Moolies

Streatham - the seat of terrorism (apparently)

Police officer stationed outside the local mosque on Sunday ( though I'm assuming that was more to prevent dumbass edjits imagining that it was a good idea to graffiti the place, or worse).

Now the drone of the Police helicopter, which sometimes seems to do practice manoevres over Streatham common late night (thanks guys) seems to be almost constant.

We're *so lucky* to have the Police station only a block away from our flat. It means a constant "Woowoowoo" of "Pleese Car", day or night at present. I think I noticed the increased Police activity before I knew about the news from Streatham Hill. Strange how the rest of Streatham just chugs along, going to Argos or WH Smiths; trying to find dishwasher salt in Sainsbury's local (and failing).

We watched the horrendous news on Friday, which of course at that point was only "The Police have shot a man dead at close range".

Had to watch it for a few minutes because it was so astounding. Nora picking up words from the presenter's voice over constantly.

"Pleese. Shot. Man."

Yes darling. The Police shot a man.

Sometimes you just want to hold her, and hold her, and hold her.

There's still milk!

I simply do not believe that there is still a bip of milk in my knockers. I stopped breastfeeding her about 4 months ago!

When you get mastitis off and on when you're feeding, you get used to the warning signs - your nips going sore and hard in one partcular spot. So one of mine just was, and I checked it out (without getting all oo-er missus about it, you have to give 'em a bit of a pinch, basically) and lo and behold, a teeny suidge of foremilk that had been building up (hence soreness) splidged out! So hang on, is it there is the other one?

Yep.

This is some bizarre biological trick to allow me to become a bloody wet nurse, I know it.

Oh Lordy, she watched TV

Yes, yes, I know she has actually seen TV before, but only for fleeting moments or in extremis for a couple of minutes.

We rented a Boohbahs DVD from Lovefilm, to watch an episode together to show her what TV is. the results were as follows:

Parents thoughts: Good god, how bloody long is this show - half an hour? I thought it was about five minutes!

Nora's thoughts (approx): swirly, children bouncing! Airplane! Funny eyes.. jumping up, bubbles... a bit scary, dancing, music! Dancing! Funny man in an armchair. Woof woof! Fuuuuunnnnyyy!!!!

Now. Several things you need to know:
1) We have been going to and playing with the Boohbahs' website for the last four or five months at least. She doesn't like the bits where the Boohbah characters whizz round in circles, it's all a bit too fast and furious, so the bubbles scare her a bit on the landing page. She really loves the dancing and the children calling out their names, and she likes the little games. Got that?

2) Nora has an endearing habit of jumping in feet first when she does something for the first time, in a sort of grinning "Let's get on with it!" way. Second time, however, she tends to be a hell of a lot more wary. I know which bits of this I didn't like - you're expecting me to do what, exactly? ARE YOU CRAZY?

So. Two days after watching 1 episode, we put it on as a late afternoon treat. She really enjoyed the title sequence, and she'd been longing for it to be on (afer we played it the first time, when it popped up in her memory, she'd go on and on and on about it - "Boohbahs! Boohbahs!") - but as soon as it got to the bit when the Boohbahs wake up, surrounded by bubbles and make a lot of sudden movements, she started getting quite upset.

So we sent the Boohbahs to bed and switched it off pronto, and went to play in the garden instead.

A while later I switched on the Boohbahs website so she could see the old familiar bits... and she was more scared of some bits than she had been before.

Hmmmmmmm.

Ok. My thoughts are as follows. When we were desperate for her to eat her tea a while ago we switched on CBeebies and a very simple live action programme was on featuring spiders and a dog. She absolutely *adored* it. I'm wondering whether because it was a real thing, and not something imaginary, it was more acceptable*. Because she's never watched TV, anything we show her is basically the equivalent of showing cinema to someone who has lived in an isiolated tribe in a rainforest - a double whammy of TV narrative for the first time ever and a bloody massive screen with fast moving elements.

(*Of course, again here it was the first time she had seen something, so her enthusiastic welcome might have been shortlived in the long run. Who knows)

My personal feeling is that we should just leave it. She doesn't have to watch bleedin' television. We seem to find enough to occupy our time normally without switching it on.

We have got a "Maisy" DVD in the rental queue, which I have a feeling is going to be a hell of alot more gentle, and, like every other brainwashed child in the country, *boy* does she love Maisy.

Battersea Park children's Zoo

...on the one day in July it *pisses* down with rain.

Several hours later... one very happy little girl, who loved the meercats, the emus, the capuchin monkeys, the goats, the rabbits, the turkeys, and went nuts for the chipmunks.

And two very, very tired parents.

She's still being horrendously tea-fussy, btw. I have her lovely pasta yesterday and it was the first time she'd eaten her tea properly for days. But you can't just give the same thing to her, day after day. that's insane.

So. Out has come the toddler meals book again and there's some rockin stuff in there. We're going to be doing some cooking over the next week / couple of weeks.

Disgusting, disgraceful news

Please note my comments in the last post regarding this shooting. I was appalled when it happened and my feeling of disgust that the Police are operating a shoot to kill policy hasn't exactly been reduced by the shocking, horror of this headline:

Shot man not connected to bombing.

Yes, there are bombings occurring. No, we do not live in a Police state.

I maintain the right not not be cowed by fear in to making excuses for such disgraceful, shameful actions.

Astounding news

Astounding because it has come straight from an eyewitness, presumably on a mobile phone or something similar to the BBC.

This is quite an extraordinary time. Who is mediating this citizenry news? I ask this merely as a question rather than an opinionated one. The Police will be going *spare* that this guy has given the BBC a detailed description of how plain clothed policemen seem to have behaved illegally:

"Mark Whitby said: "I was sitting on the train... I heard a load of noise, people saying, 'Get out, get down'.

"I saw an Asian guy. He ran on to the train, he was hotly pursued by three plain clothes officers, one of them was wielding a black handgun.

"He half tripped... they pushed him to the floor and basically unloaded five shots into him," he told BBC News 24. "

I think perhaps 1 shot might have been enough, at that point?

London feels very peculiar at present. Stupid. pathetic. copycat bombings, running battles and shootings; some poor bastard just walking down Whitehall wearing a backpack held at gunpoint and ends up all over the TV. Whereas after the bombings i felt as safe as I had done pre-the bombings to be honest, I'm now feeling slightly unnerved. You can't tell just how many nutters there are out there, waiting to come out of the woodwork and using any pretext as an excuse.

Well. I'm glad I don't use the tube that often. Too much anxiety emanating from everyone around, I imagine.

Oh *bloody hell*

How the hell am I goign to get home to get Nora out of nursery tonight?

All links out of London are knackered.

I'm outta here. Update tomorrow. Will take photos if I see anything interesting. Unlikely, frankly, apart from fucked off passengers.

They're all the same

It's not as if Blair is any better than this.

Bush is moving to protect his good buddy, Karl Rove. They make me shudder with nausea.

Liars and cheats. Never trust politicians, and trust their advisors even less.

La Bete

I just wanted to let you know, if you've never seen this film, it's worth hunting out. It's absolutely hilarious.

Hot hot hot

Mummy is hot.

nora is hot.

But... not as hot as Mummy, who had to stop running on the funny machine because her heart rate suddenly started shooting up in to the 170's, and water started pouring down her face at a rate of knots.

erk.

That was very, very unexpected. Never do hardcore sweat inducing exercise in temperatures over 28 degrees (air con or no air con), wearing your normal long legged fleecy sweat pants, unless you want to lose several pints of water and lean, eyes closed listening to your heart having almost no gaps at all between the pounding in your chest. I believe some shorts may be in order. They will have to put up with my legs in that gym.