Anuna and Venture: Anuna

Last night, I went out for fun without Linnea. It felt dreadful, of course, but I did it anyway. I left to go to a concert at the Hexagon in Reading, but luckily read the tickets and went to the Concert Hall instead, which is in the old Town Hall at the other end of town. I met my friend en route, after a hasty diversionary phonecall, and we walked in together.

The Town Hall is where Rob and I got married, and in the basement is the Biscuit Tin Cafe where Linnea and I play so much - it has great crawling space and doting staff. When my friend and I arrived at the Town Hall, several members of staff greeted me with "On your own?" or "Where's your daughter?" or just looking around, puzzled. Then they told my friend - who knows Linnea quite well - just how beautiful my baby is, and how well she crawls, and so on.

We went to the concert. It was lovely. I believe that a number of English people found Mr McGlynn spoke too quickly to be understood; as the second half began he said he'd speak as he does for Americans, and slowed down considerably. The English audience was very... passive, mainly. Towards the end of the second half they began to feed back a bit to the choir, but I thought the first half was very quiet. The applause was polite, I suppose. I heard a few elderly ladies complaining that they didn't sing from the stage like A Real Choir, so perhaps a lot of people there had no idea what to expect.

I learned a new verse to dilin o domhas. I knew the one about throwing the child up in the air and assuming he'd come down tomorrow, but I had never before heard the one about being careful because he'd explode. The singer I spoke to said it wasn't the same as dilin o domhas, but an awful lot of the words were, apart from that verse... Anyway, the new verse scans to the tune I know, so I've added it in and Linnea seems to approve.

I bought two CDs, which was all they had on sale. I've since looked on their website, which says that they were going to record a DVD in 2004 but not whether they actually had.

Tempted though I was, I didn't ask any of them to sing "Thosaigh Beiti scriobadh leite leis an gcleite gannal" (sp?) or "Oisin agus Bo" or "A shaighdiuirin a chroi will you marry marry me" or any of the others from "Sonas 's So", a vinyl record my father had when I was ickle. I thought it might be disrespectful. I bet they'd enjoy Beiti though. It rollicks.

They sang "I dreamt I dwelt in marble halls" though, so I was happy.

Anuna and Venture: Venture

After hearing Anuna last night, this morning I set off with Rob and Linnea for breakfast at McDonalds. It was vile. May it be another 10 years before I buy there again.

But we then went to have our photos taken, because I won a voucher for taking part in a Marks and Spencers survey. Hm.

They called us up to make an appointment, and again to change the appointment, and a few times to tell us what to wear and do and bring - no patterns, no stripes, zigzags, spots or dots, bold colours, trousers, no skirts, long sleeves, no shoes or socks allowed in the studio (if I get a verruca you'll know why)... they were quite firm that I should be careful what my baby wore, because "little girls usually wear quite pale, pastel things." "Not my little girl," I said firmly. Very firmly. I also explained that I sometimes have to wear skirts, because of physical problems which I could detail if they wanted to hear them but I didn't think they did. They didn't. But they called me back about that, too, asking if it was for religious reasons - no, just physical.

After all this, I felt a bit defensive when we finally showed up, and it was mainly because I never win anything that relies on luck that I made us go. I'm glad we did.

The photographer asked what we liked and didn't like about their style of shooting - all the family groups I'd seen in their brochure were in the same style, so I made sure to say that I didn't like the bleached out look some of them have. Then we went and romped with Linnea for an hour in a white studio with a boy with very trendy hair setting off bright explosive lights at us periodically. It was really nice to have an hour dedicated to active, interactive, hyperactive play.

Some of the shots were so nice that I think we're going to fall for the marketing poly and pay for prints in addition to the free one the voucher covers. Oopsie. But Linnea was at her most enchanting and Rob and I achieved "relaxed and happy in front of a camera", which is rare. Perhaps we can, oh I dunno, remortgage or something. They don't sell loose prints or digital images, only Framed And Finished Works Of Art, which is fair enough but pricey.

It was fun though; the photographer kept saying "If you sit her here - oh, I forgot about the crawling." She moved quickly enough that he had trouble getting the shots he wanted unless we got her to crawl the same route - in an empty white space, mark you - twice in a row. He wasn't all that interested in making her pose, though, just in having her be herself within camera range; when she did something particularly gorgeous and he missed it, he tried to make it happen again, and sometimes succeeded. She liked him.

We were very happy with the session; it was fun and amusing and Linnea had a whale of a time wheeling the light reflector screen into the wall.