Smokey the Magnificent

1. Tiny Miles has acquired a tooth. So begins Phase Two: Weaponisation.

2. We are Moved In. More or less. Blimey. Words cannot describe. Moving house seems to be more of a major production every time we do it. Helpdesk Man and I have solemnly agreed not to move again until we wax rich and we can build our dream homestead/castle/commune out in the country.

As it now stands, the kitchen, living room and pig’s bedroom, are all nearly painted, and the hallway is partly painted. Nothing is entirely painted, a state of affairs we must remedy soon, before we get used to it and leave it masking-taped and blotchy for the next ten years. Still, the house looks vastly better. One small section of skirting board in the living room is still its original green, and it catches the eye something fierce as soon as you walk in the door. A whole room of it would probably have made Helpdesk Man run amok in a matter of days.

Speaking of running amok, this is the ideal place for it. We went on a recon mish the other day and snooped round the orchard. Not only is it far bigger than I had imagined… it is awesome. We kept coming across odder and odder things - a decomposing shed with a decomposing dinghy and kayak inside, a stagnant lake with a hide, a delightfully eerie sawmill, steampunky rusted contraptions of unknown purpose, with valves and dials and levers, skulking under apple trees; a small flock of rosellas; a creek with waterfalls; an abandoned van that looks like it belonged to the Lone Gunmen; and a bright red telephone box, falling apart in the middle of a field. The whole place is just begging to be used as the location for a gritty Kiwi film about hillbillies, zombies, raptors or (ideally) all three. And there’s convolvulus.

3. The wildlife here is equally fascinating. In addition to the rosellas and the resident sheep, we have discovered a kingfisher, a bird of unusual design dubbed Dennis the Quail-Bird, a hedgehog called Hapless, a rat named Howard Harley (the pig named him - I dunno), a creature called Mighty Mandible Moth, which bit Helpdesk Man when he tried to evict it, and a large spider which builds beautiful orb webs on the porch every night. At least, she used to; her latest few efforts have been a bit patchy. I think she lost the will to create after we accidentally destroyed her web for the fourth time, walking through it.

There have also been two slugs, but we shall not speak of those - they give Helpdesk Man the heeby-jeebies. And looking out the window, I see there is a cockroach on the porch. One moment while I bellow for the man of the house.

4. You should see the pig’s room. It is pretty neat. The pink and cream stripy wall pleases me more every time I look at it. I found an old round mirror I bought ages ago off TradeMe (only to have Helpdesk Man take one look at it and say “Ew… you bought that?”, whereupon I shoved it in the shed for two years) and covered the frame with cream ruffles. Then I covered a Styrofoam ball with folded circles of pink satiny fabric, to make a ruffly ball thing, and hung it above the pig’s bed on a ribbon. Sophisticated as hell. I’m going to do more of them, in cream satin and lace net, but the first one took a lot out of me - I had to cut out 116 pink circles, traced around a mug. The whole thing took two days. Still, it pleases me. And when I’ve covered the pig’s corkboard in green floral fabric, and made cream curtains with four layers of ruffles at the bottom, the second-bottom-most being pink, and found some vintage knobs to use as curtain tiebacks, and bought and distressed a desk and bookshelves, and made a teepee with thick dowelling, and finished the pig’s summer quilt, and put a cream ruffle around her mini-trampoline, and replaced the light shade, and made a nightlight… well, it will be the cutest wee room you ever did see. And then I shall take photos.

5. The garden is growing apace. We’ve been eating zucchini ever since we got here; we missed one, and it is now the size of Miles. I’m torn between leaving it, just to see how big it can go, or harvesting it before it gets too watery and making a bunch of zucchini loaf or soup or something. And I harvested a colander-full of basil the other day (the colander was lying around the back yard, being awesome) and made pesto. So there.

6. We have a wedding to go to on Saturday. Do I have anything to wear? No, I do not. Neither does Miles, but I’m making him a sweet Ottobre outfit - pants, a button-up shirt and a cute little short vest. We went shopping yesterday and I tried on five dresses, and fell into a deep depression for the rest of the afternoon.

7. Our internet, as the cunning among you will have surmised, is back up. This took some doing. Helpdesk Man threatened Xnet with litigation. Handy tip: it worked. Being without the internet, daily trips to my parents’ to check emails notwithstanding, was actually rather pleasant. I pulled weeds out of the front lawn and everything.

That said, I am now going to read a week’s worth of XKCD. Excuse me.

Today the pigs and I were chillin’, and Tiny Miles let out a belch to wake the dead. The pig had been jumping about, not paying attention, but stopped and said “What was that, a growl?”

“It was a huge boip,” I said.

The pig started jumping again and said with satisfaction, “It was MIRACULOUS huge!”

So anyhoo, yup, that was awesome. Also, it is now 2012, an uncannily futuristic date. And this year I shall be 26. Soon I shall be dead, And Tiny Miles will be one, which is just absurd.

I celebrated New Year’s Eve with a shindig, at which I served ice cream sandwiches and won a game of poker. My method for success is to sit out most of the hands in order to milks Miles to sleep, thus preventing myself from frittering away chips; and then to come back and go all in on a straight. I recommend it. Sadly, everybody left the party at 11:30, and the pig woke up at midnight having flashbacks to ‘Nam from the fireworks, so it wasn’t a terribly auspicious beginning to January.

Nevertheless, I am full of new-yearly vim and resolution. I started piecing an Irish chain quilt of the pig’s, the fabric for which I bought two years ago. I made resolutions in a nifty list. I bought a diary (after the New Year, for the discount, though it pained my soul to wait) and filled it with reminders about church lunch, birthdays and the need to pull weeds out of the garden. I joined a challenge online to complete 52 crafting projects. I bought a new dress, in order to swish through 2012 chicly instead of slobbing around in an ex-maternity tunic that doesn’t allow me to breastfeed in public. (On second thoughts, I should probably have bought two dresses. I am extremely short on clothes.) I chose a colour scheme for our new interior walls in two seconds flat with Helpdesk Man, although I am now having second thoughts. Colour is not my strong point.

Also: we watched Green Lantern. My word. It was awful. Usually halfway through a terrible movie I can relax into a resigned torpor and just go with it, but not this time. Even five minutes from the end, I was casting longing glances at my sewing machine. It was almost as boring as this one time Helpdesk Man bought cable ties.

Also, I have discovered a new principle of life: there is no foodstuff which cannot be used as a term of endearment for one’s baby. Helpdesk Man and I have been testing it out, and it’s utterly true. Miles is my wee pumpkin muffin, my tikka masala, my little pierogi, my wee scrap of biltong, my fat wee haggis, my little can of beetroop, my schmear of cream cheese upon a bagel, my little stack of hotcakes, my fat moussaka, my wee chipolata sausage, my tiny crock of kraut, my suet duff, my little dob of wasabi, my boysenberry, my snickerdoodle, my little TV dinner, my hybrid tomato, my little garlic naan… I could go on. I defy any of you to come up with a foodstuff that doesn’t work. Venison pasties? Pan-fried dumplings? Carpaccio? Sashimi? See? It just cannot be done. Gape with awe.

This is Miles.

.

You will notice Miles is a catfish.

Miles mocks you with his eyes.

No, I jest. He likes you.

Miles don’t take no guff, though.

Miles fears no Commies.

Miles fears nothing.

Yet this tough exterior cradles the soul of a poet. Sometimes, for instance, Miles feels a pang of melancholy in the produce section, because he gave up brassicas. For Lent.

Miles is a delicate soul. Sometimes things that amuse coarser mortals shock him to the core.

Then he silently judges.

Take, for example, his large, tiny sister.

His sister has body art and drives a motorbike.

She is pretty hardcore.

Miles recoils from some of her lifestyle choices.

But he still likes her.

Sewing for the snortlepig is more complicated than it was. I spent the past few days frantically finishing a summer dress for her Christmas present. I tried to be subtle about it, hiding the pattern and so on, but she’s no fool. Before I’d even sewn the bodice to the skirt, she said “Mummy, will my dress be finished at Christmas?” I said in a jolly tone, “You know, this might be a dress, but it might not. It’s a surprise, you won’t find out until Christmas”. There was a moment of tactful silence, and then she said “Mummy, will my dress be finished at Christmas?” I miss the days when I could be binding her quilt right in front of her face while she capered around going “Is it a skirt? Is it a pretty dress?”

Fortunately, it turned out pretty cutesome. And I even managed to get her messenger bag finished in time as well. It wasn’t quite all I’d hoped, but she likes it. In fact, she was pretty enamoured of all her gifts - and well she should be. Gran and Grandpa bought her a sand and water play table. Nana and Grandpa gave her a wooden magnetic ballerina with costumes, like a paper doll. Helpdesk Man and I gave her the summer dress and bag, a sweet wooden Noddy stool, and a complete set of Beatrix Potter books, as well as some craft supplies. Various other friends-and-relations contributed a Disney princess puzzle, Where the Wild Things Are, a lovely wooden Noah’s Ark, hair clips and sundry other items of delight.

Miles was less impressed with the socks and onesie the pig gave him, but liked the taste of his zebra. Christmas seemed to inspire him - he celebrated by eating an entire egg yolk, sitting up (albeit briefly) unassisted, and saying “Dada” on cue. He then went on to say “Dada” loudly and constantly while we were trying to watch things, and threw up all his egg yolk flamboyantly over the sheets, two pillows and his own head; but still.

It is now rather late on Boxing Day, and as usual after Christmas I am feeling twitchy and inspired. Today I forced Helpdesk Man to help me write out a list of 52 things we could do next year to make us Better People, which I then typed out, cut into strips and put in a jar. Then we sorted through both pigs’ old clothes, dropped two bags off at the op shop, swapped round the pig’s clothes baskets with Miles’ chest of drawers, baked a chocolate cake, cleaned the kitchen, did crafts with the pig, filled two boxes with paper and cardboard for recycling, and made a vague attempt at turning the pig’s old jeans into shorts (which failed, because Helpdesk Man couldn’t cut straight. I will fix them tomorrow, but they might be more Daisy Duke than originally intended). I also made a rough draft of my New Year’s Resolutions and finished a truly fascinating book called Who Wrote Shakespeare? - so, a good day.

Also, the other night the snortlepig met the nieces of Helpdesk Man’s best friend, and one of them was five. And they were all watching a nature documentary and a bunch of flamingos came on. And the five-year-old stared at them and said “Are those eagles?”, and the pig, who is normally coy and standoffish around other small children, said scornfully “No, they’re flingos“, thus establishing herself as the alpha female and inspiring a Helpdesk Man-and-Smokey-composed song to the tune of Copacabana, beginning “Her name was Lola/She was a flingo”. The pig is pretty awesome, really.

Also, I bought Helpdesk Man a steampunk Nerf gun, and he’s been stalking around shooting us with it ever since. When he shoots the pig, she looks affronted and says “Excuse me?”

Also, our car died.

Also, we will be moving house in slightly less than three weeks, and I still have to dig all the dirt from the raised beds into garbage bags and take them to the new house, and resow grass at the old one. And, I suppose, clean the oven. This will be the third time I’ve moved house since getting married, also the third time I have cleaned an oven. Then again, that is like, infinitely more often than I have killed a man.

Merry Christmas all! Or a moderately decent Solstice, because I am broad-minded, but not, you know, very.

My life at the moment is dominated by gardening. A motley collection of seventy-odd pots is lining my deck, and I have developed a routine of taking them to the new house once the seedlings have sprouted, planting said seedlings, tipping out the dirt into the new flowerbed, and returning the pots home to start the cycle again.

It’s fun. Sweet peas and sunflowers, which germinate quickly, are particularly gratifying. Nigella takes longer, but looks pleasingly feathery; gypsophila and dianthus have uninspiring seedlings, but will presumably pretty up later on. I’m not entirely sure my Californian Thai Silk poppies are planning to make an appearance at all.

Planting the garden is also fun, at least when I can do it in the cool of the day and Helpdesk Man is around to hold the baby. I am trying to follow the advice of the gardening books from the library and plant in drifts, but the assembly-line process of seed-raising has made things a little patchier than intended.

In fact, the more I read about garden design, the more I realise I am an utter gardening yokel. The writers of garden design books are a scathing bunch, and do not suffer folk like me. To start with, I should have aimed for three structural plants for every interest plant, and relied much more heavily on perennials. Good advice, if a bit late for this year, but I trotted off to the Warehouse and got six white geraniums, and took a few cuttings from some pink ones a friend had as well. Then in the next book I read, the author described geraniums as a “shapeless heap of leaves” - apparently they are the stretch pants and ill-fitting hoodies of the perennial world. So that was depressing.

Then in the next book, I learned that persons of true taste and refinement select only wild, heirloom-type plants, in which the flowers are in naturally-occurring proportion to the foliage, rather than modern bloom-smothered hybrids with doubled flowers. I like doubles, but apparently they are garish and bland, suitable only for redneck philistines who like “a lot of colour” in their gardens. Colour, it turns out, is the first pleasure of the vicious. True devotees of nature revel in textures, a combination of Spires and Umbels, and especially grasses. One whole book, the author just kept on bringing up grasses. Apparently wild grasses are “indispensable” to any garden – she waxed particularly lyrical about the kinds which all bend in the same direction in the wind, which gives Movement to the planting, because heaven forbid one’s planting just sits there. (I suppose that’s how triffids were originally marketed, though, and they did well.)

There’s more. One should not plant too many species - “rip out half your plants and double the rest”, is the advice, which I can see now is good, but I’m not about to follow it after all the time and money involved. One should not combine hues, tones and shades (which are all different things – who knew!), lest the planting be unbalanced. One should use native plants wherever possible. One should plant for year-round interest, so something is always in bloom or providing structural beauty due to seedheads or interesting branches. One should plant veily tall plants in front of others, so the viewer cannot see the entire garden at a glance. One should echo the architecture of the house in the design and materials of the garden bed edging. One should blend the garden in with the surrounding environment. One should use a colour wheel. One should choose one’s colour scheme based on the time of the day at which the garden will most often be seen (reds are bad in the evening, apparently). One should not over-use hot colours, especially in a small garden. One should divide one’s garden into “rooms”. One should always – or never, according to another author – have a large, plain section of lawn.

It’s fascinating, but somewhat intimidating. With this year’s selection of (horror) annuals only half planted, I’ve already started planning next year’s garden, which will be Better and Classier and More Mature. Lemon-yellow “Moonwalker” sunflowers, large drifts of English lavender (perennial, ha!), and something shortish and dusky pink at the front, interpersed with occasional ornamental alliums. Do you think?

In the mean time, I planted three rows of broccoli seedlings out. And the snortlepig, who was helping me, asked if she could “smulch” them. There are whole piles of smulch just lying around, presumably made from the corpses of apple trees. And today after we finished planting the piggie and I picked some forget-me-nots, little purple flowers and pretty feathery grasses to take home. There will be benefits to living in the country.

Well, here I am, aground once more and more or less intact, save for a splitting headache that probably indicates intracranial bleeding, but is acceptable because Jamie has a similar headache, thus preventing him from being all “Typical Smokering, having an intracranial bleed” at me.

I feel I should share photos of the event, but they are a little scanty. Getting a professional photographer to take three photos and a DVD cost about a hundred and fifty dollars extra, so we declined; with the result that we have before and after photos, but not during. (At least, not of us. Helpdesk Man, the snortlepig and Miles were waiting on the ground, and the snortlepig took an arty photo of Miles’ knee at approximately the time I was plummeting through the skies. But it doesn’t quite convey the scope of the occasion.)

So, you know. Not exactly a visual treat. But there are plenty of YouTube videos of skydivers prettier than ourselves, with rock music to boot, so you can always pop over there to get the general gist.

This is us getting suited up.

This is a chap called Max checking my fixings. Max was a gung-ho, daring-older-brother type chap who introduced himself as “I’m Max, I’m your guy” and spent the entire skydive trying to get me to do the thumbs up and give him high-fives to indicate I was having a jolly old time. About ten seconds after he pulled the chute he said “So do you think you’ll do this again?”; that sort of chap. Nice, though.

The suit wasn’t exactly flattering. They should have made it white, to give a kind of Princess-Leia-in-The Empire-Strikes-Back vibe. That, or they should have gone with the dieselpunk theme suggested by the hats. Costumed skydiving; it could be the new thing.

Anyway. This is us by the plane. The snortlepig saw it and was all “Whoa, it’s HUGE!”, which, no. Helpdesk Man did try to take an arty from-behind shot of us walking to the plane like a ragtag group of astronauts, but the thing about ragtag groups of astronauts? Their suits don’t sag around the hindquarters. So we will omit that one.

Then we went up. It took a surprisingly long time. We got above some nice, puffy cumulus clouds, and I thought “Whoa, look how high we are”, and then Max tapped me chummily on the shoulder and said “We’re at 5,000 feet now - 10,000 more to go!” We ended up going up past the next lot of clouds, which were thin and blankety, and rather obscured the view. It was high. We had to breathe through oxygen masks for a while, although Max eventually stowed mine away and I began to feel a bit funny. (I assumed it was protocol, but the others, who were sitting behind me, said they got oxygen right up until they exited the plane. A thrifty chap, that Max: not a quality I was especially seeking in my skydiving partner, but no doubt it will serve him well during the recession.)

Then we jumped out; except we didn’t, really. By this time I was intimately strapped to Max and unable to walk, partly because my feet would have been a foot off the ground, and partly because the wee plane was extremely crowded. So we shuffled along the bench onto the floor, dangled our legs over the side of the plane and just sort of fell out. It wasn’t the sort of situation in which one would cry “For Gondor!”; more like “Oop, there goes my sammich”.

Free-falling wasn’t all that fun. My eyes watered like billy-oh under a pair of painfully tight goggles, it was cold, pieces of ice got stuck to my face and it was generally somewhat painful and buffety, and not improved by Max expressing frenetic exuberance with his thumbs (presumably in case I had let my mind wander to the Sunday roast and was missing the fact that yes, we had just fallen through a cloud). I mean, yes, the fact that one was hurtling through the air at 15,000 feet was kind of neat, but it was more awesome in theory than sensation; somewhat like reading War and Peace.

Then he pulled the chute, and I got to steer the parachute here and there, and we went round and round, and it was pretty oose. Max said “Woo-hoo” a lot, and I felt I should say it as well so as not to disappoint him, but I couldn’t quite muster the chuff; so we twirled round a bit and headed over the lake a bit and back again, and eventually came to land in a surprisingly precise spot back at the hangar.

Whereupon the snortlepig, who had been watching with Helpdesk Man for a very long time, came running out to meet me.

Apparently she was pleased to see me.

And then Miles was like “This is all very well, mother, but I require the milks”, and we went off to find a restaurant, but the first one was shut and the second one had a moosehead in it, so we traipsed all round town looking for another one, which we didn’t find, so we went back to the second one on the proviso that I could sit somewhere where I didn’t have to see the moosehead. And somewhere along the way Miles kicked off a sock. And all was back to normal. We spoke judiciously of the event and decided that we might do it again if there was an awesome view and/or a special on, but that next time we should try hang-gliding.

And then we went to the Huka Falls, and the pig was all “Does it got a plug in? How does it go by itself?”, and I realised I could not explain the mechanism of churning waterfalls to a three-year-old (or, indeed, anybody). Maybe I could have before the jump, but not now. And it occurs to me that this could be a handy excuse to use in later life. “Oh yeah, sorry, I fell out of a plane once at 15,000 feet and ever since then I haven’t been able to do my taxes”.

PS: The waiter at the restaurant mocked me openly. I said “Do you do iced chocolates?” and he smirked and said “No”, with a tone that implied “Duh” and also “Ew”.

Today I spent a merry four and a half hours scrutineering NZQA exams for a boys’ high school, in return for a chunk of money that sounded generous until I was doing it. I think I strode about ten miles. I handed out innumerable tissues, prevented who knows how many acts of Dishonesty and Abetting, and earned the respect of one callow youth when I forgot my place as I was making him fill out the Toilet Roll and muttered “Sorry, I know it’s a bit fascist”.

Matters arising:

1. I’d forgotten that I quite like teenage boys; so many of them mean well. I’d been expecting a bunch of reeking, flatulent yokels - and, granted, after the first thirty minutes you could have cut the fug with a knife - but many of them looked up at me with earnest “I can’t think of the name of that author” faces, intent and free of malice, and it was sort of touching. Also, despite their no doubt numerous flaws, they were undisputably not teenage girls, and that is a virtue indeed. Which brings me to point 2:

2. I am old. Some of those young varmints were, like, ten years younger than me. A decade younger. Yet still the size of a tank. I was still a good fifteen years younger than most of the other scrutineers, some of whom had children in high school themselves; but that still left me in the oldest ten per cent of the room. I wasn’t sure if I should wear a Batman T-shirt next time to appear accessible and with-it, or just skewer a tight bun to my head with hairsticks and go with it. I do have hairsticks and don’t have a Batman T-shirt, so I might as well embrace my decreptitude. Still, though. Depressing.

3. It is a very tragic thing to watch a boy hand in his papers as soon as the first 45 minutes are up and he can legally go. A fair few of them did, either with quiet despair, or a jaded air of “I’ve put in my time, the world can ask no more of me”. I wanted to exhort them to think of the wife and chillun, and one of the scrutineers said that she always asks “Are you sure?” in meaningful tones, but I doubt it helps.

4. While stalking down the rows, I read snippets over their shoulders. It was fun. “The author creates tension by…”; “The movie “Inception” is about…”; “the key relationship in the novel”; “Finnegan’s Wake is a metaphor for…”. I wanted to stop and read on, and I suppose I could have - what could they have done? - but I refrained. Scrutineering the maths exam won’t be nearly so much fun.

5. That evening, I went to do a mystery shop at a supermarket and ran into one of the boys, who was stocking shelves and recognised me. We had a pleasant chat - he seemed sanguine about his prospects, despite only having filled in two of the four English booklets. It seemed a bit late to point out that unless he wants to stock shelves forever, he should probably attempt all four booklets. Still, he was nice.

6. Miles really ought to have a medal. He is the Best Baby Ever. I left at one and he slept until four; drank milks from a bottle like a pro, and was happily chillin’ with Helpdesk Man when I returned home at traffic-past-five, despite having suffered a slight plummet during my absence. (Helpdesk Man put him on the narrow window seat, turned to get a chair to wedge up against it, and told the snortlepig “Stay there and don’t let him fall off”. Which might have been due diligence, but the snortlepig wasn’t paying attention and drifted away, and Helpdesk Man turned back just in time to watch Miles roll over joyfully and plop to the floor. Luckily he did not land on his head but his tum, which has fewer brains.)

This post is only for the eyes of those* who commented on the last one. The rest of you: clearly you have failed to grasp my awesome pwnage of the sonnet form. Go back and read it again… peons.

1. Miles has awesome abilities. According to the smell of his lone tuft of hair, he has mastered the art of being sick onto his own head.

2. If your lover was beheaded in front of you by a savage madman, which bit would you cradle in your arms as you wept? I think I’d go for the body, even though it seems sort of counter-intuitive, just because my sense of decorum would probably fail at the vital moment and I wouldn’t want Sven’s** last ebbing image to be of me wearing a horrified smirk.

3. I have decided to become a medical man, just so I can waggle my fingers archly at patients and say “lobes”. Try it. “Mr Smith, I’m sorry to tell you that you have a tumour in your [waggles fingers] lobes.” “Inform the Countess that she will live until the season ends, but we will have to remove her [waggles fingers] lobes.”

*Mother.

**I mean Helpdesk Man.

***Probably isn’t though, honestly.

****To the disappointment of the snortlepig, who, upon being gently told about her Grandpa’s impending operation, simply responded “Will they use scissors?”. (”Do they gots trolleys?” would probably have been her next question, but she lost interest. Curiously, upon meeting my great-grandmother today for presumably the first time in her tiny memory, the question she most wanted answered was “Do you got a red wall or a white one?”, which threw said relative a bit. She rallied, though. White, apparently.)

Shall I compare thee to the snortlepig?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate
See’ng my clean dress (when she was small, not big)
With a thin coat of puke she would distemper it.

My first pig’s face was yellow like a fright
But no such jaundice see I in your cheeks
And, being changed, you kick with great delight
Cheerful and sweet, despite your poop, which reeks.

She screamed; you sleep. She wailed; you gurgle. She
-Though arguably cuter in the face-
Pooped only once a month (from neck to knee)
Your active bowels denote the Master Race.

But if you turn out bad (and I suspect it)
My abdomen shall sue you. ‘Cause you wrecked it.

1. The snortlepig has invented a new word: strinky. After some investigation we discovered it refers to anything wrinkly, corrugated or ridged; raisins, for example, or one’s fingums upon emerging from the bathtub. Or Morgan Freeman.

Also strinky.

The pig being a minor, I give the Internet this word on her behalf. So next time you’re inspecting the roof of a shanty house or the texture of a fine corduroy… or Morgan Freeman… you can be all “Hmm. Strinky.”

2. Today Flatmate Man left a lone sausage festering in the frypan, so Helpdesk Man and I tied a ribbon round it and left it on his pillow. He was less appreciative than you’d think.

3. The weather is unseasonably dry. Helpdesk Man’s lips have gone all strinky.

4. I have just spent the better part of an hour trying to take a photo of Tiny Miles. It is harder than you would think. Firstly, my photography skills are non-existent and I was sitting in a room with the curtains drawn; secondly, I had to hold Tiny Miles up with the one hand to prevent him plummeting to his doom; and thirdly, every time I held the camera up he would cease his adorable smiles and stare at the camera with the fixed intentness of a magpie; and that was not attractive. Also, sad to say, he has inherited the family lack of photogenicitude. In real life he is toothsome and comely, a marvel of chins and cheeks and more tender fleshy bits than his anatomy strictly requires. In photos, though… well, he could be anyone’s pig. This was the best I could get:

5: Ten minutes ago.

SNORTLEPIG [while drawing at the table]: Mummy, I stomped on Miles before.

ME: Don’t stomp on Miles.

SNORTLEPIG: He liked it!

6. Helpdesk Man, the pigs and I are currently watching TNG. (The pig likes it; I was most impressed the other day when she saw the spaceship in Forbidden Planet and said “That’s like the Enterprise!” On a recent playdate, however, she found a toy saxophone and said “Is this a trumpet?” and I said “It’s a saxophone; you know, like Riker plays on Star Trek?” and the Other Mother found it hilarious, which shocked me a little, because when one is insulated in a cosy cloud of geeky friends it’s easy to forget how the other half lives. This is the friend who said, just prior to the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, “Ooh, I’m a huge Harry Potter fan, I’m so glad to meet someone else who likes it!”, and then it transpired she hadn’t even seen the last two movies. Lovely girl, but really.)

Anyhoo. I’m not generally a fan of digitally remastering old films (coughLucascough), but I think I have hit upon a method for making TNG distinctly more awesome. They need to go back in and add a character whose sole function is to follow a certain Acting Ensign and say “Shut up, Wesley” every time he speaks. I shall provide a few examples so that you can see how it would improve the show.

PICARD: There’s no greater challenge than the study of philosophy

WESLEY: But William James won’t be on my Starfleet exams.

SOMEONE: Shut up, Wesley.

Or

WESLEY: We thought we could do it. We thought we could do anything. We were wrong. And Josh died.

SOMEONE: Shut up, Wesley.

Or

WESLEY: Sir… you don’t know this. No one knows this. Because I’ve never told anyone. All of the things that I’ve worked for - school, my science projects, getting into the Academy… I’ve done it all because I want you to be proud of me.

SOMEONE: Shut up, Wesley.

Don’t you see how it improves the flow?

7. Panna cotta is my new big thing. I’ve just discovered it, courtesy of David Lebovitz, who is now practically my favourite food blogger even though he routinely annoys me. I’ve made vanilla bean, raspberry (with freeze-dried raspberry powder I bought at the food show - intriguing, but underwhelming in the clinch), double-layer coffee-caramel, and (last night) double-layer chocolate and coffee with a thin layer of chocolate ganache on top. I am now harboring a tentative plan to make rosewater-coconut cream panna cotta, but I doubt I actually will. I am hampered by what a nasty man on the internet once called my parochial upbringing. In this respect I am not unlike my mother, who recently in a fit of daring painted one of her bedroom walls aubergine, but is clearly both proud of and a little embarrassed by this act. We neither of us would survive in LA.