March Madness

Barista at Caffe Nero: Where's that accent from? Are you American?
Beth: Yes, guilty.
Barista: I'm taking my first trip to America next month. That's why I asked. I can't stop thinking about it. I can't stop talking about it.
Beth: Oh, great! Where are you going?
Barista (rolls eyes in ecstasy): Orlando.
Beth (surprised): Oh, Orlando! Are you going to Disney?
Barista: Yes. I'm a bit of a Harry Potter nut, so I'm planning on spending an entire day on that bit.

Oh, you Brits. Sometimes you are so ironical I can't hardly stand it. I couldn't even bring myself to ask my favorite barista, who makes all my skinny lattes and lets me hide in the downstairs seating for hours hunched over my laptop, if she knew that lots of the Harry Potters were filmed just miles from HERE. Lacock, Castle Combe, and in fact I have laughed to see dozens of costumed American Harrys visiting THOSE places in search of a little Hogwarts magic.

Lacock Abbey, where Harry Potter was filmed,
hence all the little Hogwarts

If I had asked, she would have looked at me like the loon I am. Why drive twenty minutes to one of the loveliest spots in the English countryside when you could spend 9 hours in coach, then battle crowds of cranky spring breakers to wait in line for hours for one ride, eat terrible food, and THEN find out Snow White's Scary Adventure has been closed down (thank God!). Silly me!

March '10: Lady, I do not like what went down on that ride.

We've been plenty busy here this winter. I'm still working away, while spending all the free time I can with these crazy kids. Hugo and I are enrolled in a kids' program at one of the museums here in Bath. It's called "Yearlings" and it's so super-crunchy I keep thinking I'll see one of my fellow Nyack mums pop up. We've learned lots of nature songs, made snowdrop finger puppets and we've been practicing a Maypole dance which we'll put to the test in about a month.

The idea behind this class is that we spend the first half-hour or so singing, then crafting together with finger paints or clay, then most of the mums peel off to work on a more grownup project (I've been sewing the same "Seed Baby" for about three weeks) while the babes play on the floor. Last week, while I was stitching the head on, I heard an 18-month-old girl to my right burst into tears. I turned and her mum, hovering over the Easter basket they were assembling together, gazed up at me mournfully. "Excuse me," she said as evenly as possible, "but your son just bit the head off our baby chick." Hugo, clinging to the side of the table, grinned and then swallowed in a loud gulp, cotton wool, beak, googly eyes and all, as the poor girl howled. My son, the budding artist. I'm so proud.

He's musical, too!

We've been out twice to the countryside to visit our dear friends, E and Belgian Dad of scarf-tossing, candy-nabbing AMIP fame. There are always plenty of dirty jokes and scrumptious meals, and E's daughter C and Josie each time reunite like they just saw each other last week. It's really sweet. E's family manse is lovely and comfortable and set on a bucolic piece of property with flowers and ancient, crumbly outbuildings and loads of streams perfect for racing Pooh sticks.

Apparently that wasn't what Josie pictured when we suggested
"Pooh Sticks", but she liked it anyway!

Belgian Dad: The Perfect Specimen of English Countryside Manliness

The second day of our Countryside Weekend Away was "Mothering Sunday," England's (earlier) version of Mother's Day. Let's rewind a week first, and review a conversation with Josie in which I reminded her that I was the ONLY person in our family for whom she didn't craft a lovely Valentine. She pertly replied, "Well surely I won't forget to make you a Mother's Day card, Mommy, because you're my only Mommy." Well hmmph then!

Given that Mothering Sunday followed a Belgian Dadding Saturday Night (read: wine-soaked and wholly inappropriate), I was really only looking forward to the "lie-in," and perhaps coffee and Hello! magazine in bed. Lo and behold, at about 8:03 the door bursts open and American Dad announces, "Emily is having breakfast in bed. But I figured you wouldn't want to eat breakfast in someone else's bed." So while this was not quite the decadent, lazy morning I had in mind, I did get some lovely cards and an extra 3 minutes of sleep.

Hmmm...I guess that bedding is a tad pristine
for breakfast with my children

The weather has gotten quite warm and sunny (until yesterday when it all turned crap) and since we have our lovely new garden, we bit the bullet and bought an overpriced wooden playhouse for Josie (they're called Wendy Houses here). Jeff was nervous given the company offered a playhouse construction service for about 150 quid, but I was confident after reading the reviews and the instructions that we could do it ourselves. After all, we've constructed two sets of bookshelves, a nightstand and a dining room table since moving to Britain, how much harder could this be?

Frank Gehry -- ok, Mike Brady -- look out!

The answer, and I'm not being at all sarcastic, is not that much harder! The instructions were in English, well-written and relatively straightforward. Frankly, the only buzzkill was when we dragged the convalescing Josie (home and on the couch with what turned out to be a horrible, 6-day case of tonsillitis, raging fever and ear infection) outside to say "Surprise! Happy Children's Day" and she half-opened her eyes to mumble, "very nice garden shed." (we'd had to explain away the various playhouse-shaped parts being stained and treated in the garden over several days).

Seriously, we did this!

The finished product

Josie recovered just in tie for the various end-of-winter-term, Easter-themed activities. While this time of year does require lots of 'splaining about why the E. Bunny doesn't visit Northern Hampton, it this year also brought out my competitive nature with the annual Easter Bonnet competition. Last year, hugely pregnant and feeling less than creative, I literally cut out an oval of pink felt, glued a ribbon on each side to tie under Josie's chin, and helped her craft pipe-cleaner bows and tissue paper flowers to stick haphazardly onto it.

Thankfully no pictures of this atrocity survive. And more thankfully, I was too busy humiliating myself at the easel in Painting 100 to attend the Easter Bonnet Parade at school to be humiliated by my substandard haberdashery skills (if this year's entries indicate the level of construction demonstrated at last year's parade).

This year I wasn't about to play, child. I started browsing on Amazon early for straw hats and embellishments. Actually it was Josie who discovered our central design element -- finding rose-shaped pinecones in a friend's front garden, which we painted and sparkle-penned to heights of beauty. Claire pitched in while attending the still-poorly Josie and constructed some lovely, complementary tissue flowers (nothing like the third-week-of-a-bad-head-cold-looking crumples I constructed last year). The result was quite fetching, we thought. Of course, just as I was ready to call it "complet" girlfriend insisted on beadazzling the whole thing. Must be the Jersey in her DNA.

Sorry, Martha. I know your eyeballs just burst into flames.

Slightly waifish from her week of illness, but always ready for a parade

Oh, I love a parade!

The updates on Hugo... Hugo has more teeth than Donny Osmond, can cross a room on all fours in about three seconds, and inhales every meal like it's his last. He isn't walking yet; his favorite activity is cruising around the coffee table, throwing every book and coaster on the floor and chewing on all the remotes. Our gorgeous table also now boasts little tooth marks all around the edges. It looks like we live with a beaver. But he's full of beans, absolutely sweet and most importantly CHILL.

Mmmmmm is for magazine!

I should wrap it up 'cuz we're off a$$-early on Saturday (mere hours after Jeff leads the Bath Seder, which should resemble, um, NO seder ever attended by these unsuspecting locals) for our Spring holiday in Salzburg! Well, the hotel (a Kinderhotel very popular with some of my Parisian pals, sounds like Club Med with fewer "Crazy Signs" and more sausages) is in Germany but right on the border, and the driving force behind this trip is, indeed, the Sound of Music and our daughter's love for everything that comes with it. We'll snip up our curtains, damage deposit be damned, climb trees in the Royal gardens and skip around the fountain, twirl on the hilltops, and halfheartedly attempt to keep Passover (door bells and sleigh bells and schnitzel with...matzoh?)

I don't think so.

The real appeal of this trip is the kids' and baby clubs included in the cost of our stay. We'll see how Hugo does, but Josie is already excited for swimming and pony trekking, and -- hopefully -- learning German!

So, promise to return sooner, sometime after our return from Von Trappland, with lots of pics. And hopefully by then this silver white winter will have melted once and for all into spring!