Barren Mare

As Stevie Wonder would say, try to see things my way

After I wrote my post last Sunday, Knox and I went out for a long walk. I immediately felt much better afterwards. I forget sometimes the negative effect of staying indoors day after day, never even seeing what pitifully weak sunlight may be on offer here on this high latitude. I suspect some of my feeling down is seasonal, some is related to stressful situations and some is hormonal. Since then, I've been making more of an effort to get outside at least once a day. 

 

It may feel a bit after the fact by this point, but here's my further thoughts on the text message dramalama. 

 

Can I just stress- it’s not a case of me blaming Knox for blaming Botany. And I’m certainly not mad at him. I don’t think for one second he should be vilified for his reaction. It may not have been the view I would have taken, but then, I'm not in his position and when I try to see where he is coming from, I can get a little more understanding. 

 

Imagine, if you will, that you meet someone and fall madly in love. Your future spouse already has a young child from a previous relationship. You live in different cities, and you can’t easily find a job to relocate to be with her. She can’t travel because of the little one, so for a year, you drive three hours each way every single weekend to her city, through all kinds of weather, without complaint. When that gets to be a bit much, you go part-time at your work and give up a big part of your income, so you can spend more time with your loved one. 

 You’d like to spend more time with her child, too, but the child often only seems to want her mother. You've gone to big efforts to win over the child's love and affection, but you still feel like you are resisted to a large degree. Sometimes the child is frankly downright rude about it, too. There are days you feel completely rejected. 

 

When you go out as a family, even to do something fun or a treat, it seems like the child often spends much of the time either whining or in a screaming meltdown mode. At home, when she’s not screaming about something, the child is constantly demanding, particularly of her mother, and not always in a very polite fashion. She seems to get whatever she wants much of the time. She is obviously very bright and it appears to you that she already has a very good grasp of what buttons to push with various people (especially your wife) in order to get her own way. God, there is a lot of whining. Did I mention the whining? It seems to you that this kid is almost always the total centre of your wife's attention and if not, then she seems to find ways to bring the focus back to herself. It seems like she has a gazillion toys but it seems like she rarely wants to play with anything without her mother right by her side, doing it for her. When you offer, she often pushes you away or wanders off to find mummy. 

When the child goes to bed and you finally get a moment with your wife, she’s often tired from all the demands of the day and ready to go to sleep herself. You don’t get to go out very much and you don’t see your friends (since they are back in the other city) and you certainly don’t get to enjoy your hobby any more. It begins to look like the only solution to the two city problem will be for you to burn some bridges, in what feels to you like a very big way. You are trying to get a business up and running, which in itself is a fairly terrifying prospect to you, but are foiled at every turn. 

 

You love your wife very much and you made a commitment to be part of the family. You love the child too, but bloody hell, her behaviour is really irritating a lot of the time. It’s hard work. Sometimes it’s harder than you could have believed possible. And a lot of what you see going on is contrary to what you know of your own upbringing. You don't expect Botany to be perfect all the time, but it seems to you that people are often dismiss bad behaviour with the stamp of “normal” rather than trying to deal with it. Sometimes it feels to you like your wife makes a lot of excuses for the child along these lines, rather than addressing some of the underlying issues. You find this very frustrating. You agree with your wife that you will both handle discipline in a certain way, but then it often feels like you are the only one who enforces anything. As you struggle along, the child apparently says something untrue and horrible about you. You are hurt to the core. You suddenly realise that she could potentially say other even more damaging things about you, things that could really ruin your whole life. 

 

Knox has told me almost all of this directly at one time or another, so it’s not entirely guesswork (although I am trying to put the pieces together here). I'm perhaps being a bit extreme in some of my descriptions for emphasis- like all families with young children, we have good days and bad days. I think part of the problem was that the text incident came at a point where we had had what seemed like a string of bad days. 

So far, the solution which is working- for now- is for me to take over the role of a more confident, consistent disciplinarian, and for Knox to try as much as possible to remain in the good guy seat until we all feel a bit more settled. Neither of us is entirely at ease with this- I'm probably still much more lenient about some stuff than he might otherwise be and I know he's biting his tongue at times. But, while it's early days still, it does seem like Botany is responding positively, to the extent that we have seen an improvement in some of her behaviour. It reminds me that while I may not always see eye to eye with Knox about every aspect of parenting or child development, he also has the advantage of seeing things with a less emotionally entangled perspective. And if I can step back from being defensive and overprotective, I often come to realise that he often does have very valid points- and listening with an open mind usually helps makes things better.

 

As far as the inappropriateness of E. raising the issue in that way- yes. Absolutely yes. One of the reasons I initially took a rather flippant approach to the whole matter was that E. and I use text messaging to communicate about routine matters (“what time pick up?” where is Botany’s pink octopus? why are you late again?)  If there is anything more complicated or which needs in depth discussion, we email each other and for anything really serious, we always talk about it, either face to face or on the phone. So I immediately assumed that, given the medium of telling me about it, E. wasn’t taking it particularly seriously or at least knew it wasn’t true- and in fact, I was correct on that. I think he thought it was such a strange thing for Botany to be saying that he simply queried it- although in hindsight, it would have been better- a whole lot better- to ask me about it in person.

There's probably a whole lot more but for now I think I have said enough, except to add two more little things. Since someone wondered whether it would help for E. to take Botany for the night/weekend sometimes, I should say that yes it probably would and yes he will be, hopefully soon. The trust issues will always be there but I do think he's come quite a long way and he's not doing it all on his own. It's really more of a square at this point than a triangle, you see. You see?  

Seaholly and peacock feathers

My computer, always more of a tortoise than a hare, has been running even slower of late. Ever time I switch it on, the system embarks on a seemingly endless cycle of updating or carrying out virus scan or possibly doing invisible internal tai chi. I should try to strip out some of the unnecessary guff but I am scared than in doing so, I will accidentally lobotomise it. So I leave it to dawdle and churn as it wills; consequently, it is sloooow and takes approximately three hours to download, copy, paste, edit and post pictures- or so it feels like. At this rate, by the time I get around to offering any proper visual representation of my wedding, I will be ready to celebrate my first anniversary.

Still!  I bring you a photo of the flower arrangements.  I was completely in love with how the flowers turned out; so much so that just about the only thing I managed to take pictures of on the day were my bouquet and the table arrangements . I spent months and months gawping at various websites trying to decide on what sort of floral design I wanted and how these would fit into the various centrepieces. Normally, this is not the sort of thing that would interest me in the slightest but for reasons I can’t quite understand, I became slightly obsessed with the issue. And then Knox’s mother picked up on an idea I had suggested quite casually, and the next thing I knew we were having custom made vases for the table. I wasn’t able to see the finished product for quite a long time, at which point my eyes began to roll back into my head with delirium of trying to figure out what to do.

 

In the end, we simply walked into the local florist with one of the vases.  I plunked it down and said, “My budget is ££. Put some flowers in these! Seaholly would be nice. And, er, ooh- peacock feathers!”

 

Peacock feathers are not something I would have ordinarily considered pairing with thistles of any type, to be honest. But it just so happened that I had earlier gone ahead with a somewhat whimsical purchase of peacock feather buttonholes for the wedding party- for no reason other than I thought they looked quite nice. As we were leaning against the counter discussing an arrangement of seaholly and cream roses, I looked up to spy a huge jar of peacock feathers on the shelf. What the hell, I  thought, let’s chuck some of those in too- on the proviso that it didn’t look totally weird. I decided to just leave it all up to the florist’s capable hands and she promised me to send me some photos of a mocked arrangement for my approval.

 

I continued to search for the bouquet of my dreams- I had it in my head that I wanted something artificial- but I kept coming back to the themes of seaholly and peacocks, and let me tell you, it proved nigh on impossible to source either one. So I eventually phoned the florist and gibbered “Bouquet! For the bride! Me! The bride! Make one!”   

 

When the bouquet was delivered on the morning of the wedding, I opened the box and I squealed with joy. Perfection! The very thing that I had been trying to put together in my own mind’s eye, without quite knowing what I wanted, until I saw it there in front of me. I proceeded to pick it up and twirl around the room, singing a little “I am the bride” song under my breath. It was a very happy moment.  When I arrived at the venue later and saw all the tables, I was even more delighted. Seaholly and peacock feathers may not be to everyone’s taste, but it certainly was mine. The cost ended up being entirely reasonable, too and that always pleases me.

Afterwards, there was a veritable bidding war for the vases. My bouquet is currently withering quietly in mine. I just can’t quite bring myself to throw it away.

 

Not the best picture of the bouquet, but it includes a hip flask, a key accessory for any Scottish bride.

 

Worth the wait

Paris. Oh, Paris. Having become slightly jaded in my old age, I decided as we drove to the airport that I should really keep my expectations low. Easier that way when the inevitable disappointment of the reality set in. Sure, I thought, I bet it's a nice city and all- but really, there are lots of nice cities and I doubted very much that it could possibly live up to the hype. It was cold and gloomy at home, and as I handed my darling Botany off to my parents, I felt as though I would miss her intensely while we were away (notwithstanding that she treated me to a 5.30 wake up call on the morning of our departure and the prospect of a lie-in at least one morning was decidedly appealing.) 

Approximately four hours after boarding the plane, I found myself walking with a sugar crepe in one hand and Knox's hand in the other, past Pont Neuf bridge, with the late summer sun glistening off the river Seine. Everywhere I looked, there was something to delight me- the vastness and comfort of the apartment we rented in Montmarte, the Art Nouveau metro signs, the incredible grandeur of the Louvre, the charming little brasseries and bistros on every street, the mouthwatering pastries beckoning me from behind the glass counters. It was luminous beyond anything I could have hoped for, and once I picked my jaw up off the pavement, I started kicking myself in the backside for never having managed to visit before now. At least it was worth the wait.  

We spent most of our short stay there just walking around soaking up the atmosphere. We did make one concession to the traditional tourist route- happily, we discovered that museums such as the Louvre are free on the first Sunday of the month, and so there was simply no good reason not to at least pop in for a quick squint at, you know, the Mona Lisa. Everyone told me that it was much smaller than you would otherwise think, and so I was expecting this postcard sized little smile.

Huh. Actually, I said to Knox, it's much bigger than I had been led to believe, and the swarm of flash bulbs eminating from the visiting throng in front of the bullet proof glass wasn't as bad either. A few minutes jostling and we were able to stand comfortably looking on that enigmatic face.  I'm probably a bit of a philistine when it comes to art, knowing very little and as a general rule of thumb appreciating  much less than I probably should- but I found myself surprisingly moved and dare I say awed by seeing that particular portrait. I think it was the jolt of reality of confronting something significant that you have heard about or read about or seen pictures of in a book for your whole life- and then it's there, right there. There, when a year ago you thought your life was in complete tatters and now you find yourself in the Louvre on your honeymoon with your new husband, and the Mona Lisa is smiling at you.

I'm still working on editing the wedding pictures, but meantime, here is one I hope you will like-Botany strategically placed in an obscuring position in her pretty dress, helping us to take our vows. I had to chop it quite a bit to move Knox out of publication's way, but it gives you the flavour, I think.  

(And I've finally fixed it to remove any reference to anyone's actual name. M is for Mare, B is for Botany. Ahem.)

Mr and Mrs

And so we are married...

It all went fantastically well- the weather was great (apart from the 15 minutes of the actual ceremony, when it rained), the food was wonderful, the company was sublime. Botany was, as I expected, a bit confused by it all but she did wonderfully well, her only demand being that I lift her up and hold her in my arms while we said our vows, which I was happy enough to do. It was slightly strange having a two year old running an orange toy car over my chest while I became a lawfully wedded wife, but rather delightful. 

More pictures to follow soon- I have some tinkering and editing to do as I compile suitable photos to share with you- but first! Paris awaits. I am giddy with anticipation. 

Whoosh

Holy crap, I am getting married on Saturday. S-a-t-u-r-day, as in two days from now, only it is already nine pm here by now, so slightly less than that. Saturday! 

There are many and varied things to freak out about , but instead I am taking the excellent advice of my wise friend L. We had lunch at the end of last week and she took one look at my slightly panicked and wide-eyed expression before immediately prescribing two glasses of wine every night, to be taken with a repeated "zen whooshing motion" made about the neck and face. And you know what, it's kind of working! Never mind that the window works were only finally finished today about an hour before I had to collect Botany and the whole place smells like paint and I jammed my finger trying to shut the top pane. Never mind that I keep receiving these random emails from the venue with questions that really should have been answered about a month ago. Oh and never mind that my mother and Knox's mother have fallen out very badly, like the aftermath of a small nuclear explosion, which should make for a lovely current of thinly disguised tension on the day and well...for the rest of our lives, apparently. 

Zen whooshing motion. Wine. Repeat.

Knox and I generally get along extremely well considering the large level of stress we often consume on a daily/weekly basis. The one thing we quite regularly disagree about is Botany and certain aspects of her upbringing. The early morning wakings continue to be a source of friction; he is adamant that the reason she wakes up at the crack of dawn is because she wants me and more specifically, my boobs. I remain slightly sceptical about this; my view is that she usually wakes up because she can only sleep ten hours at any given stretch, and at that point, she's just done with sleeping. If she was so tired the night before that she went to bed at 7.30, we're doomed. 

Having agreed we needed some hard data on the matter, we kept a sleep chart for over a month, mapping wake up times and nap times and go-to-sleep times. What it indicated was a wake-up time varying from between 5.30 am to 6.30, but on average 10 hours a night and that Botany is in fact in the normal amounts of sleep ranges for a child of her age. 

What it didn't show is that some mornings she wakes up and chats to herself quite happily for 15 minutes before calling me. Or that some mornings, she actually didn't ask to nurse at all, and I managed to get her out the door to nursery before she remembered it was something that she wants. Or that if Knox is here and gets up with her, she's quite happy to accept that Mummy is still sleeping and to leave me in peace until I drag my carcass out of bed an hour later. All of which to my mind somewhat disproves the "she wants boob, hence wakes up" theory. But Knox is hard to convince on the subject- he thinks that even if she gets it later on in the morning, it's an incentive to wake up. I'm trying to take his opinion into account but the only way to test his theory is to proceed to full scale weaning and frankly, that is sooo not something I wanted to tackle before the wedding. The issue has dragged on and invariably we end up hissing at each about it at 5.30 in the morning when we hear Botany stirring.

I did have one other major realisation as I studied the chart data. There is a myth (largely perpetuated by my parents) that Botany "requires less sleep than I do". What dawned on me is that this is quite untrue. The reality is that to be at my absolute best, I would ideally have roughly the same amount of sleep as Botany. Of course, unless I go to bed at the same time as she does, that obviously isn't going to happen. 

The wedding shoes are called "Jasmine" and I bought them at Topshop, for those who were wondering. They also come in a rather fetching red colour, though mine are a kind of strange steel grey-blue. Of course, the problem with getting anything from that store is that they change their stock about every thirty seconds (so we can all stay "bang on trend!")

By the time I post next, I will (hopefully) be in a state of married bliss; we're headed to Paris for a quick honeymoon but not until next weekend, so if at all possible I will bring you an update of sorts as to how the day went. And if she'll deign to hold still for more than ten seconds, a picture of Botany in her dress (at least, from the back).  

Preserving the illusion that I might actually have this under control

Somewhere in the annals of this blog, I once received a very flattering comment to the effect that the person would continue reading even if I were to publish my grocery shopping list. I don't want to press my luck quite that far. But- partly because it amuses me and partly because I am too deranged to think of much else, I am actually going to present you with the list currently fermenting on my desk of Things I Need to Remember to Bring to the Wedding. Bear in mind it is a work in progress:

• Peacock feather buttonholes for Knox, my dad, the best man (who is a woman) and any other random taker (I have four).
• Laptop. We need this to play music.
• Travel adaptor for laptop since the plug is American and the computer will not be of much use if we cannot plug it in.
• The thing I am going to wear on my head- an art deco-esque headband purchased from Etsy.
• Great-great grandmother's amethyst thistle brooch to be added to ribbon on bouquet handle
• Blue underwear (for something blue)
• Strapless bra (dress not strapless but not wanting worry of straying bra)
• Corset-y thing to hold in tummy
• Some sort of hosiery yet to be purchased
• Some sort of attractive wedding night pyjamas that do not have moth eaten holes or baby-related stains on them (yet to be purchased)
• Wedding shoes
• Something borrowed- yet to be figured out as to what
• Chequebook and pen plus credit cars for all the vast sums I shall presently be dishing out as part of this nuptial endeavour 
• Botany's dress (you shall have a picture of the deliciousness)
• Botany's shoes (normally retail for 24.00. For me, 3.70 on e*ay- bargain!)
• Botany's flowers
• Bedding for travel cot
• Crate of nappies, wipes and nappy sacks
• Camera and spare batteries
• Disposable cameras for table
• Acne cleansing face goop and spot blaster
• Favourite shampoo
• Phone charger
• entire contents of makeup case
• medication
• the rings!!!

Before I forget- the mention of the potty training in the previous post was perhaps just a slight exaggeration. We are more flirting with the whole concept than actually embarking on a full scale assault of the issue. Botany was showing all the signs of potty readiness so I bought one, just so she can get used to it. On one happy occasion she actually ran up to me yelling "poo now! poo now!" and clutching at her bits. So we ran to the bathroom, grabbed the potty and whipped off her nappy. Whereupon I discovered that, as usual, she had actually already done the poo. But she wasn't quite finished yet and was happy to sit there on the pot finishing the jobby job. We both inspected the results with a certain amount of pride and self congratulatory back patting. And since then she has shown a complete reluctance to go any further with it, other than occasionally dragging the potty out into the hallway at inappropriate intervals and demanding to be changed even when she does not need it.

As for the first trip to the dentist- oh god, it was a complete and total horror. I had my reasons for wanting to get her registered which I will explain another time. But let's just say that it was an absolute disaster and I don't want to attempt it again any time, ever (even though of course at some point, I will. I like nice teeth.) 

And, since you asked so nicely, here's a picture of the dress. I really must learn to use my camera at some point during this lifetime. I don't think it's a very good photo- on reflection, the whole thing looks a bit lifeless and limp and I assure you it's very much nicer when I actually have it on. But when I went to try to take an improved photo, I realised I had already sent it to my mother's flat so she could organise having it pressed. Also, when I took the picture, I was fairly certain I was going to wear the shrug thing on top for the whole day, but I have since reconsidered. So unless it is absolutely perishingly cold (a distinct possibility for Scotland in August), I will only put it on when the mood takes me or perhaps later in the evening.

Anyway, caveats aside, it gives you the general idea. Enjoy.

 

 

 

A long-necked model

The batteries for the camera arrived with the last grocery order, and so I resolved to honour my promise to at last produce pictures of the ring. Girl Mouse still being in absentia, I decided to enlist the support of another one of Botany's friends, namely Mr Giraffe.

Whereupon I discovered two things: firstly, that I do not really know how to use my camera very well- or even at all- and secondly, that Mr Giraffe, while bewildered by the proceedings, nevertheless looks rather fetching in diamonds.

Observe for yourself:

  

Mr Giraffe wonders, "Why do I have a ring on my head?"

Mr Giraffe thinks, "Huh. I suddenly feel like I am in the Empire State Building."

Mr Giraffe heads off into the sunset on the savannah, his work done. 

As Beyonce might say

I had fully planned on taking and posting pictures of my engagement ring to go along with the following story. In fact, in the stylee of cutesy wedding photographers, I was even going to photograph the ring on the finger of Botany's toy Girl Mouse, thus tying in two recent themes together.

 Then I discovered that the recent child visitor appears to have stolen Girl Mouse or possibly it is just lost. At the same time, the mice finally finally finally started to partake of the poison bait liberally strewn around my flat (and disappearing). That's a good thing but makes the whole topic slightly less amusing, especially as I wonder whether they have perhaps died somewhere behind the washing machine. Lastly- the batteries for the camera that I know I bought for a friend's graduation less than a month ago? Missing. Gone. Nowhere to be found. I decided to take the hint and just write about the ring, for now.  As it is, it has taken me over A WEEK to get a draft post together. 

Knox made it clear around Valentine's Day that he was minded to propose, but being traditionally inclined, he wanted to have a ring on him when he popped the question. However, he's also savvy enough to know that I might be sort of, um, particular about the type of ring I would want. Unsurprisingly, it is actually something that I had given a bit of thought to over the years. As soon as was seemly (approximately five minutes after he left that weekend) I found myself sprinting to the computer to embark on a feast of internet trawling for likely ring candidates.

There was then a rather delicate interval where I wondered how to indicate to him my very particular preferences without being too demanding or grasping. I was unsure of the budget and decided "within reason" would probably suffice. Finally, he said, look, just send me some examples of things you like.

As it happened, that night, I had been looking around a certain popular auction site and found a very fetching item. I loved it immediately. It was a slightly unusual but quite simple platinum ring, with an art deco-style setting for four emerald cut diamonds. It reminded me a little of the Empire State building for some reason. It was not too expensive. And the auction ended in about 11 hours.

"I like that one," I told him via instant messaging. "A lot."

It was, however, I felt, probably quite premature to be rushing into buying the first ring I had seen that I liked, and one should never be too hasty with online auctions either. We talked about it for a short time and then I went to bed. When I woke up in the morning, I checked and saw the auction had finished. The ring was gone. I experienced a pang of regret and then figured I would find another one that I would love just as much. 

I looked and looked and looked and looked. And kept returning the auction page, staring at the ring I had missed out on. There was nothing like it to be found on the internet, certainly not remotely in the same price range. I flirted with a couple of other possibilities, but without all that much enthusiasm. I worried Knox would get tired of hearing about the whole issue, especially when I began wondering how hard it would be to find the person who had won the auction.

"Listen," I said to him, "some other bitch is out there and she is wearing my ring!"

What I can say, diamonds make a girl slightly insane. 

Finally, I gave up and we agreed we could go look around when we were over the States on our March visit. Of course, we spent virtually the whole trip chasing after Botany. Beach! Museum! Aquarium! Wheeling the doll buggy around and around the house! There was no time to do any shopping of any kind for ourselves other than a mad dash to Old Dark Blue for some emergency summery Florida attire. I half heartedly pinned my hopes that we would have an opportunity to at least stick our heads in a jewelry shop when we went off for a couple of nights on our own toward the end of our stay.

The first night at our B&B, Knox seemed quite preoccupied with finding a nice place to watch the sunset. We hadn't really been able to see a single Florida sunset the entire visit so I thought nothing of it. As we sat having early evening cocktails with the guest house owners, we quizzed them about the best spot for sunset viewing and they directed us to a bench just across the road, looking out over the marina. We gulped down the rest of our quite potent drinks and hotfooted it over there.

Ooh, lovely sun. Look, pretty colours. Knox put his arm around me. How romantic is this, I thought. And then he whispered in my ear, "Will you marry me?"

I pulled back. Hey! What a chancer! First sign of a sunset and he goes all mushy and...  "wait a minute," I said, "where's the fucking ring?"  

My exact words. Charming, no? The epitome of class. Whereupon, he reached into his back pocket and pulled out a box, putting it into my hand.

I sat there blankly for a second. There was such a strange mix of thoughts in my head. I confess I had no idea what was in the box- I halfway expected it was going to be a ring pull tab from a Coke can, since we had had something of a joke about this and I could not believe he had actually gone ahead and bought something without my having seen it first. I opened it.

In fact, it was the Empire State building ring. He'd stayed up until 5am the night of the auction researching diamonds and grades and carats- and then he bought it for me. It's one of the nicest things anyone has ever done for me, and I cried a bit more and said yes, of course of course. And we took cheesy pictures in which I am grinning ear to ear in a slightly manic fashion. With the camera that now needs batteries.   

The lines on my forehead

Well, it turns out that it is actually quite hard to find even twenty minutes these days. Most of last week was taken up dealing with our first wedding related panic. We discovered, quite by chance, that there is a major international golf tournament and a big rock concert in the locality that weekend; hence most of the accommodation in town is already getting booked up and many places were already full. Being high season, things are busy anyway. I felt like an idiot for not checking what might be on over those particular dates- an easy mistake to make, I suppose but still...

My mother pointed out that it's not really our responsibility to make sure people have somewhere to stay, which I quite agree with in principle- but I thought it a bit rich to expect folk to come from a considerable distance on a weekend when we know there is nowhere for them to spend the night.

This is exactly the kind of thing that sends me into a complete tizz. 

"Gaaahhhh!" I said to Knox, by phone, text, email and instant messaging.

"Stop fretting," replied Knox, "I don't want to marry someone whose forehead is all creased up."

 After breathing into a paper bag for a few minutes, I decided that before doing anything drastic like changing the date, we would make enquiries at every single goddamn guesthouse and B&B in the area to find out if there was really going to be a problem. Since I am not all that familiar with the town and relative distances between the venue and the options on offer, this meant a lot of time googling mapping my way into a stupor. In the end, we realised that there are probably enough places to stay nearby, but our guests are going to have to book sooner rather than later soon. And that means getting the invitations out pronto and oh look, there goes another bunch of hours of time sorting that out.

Anyway, yes- about E.  Honestly, I don't know if he ever reads this but I remain a little uncomfortable writing too much about the situation despite there being so much I could say. He is around, in the sense that he comes to see Botany, give her dinner and spend a bit of time with her before she goes to bed a couple of times during the week. One morning every weekend, he takes her out (without me). I reached the point roughly around November where I realised that although I still had some reservations about trust issues, I was going to go nuts if I didn't get some respite from 24/7 solo parenting at least once a week.

I'm actually open to the idea of him spending a longer time with Botany at the weekend (for example, the whole day if not quite yet a night) but there is a problem in that he doesn't really have suitable accommodation set up in terms of somewhere to take her (for example, where she can have meals, a nap and a warm safe place to play). Sure, I occasionally take her out for an extended outing but I don't think it's a good idea for Botany to be schlepped around outdoors, in and out of the car and buggy all day on a regular basis.  

So the situation is  by turns adequate and unsatisfactory- adequate in that he's putting in an appearance and under the circumstances, it's probably as much as he can offer at this point. Botany clearly loves him and I am glad she gets the chance to spend some time with her daddy. But it's unsatisfactory in that I don't think it really offers any sort of real substance in terms of parenting. At least from where I am sitting, there's also a certain amount of crazy-making behaviour on his part and if I could get into it, I am pretty sure some of it would make your eyes bug out at the lunacy. My rule of thumb, though, is that unless there is something I really need to worry about for Botany's sake, I try not to give E. too much headspace or energy. I will say that he was quite gracious about the news of my engagement to Knox, and that at least is not a source of conflict.   

And now off to deal with other interesting and important matters, such as where to buy appropriate binding undergarments for under my dress. Despite having long ago lost the baby weight, my tummy has never really been quite the same, having expanded alarmingly during my pregnancy (all my own doing- too many goddamn chocolate muffins). To say nothing of my lopsided boobs. I need upholstering. 

Male un-bifurcated garments and more!

As I watch the last remnants of free time narrowing, closing in on me like the Star Wars trash compactor (sorry, that is the image that springs to mind, having watched the Family Guy parody the other night. Or rather, I fell asleep on the sofa as Knox watched it, prodding me with his foot occasionally), I've decided that it would be very easy to let things slip on the blog front. It's like anything relating to procrastination; if enough time passes, you start to feel guilty and freaked out about how to catch up.

So, in order to avoid that, my current strategy will be to aim for writing posts less like a long, eloquent weekly letter to a best friend (you, the Internets, you!) and more like a twenty minute journal entry. I used to keep a daily journal on that very basis, and it was good for me. There's an immense value in catching and recording even the smallest sound bytes of snippets of time- even if it means other chores are neglected for the moment, such as the mopping up that puddle of mysterious goo on the kitchen floor.

For this round, just to answer some of the questions flying around my comments section, including several posed by the lovely Julia of the Hippogriffs:

1. At the wedding, will there be kilts?  Indeed there will be. Knox will certainly be wearing his, that's for sure. Kilt-wearing is one of the things I like most about living here; all the more so because it really is a genuine part of the culture and not just for show. Men wear kilts at formal occasions, but also at sporting events, like football matches, concerts, parties, Burns night, Hogmanay, ceilidh dances and even for outdoor pursuits (hiking, fishing, deerstalking- not that I know anyone who does the last item). Like many guys, Knox has several kilts in the family tartan- one for formal dress-up and one for times when there is a risk it might actually get wrecked by mud, beer, falling into a river, etc. 

It may sound cheesy, but there is something really very nice about a group of men assembled in formal Scottish dress. And don't they just know it, too.

2. My dress-  I promise you some details of this in due course. I'm sort of reluctant to post a link to it, because the picture of it on the site where I bought it makes it look much more like a cream puff than it actually is. A boring cream puff, no less. My original plan was to buy it so I could shorten it to a poofy, tea length kind of number (think vintage fifties vibe). But then when it came, I loved it just as it is- floor length and simple but not at all cream puffy- and so I am going to leave it alone. I'll see if I can dredge up a more flattering photo, or take one of my own.  

3. My parents and Knox-  My folks really like Knox. A lot. I think initially, my mother was a bit cynical and wary- as someone who had just spent a good couple of months helping me clean up one of the worst messes of my life, she wasn't entirely sure of my good judgment on getting involved so quickly with someone new. But it's pretty hard not to like Knox- he's a very personable guy and he is easy to talk to and be around. It also helps enormously that he's so good to me and to Botany. I don't think it did any harm either that he's actually ponied up and put a ring on my finger. The boy walks the walk, you know?

My parents are coming for the whole summer, which is one of the reasons we decided to get on with having a wedding while they are already scheduled to be here. I view the date of their arrival with longing- it is sooo much nicer having an extra couple of pairs of hands around here and Botany is completely besotted with them (and vice versa). 

4. Knox and the Other City- this one is a wee bit more complicated. The short answer is that he is still traveling back and forth between here and there, which is not ideal. Basically, he's currently in the process of applying for his dream job and it's a long winded ordeal, with about a dozen hurdles to overcome and we won't know the outcome for some time. If he gets it, it does not solve all our problems (and would create some new ones, I expect) but would mean that he would be working a lot closer than at present. So we're going ahead and hoping it turns OK- if not, plan B is what was originally plan A- which is he rearranges his work schedule to allow him more time here, with the objective of a full time move as soon as he can find alternate work.

Oh, and there was something about E. I will answer that one soon, but hey, willya look at the time! It's been way more than twenty minutes.