybody else - did I think that before we had J? I honestly can't remember. Obviously we have him now, so my attitude is coloured by that, but I don't think I have ever thought that everybody should have children, let alone question somebody's motives for not wanting children. It's possibly the hardest thing I've ever done, because it is so unrelenting and you feel the stakes of messing up are so high. It really isn't for everybody. In some ways I feel that we've given up a lot in terms of personal freedoms to have a family - not particularly in financial terms, but in the time you lose that could have been frittered away so pleasantly. Now I cherish every spare half hour that I have to myself. That time has been given greater value because we have family commitments.

Thankfully, such online comments don't really reflect my experience of being a parent. By and large people in London, and Hackney especially, are remarkably considerate and helpful to parents. I've lost count of the number of times I've received some small, unsolicited kindness from a stranger who sees me struggling along with my load of childstuff. It's not unappreciated.

It does help that we have the world's cutest child though... aaaargh! Smug alert....

Chatterbox

The words are coming think and fast now from Jamie. He's turned into a fantastic little mimic and it's easy to forget that he's all ears. I believe he has already said one of the lesser swear words after hearing it from a responsible adult - not on my shift guv.
It all seems to have happened quite quickly. A month or so ago he was only saying individual words, and now he is threading them together in rudimentary sentences. He's only 18 months, and he wasn't saying that much at one, despite our parental pride in what seemed like wordiness at the time.
Now he can tell us, not only that he had had a poo, but how big it is (usually big poo), and that it is mummy, not him that is a beautiful boy, and that another portion of Shreddies is his favourite breakfast, thank you for asking.
He's also getting quite opinionated in a 'black is white' way. He will happily argue that this is the case and gets rather irate when contradicted. It's all getting very interesting.

Days like these

There are times when I wonder what I'm doing as a part time dad. When I'm pushing the buggy along the road and somebody - a shiny-suited Apprentice wannabe frinstance - catches my eye, and there's a momentary look that says 'Get a job'. At which point, I want to stop and say "You don't know anything about me. I could be a high flyer. I could wear a shiny suit." But I don't obviously - say it, or wear a shiny suit (usually fraying dockers and a stained T-shirt actually).
Actually, it's hardly surprising that I get that look as some days I do feel like a member of the long-term unemployed - not to mention looking like one, courtesy of my week long stubble. It's not that I don't do anything (see below), it's more that there is a feeling of being adrift from mainstream society when you are looking after a child. You keep different hours. You hang out in different places. You do different things. It's a whole subculture out there that I never knew existed. It's a world where lawyers and journalists mix with electrical engineers, shop workers and the real unemployed at strange little gatherings where you sit banging plastic instruments and singing out of tune songs about animals with strange anthropomorphic qualities. Who writes this stuff?
I often have this feeling that I should be doing something more worthwhile. That I should be working harder, climbing the ladder of success, and wearing that shiny suit with pride. But as my wife continually points out, I'm doing the most important job in some ways. In know she's right, and I know she would swap roles with me in a second, but I suppose that I'm as conditioned as the next man about what my role should be - trad dad breadwinner.
Again, I have to emphasise that I enjoy this new life I have. It's a secret life, and in some ways it does seem like a holiday of sorts when I'm looking after J. The problem is that the real world keeps intruding into our little Hackney Holiday world. There are always deadlines threatening, people chasing, and people to chase. It's the juggling that's the hardest part, and that's probably why I have this sense of dislocation. Because I have a foot in both camps, I'm never completely at ease in either.
I wouldn't change it though. This will end at some point and I'll be back to my five days a week routine and forgeting the songs about elephants scrubbing their clothes, and the glockenspiel tunes, and how much fun it can be.

What I do

• Woken up by Jamie
• Give him milk
• Change nappy - Jamie's, not mine
• Breakfast time
• Playtime
• Get him dressed
• Try to have a shower - no shave
• Walkies - get the bag ready
  
• Leave the house
• Go back to the house to collect forgotten stuff
• Find a place to give Jamie his dinner
• Nappy time
  
• Grab a cuppa
• Shop for food
  
• Swings
• Back home
• Make dinner for Jamie
• Story time
  
• Play
• Mummy home...
• Get bedtime stuff ready
• Run bath
• Kiss Jamie goodnight
• Make dinner while mummy puts J to bed
• Do dishes
• Me time!
  

What have I done?

It was an odd Friday.
I was summoned to the Midlands by one of the companies I do a bit of work for. I started working for them at the beginning of the year after a sudden downturn in paying gigs being offered. The company had actually been pursuing me during the summer, but I didn't fancy it, despite the immortal line from the desperate middle manager doing the pursuing that it was "money for old rope".
How can you refuse an offer like that? Well, I did for a bit. But a worryingly quiet December had me beating a path to their door with my tail between my legs begging for work, which was still available. Phew!
It hasn't all been plain sailing though. The work isn't that interesting and there have been issues with the project - namely how long-term it was likely to be (my feeling is that it's going to be pulled at some point).
So anyway, I approached the meeting with a certain degree of ambivalence. I knew that there were a few changes in the offing as one of the main people in the team was leaving. So I ended up in a meeting where the manager was effectively saying could I take on more responsibility.
Before I knew what I was saying I'd effectively talked myself out of a job, saying that I wasn't currently able to take on more work from them (true), that I didn't really agree with that they were trying to do and presenting a withering critique of their corporate culture, which I think is too navel gazing.
The lady I was meeting with actually seemed a bit stunned, although she thanked me for my candour. It now seems that they will look for somebody else to take on the work, and I'll be let go.
As I headed home on the train I was reading ever more gloomy economic predictions for the next few years which brought on a sense of panic. Suddenly I was mentally pulling the emergency stop cord and running back up the line to let them know it was all a terrible mistake. This feeling has stayed with me for most of the weekend, despite my wife pointing out that I've got more work than I can handle at the moment, that I didn't want to do it in the first place, and that I'm always moaning about it.
I guess such periods of self doubt are the curse of the freelancer. The old saying is that it is either famine or feast, and there seems to have been more of the former than the latter of late. Will I live to regret this decision? Time will tell.