Trip to Galway, Aran, and back again

Well, I got to sleep at about 5:30 am, so urgh. However, Linnea did cheer up immensely once we invited her back into our bed and let her play on us for hours. She dropped off about 12:30 I think, and stayed pretty much asleep as long as she was nursing. A lot hinges on today's nap.

Radegund and I spent all night up chatting and knitting, of course. Then we all got up in the morning, and she walked with us part of the way to Heuston Station. I marched the rest of the way with Linnea and the buggy and the backpack; it took about 45 minutes fully laden. I was privileged to see some appalling driving - lots of lights-breaking, several illegal left turns, that sort of thing. Nothing that actually caused an accident. When we reached Heuston Station I bought a ticket from a machine (technology! The biggest delay in that station used to be the seperate queues for the two ticket desks, only one of which would be able to handle plastic payments on a given day, which was almost always my fault) and changed my tshirt. It was a warm morning, I'm still allergic to every antiperspirant known to man, I dislike the idea of antiperspirants anyway - regular washing and clean clothes seems to work, for me.

Then I found somewhere making up sandwiches fresh, and had them create a masterpiece of dairy-free edibility, and bought a cup of tea which I lost somehow, and a piece of fruit. And a pack of crisps. and then I sat by the platform entrance and played with baba. It's important to be near the platform entrace because the queue to board the train cam form up to 30 minutes before the train is due to depart. Rob and I have stood 50th in the queue for 20 minutes before now, with a straggly waggly toddler and a trolley full of luggage. Linnea and I made to to the very very top, and I spent 20 minutes looking at a poster advertising the new Fast Ticket machines; caption: "Daddy, what's a queue?"

Oh, it is to laugh!

We boarded the train with cheer and chatting and had a delightful journey including but not limited to:

• Drawing
• Looking at horses, birds, tractors and cows out the windows - leftover British Rail stock moves more slowly than the new stuff they use in England
• Knitting
• Tea-parties
• Lunch
• Listening to music
• Napping
• Nursing
• Walking up and down the carriage chatting to people
• Saying "Oh, wow, wossat?" to stimulate conversation

We prepped for disembarkation and when the train stopped I leaned out the window, opened the door, and backed off onto the platform. I can manage rucksack, buggy, nappy bag, bag of toys, and baby in the buggy with ease, flair and panache. My mother was veyr, very impressed.

Linnea said "Nana!"

We went for lunch, since I wasn't sure Linnea had eaten enough on the train, and found chips and sausages in a Kylemore Cafe. I pointed at mum and said "Who's that?" and Linnea said "Nana!" again, so it wasn't coincidence, just further proof of genius. She wasn't saying it when we last met my mother, three months ago.

The ferry trip wasn't very exciting either, apart from the floor being all wobbly and the in-flight entertainment, as it were, being a DVD of The Wolfe Tones, who make me angry (again complete with warning, licensed for home use screen). But when we got to the house Linnea was obviously pleased to be back.

Linnea started to say "Morning" the first day we woke up there. Also, "Nana up!" She knew where she was - remembered where she was, clearly, demonstrably. So we started each day by visiting Nana in her bedroom, then having porridge.

"Morning" got such a good reaction that she uses it at intervals throughout the day, in case it has multiple applications.

We visited the horses waiting for tourists at the foot of the fort. We went to the town on the bus, visited the library, and got a horse and trap ride almost all the way back - but we got out at the seal-watching point and watched seals. There are more swans on the lake than we're used to because some have emigrated from Greenland. Seals sit like great black bananas on rocks just under the surface of the water, which looks most peculiar.

Linnea adored the trap ride so much that the driver kept wanting to take us a little farther on, and a little farther on, for free. When I did pay him he tried to claim it was too much.

She brought us for a long walk up the lane to pick blackberries (Nyum!) and got her ankles torn to shreds, though she didn't care. She found a big stick which she carried along the rest of the walk. She met some cows. She learned to get into the side of the road and stand absolutely still against the grass when a bus comes and she does this unprompted now - I turn to say "Bus!" and she's already there, looking wary. She sat on the swing in the tree and held on and was pushed - with no safety harness or anything. She hauled on a rope hanging from a branch like the bell-ringer of Notre Dame, only with far more sense of the importance of her task.

And I almost finished the body of her cardigan, taught myself to knit buttonholes, and read three books I'd brought with me and one I found there (I do love Monica Dickens). I bought a set of about eight sets of bamboo needles in a roll-up holder for less than 18UKP which was a bargain. I like bamboo needles.

This was the first trip where she spoke to Daddy on the phone and they had actual conversations - she told him about the Orse and the Dow and Meemee and the T'ain and all.

He even understood some of it.

The return trip was pretty straightforward as far as Dublin. Radegund and I sat up until after 2 talking, though, which was daft. But Donal and Glitz were there, and Donal had a copy of my book! He wanted me to SIGN IT. I have given my first booksigning session. I am now an internationally famous author (well I am, you've heard of me, after all).

Radz gave Linnea a lovely lilac-grey-blue cardie which will fit her around December, if I guess correctly. It looks warm enough to do as a jacket for outdoor play in dry weather, in fact.

DART, and trains in England

We were driven to the DART (Dublin Area Rapid Transit) station to make the trip to Dun Laoghaire. It was excitingly modern. I remember the DART of old; I used to live right next to the Seapoint station, close enough that our terrace had a private entrance down the end of the shared front lawn. Now they have electric turnstiles and ticket machines and little signs to say when the next train is and everythign! And lifts for people in wheelchairs! Or with buggies. People in wheelchairs are still required to levitate on and off the trains, though, because the platform and the train floor are not generally anywhere near the same level. Perhaps they can pop wheelies or something. Whee!

We made it to the ferry with almost a minute to spare before departure. They were serving hot breakfast, which meant easy dairy-free hot lunch for Linnea, and then we romped and rampaged. I got a photo of the "WARNING" screen of the DVD this time, and there were two children's entertainers in the play area, making balloon animals. Linnea got a mouse that looked obscene after its nose burst.

The train at Holyhead was boarded effortlessly and I had a cup of tea. I couldn't use the loo though because it was too filthy to contemplate (it really was). In my pre-baby days it would have been manageable, but was it was, no. Anyway, I disembarked at Chester to get my train to Crewe, and had almost 3 minutes to make the transfer. I arrived on the correct platform, went to board through the nearest fdoor, and was directed to go to the other end of the two-carriage train. There was no room there unless the owner of the pram disembarked, allowed me on, and re-embarked - my buggy is nippy enough to fit in the space behind where she had her pram. But no. Upshot? I wasn't allowed to board the train, the chap who'd directed me to the other end of the station refused to ask anyone to move, and when I asked him what I was supposed to do next he looked up a train that would have made me two hours later than the connection I wanted to make, for which I had seat reservations.

So much for reserved seats, then. Hah.

I asked Rob to look up trains for me and he found me a much better connection, via Birmingham, and that went smoothly enough - I mean, it was late, but we got it, and there was a functional loo, and a man gave me his seat, and the person next to us was a maths teacher writing a program to make maths fun for kiddiewinks and wanted to test it on Linnea, who thought it was television and therefore enthralling.

By the time we reached Oxford, however, the train was so delayed they decided to terminate it. We were all chucked off and told to get to Reading on the next train. There was space by a door and it wasn't too long to stand, really.

So we got there, 11 hours after leaving Radegund and Niall's house in Dublin, all because of an officious little man about my own age who thought that a woman with a pushchair wasn't important enough to be allowed to board a train. I am quite, quite certain that had she been a large suitcase I'd have been allowed on, because two people with huge cases pushed past me and made it into the carriage. Can't manhandle a baby the same way though - and I wasn't feeling rude enough, I suppose. My fault again.

I do feel a letter in the making, if we can get a working printer.

Home again home again

So, we got off the train, and made our way to the main concourse, and found Rob, and had a Joyous Reunion tempered by the fact that I was tired, hungry, and dizzy, and then we found somewhere to sit and eat.

Linnea started making friends with a man eating a pasty, mainly by making big mouth-full-chewing faces back at him as he chewed, and we got chatting - he was very excited by Canada and is going to move there, and also loved Linnea and didn't want children because it's too hard to do it right. I can't pin down why the following exchange made me uncomfortable -

"I'm in IT, of course. What do you do?"
*points at Linnea* "I'm her mum."
"Well, that's a job in itself, of course."

He was trying to be nice, and I'm sure he meant it - but I also just plain don't believe that he believed me when I said "Or two - yeah. I was in IT before. It was easier than this," which I felt driven to do from some bizarre need to justify myself. Which is crazy.

Anyway, we had a nice chat, apart from that, and then we got a taxi home and the house is HUGE without all the fireguards around the gas fires. The radiators look fine, as radiators go, and aren't too terribly intrusive to the eye, except in the library, which is a shame as that's my favourite room. I need an idea of something to do to or with it that will make it less... well. It's exactly where the focal-point fire would be if we had one. It's huge and white. There's a picture over it. Should I try painting it? Or just leaving it alone? Can I dress it in a modesty muslin and pretend it's not there? Cover it in raffia or milk-bottle tops? scratch it with a wire brush and call it a feature? Any ideas?

Other than that - man, central heating is great. The bathroom is warm. The water is hot. There's a water softener, so the tap water is pleasanter, though it doesn't affect the cold water supply so our washing machine still turns our clothes stiff as Robin starch.

We got to bed at a reasonable time the day we got home, Wednesday, and on Thursday we got up at a reasonable time to be ready for the NCT toddler group, who didn't show up, which is fine. Then we moved some furniture - the big for-projects-and-art-and-stuff dining table is upstairs being a computer desk, and my lickle desk is downstairs being a dining table. So we have gained serious floorspace, and we may well be getting rid of Rob's huge computer desk, too - he's not likely to spend much time working at home in future, really, so won't need so much dedicated office space.

A smaller table should be easier to keep clear, too, since we won't be able to eat off it if it's covered in junk.

And then there's the NHS letters. One is fine - appointment with the same consultant as before about the traumatic birth thing. I think I might bring her some of my recent poems, actually, since they are more coherent than I usually manage to be myself. She's great.

The other is a bit annoying; it's to see a dermatologist about my vaginal vestibulitis, and it's for 14 weeks after the letter was sent, ie the 24th of January. That's AGES away. I'm so, so tired of this. I want it sorted. But this is the person my gynaecologist trusts to have me checked out by, so I'm very reluctant to ask for anyone else - there are others, he just wants me seen by someone he trusts not to mess me around. I believe it's a woman, too, which does help, actually. A bit, anyway.

Linnea tried to go to sleep at 9-ish last night and couldn't. At 11:30 pm we all went to bed together in the big bed, and at about 12:30 she fell asleep. She was uneasy and unsettled, though, and needed me to stay right there with her, so I couldn't drop off until after 5:30. Today I am still dizzy and sick, and have a seriously upset stomach. I wonder if we caught something on our travels, or whether she's just uneasy from ten days sans Daddy Waab and a return to a cosmetically altered home.

I got a three-hour nap this afternoon and Linnea got 90 minutes. Hurrah for children's television.

Shoes and soaps and sealing wax, cabbages and rings

Shoes

While passing through Galway I went back to the little children's shoe-shop in the Eyre Square centre where we got her some canvas things three months ago. And lo! They had a lovely pair of boys' ankle boots in navy blue, size 6.5G, Start Rite (which means she'll outgrow them quite soon, but who cares?) and neat-looking - not suffering from that odd but fashionable hiking-boot-cum-trainer look afflicting so many boys' shoes these days.

I was dreading shoe-shopping on our return to Reading. Now I don't have to do it for another 8 weeks or so.

Soap

My mother bought me some handmade soap wrapped in linen (to be used as an exfoliating cloth!) while she was on her holidays, and I bought Radz and Niall some handmade soap made in Swords but called Aran Mist while I was on my holidays and I was again reminded that I intend to remove all traces of MegaCorp products from the bathroom. So. How do I go about choosing a home-made solid bar shampoo? I currently use Dove shampoo and conditioner, because it works and requires no thought and I end up with lovely hair, but it's incompatible with the whole "try not to hurt the planet" thing even if I do recycle the plastic bottles. And the farmers market has a soap stall. So. I already know a few of the things I want to look for in soap. Shampoo-buying tips, peoples?

Sealing wax

I need to sign a box of ten books, seal them, and ship them with an invoice.

Cabbages

We are in credit with our organic supplier so we have a fridge full of nyummy brassicas.

Rings

My missing wedding ring showed up while the house was turned upside-down by the central heating installation. Hurrah!

Rob has taken Linnea swimming to tire her out for a better bedtime experience tonight. Tomorrow we have to leave at 8 am for our Swedish lesson. Sunday we are doing diddly-squat.