Tag Archives: Martin

Family, Photography

A Walk in the Woods

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A mouse took a walk in the deep dark wood…

Actually, it was a whole family out searching for the Butterdean Wood geocache, but two keen little children found the idea that a Gruffalo might be lurking among the trees pretty exciting. Martin, clever bunny, proposed a caching expedition to get us out in the beautiful (if chilly) sunshine, and this was a good cache to look for. It was about half an hour’s drive from home, taking us over flat paths that were just wild enough to seem adventurous. They were also perhaps a little muddy.

I brought my phone camera, of course, and stopped from time to time to take pictures.

Fungus on a fallen log.

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Taken 4 February 2006

Alex took the GPS and went ahead, following the arrow and talking of treasure. Playing Zelda has sharpened his taste for quests and adventures. He waited patiently whenever I would stop to take a shot.

The twisted stem of some vine – I don’t know what kind. (This picture has been cropped.)

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Taken 4 February 2006

Two leaves on a twisting vine.

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Taken 4 February 2006

Fiona strode along the path, first with one parent, then with the other. At two, she is rock-steady on her feet and entirely unafraid of any mystery the woods might hold. She has been a strong walker for some time, and I think she enjoyed the challenge. When we were walking together and I would step aside to take a picture, she would venture onward without a backward glance.

Fir cone among the leaves.

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Taken 4 February 2006

Eventually, Alex relinquished the GPS in favour of a stick sword, and Fionaberry took over as navigator. (We pretty much followed the path.) She thought my eTrex was a camera, and every now and then would stop, hold it to her face, bend very close to the ground, and say, “I take a picture. Cheese!” before going on. Not a landscape photographer, I guess…

Tangle of sticks, a pattern shot.

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Taken 4 February 2006

Lichen on a branch. It’s almost blue!

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Taken 4 February 2006

Alex was soon wrapped up in Zelda-esque adventures, which reminded me vividly of my own childhood games. The forest around our cabin was always Lothlorien and Mirkwood, Stephen R Donaldson’s The Land and Sherwood Forest. For him, East Lothian became Link’s country, and he crept and ran through it like the hero of his favourite Game Boy game. I’m happy that our mostly urban life has opportunities for that kind of imaginative play.

He has not yet developed the love of the woods and trees for their own sake that I have. But I learned that a bit older than four. Maybe one day he’ll see it.

The pattern of decay on the limb of a fallen tree reveals so much of its underlying structure.

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Taken 4 February 2006

Concentric rings on tree bark. I don’t know why this occurs.

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Taken 4 February 2006

Alex used his stick to open “gates”, mostly by keying his name into the trees. This one, in particular, required a number of passwords to be entered. We touched certain parts of the branches and said certain letters, spelling out our names to pass onward along the path.

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Taken 4 February 2006

By the time we found the cache, a good half mile from the car park, the kids were running out of adventurous spirit. They weren’t crabby, or unhappy, or even tired, but they were more focused on getting the “treasure” than on telling themselves (and us) stories on the way.

We found the box easily enough – it’s both well hidden from the casual passer by and easy to find if you know where to look – and there were toys enough for both of them. Alex chose a deck of cards, and Fiona took a mini pencil set. I left some stone animals and an amethyst in trade, and we turned back to the car.

Although she wanted to be carried early on for the return journey, Fiona soon regained her energy and did a good deal of walking on the way back to the car. We covered over a mile as a family, and she managed about two thirds of that. Alex walked the whole distance, and wasn’t worn out at the end.

We left the wood as the sun began to head for the horizon.

Late sunshine on brown leaves. The shot looks warmer than it was!

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Taken 4 February 2006

Family

Alex, where’s yer troosers?

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Alex, where’s yer troosers?

OK, the short story is: Cameron (Martin’s cousin and a groomsman at our wedding) and Clare (a very beautiful woman) got married last weekend. We all went. Alex wore (in the loosest sense, at times) a kilt, which was cute and funny. We had a great time.

Below are some pictures, as evidence. They aren’t all the pictures from the wedding, nor necessarily the best ones. They’re just what I picked out to get something onto the web.


Dada and Alex
Kissing the Bride
All the kilted folk…spot the one whose shirt is coming untucked!

Mama & Fiona
Sharing a joke with grandda
“Everybody look left and laugh!

Family portrait 1
Family portrait 2: Kyle is ready to dance!
Family portrait 3

Cam & Clare under an onslaught of confetti
Kyle jumps the gun on tea
Swinging boy

William Wallace, eat your heart out
“Yeah, the kilt is a babe magnet. I know.”
Dada agrees about the babe magnet

Dancing with Grandma
Dancing with Beth and Anna…wardrobe malfunction immanent!
Needing a little help pulling the kilt back up.

Fiona takes a break
Tired after the party.
Personal

10 Years

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A decade ago yesterday, I woke up in my parents’ house. It was my last morning as a Foley.

The house was full of college-aged guests, too impecunious to stay elsewhere. Then there was the family: two parents, two small children, and me (Mick lived elsewhere by then). And guests and relatives were wandering in and out from time to time. It was a zoo, but a delightful zoo, with someone unexpected in every room.

I laid out my beautiful wedding dress, handmade of silk by my mother, and the shoes I’d chosen to go with it. Then I realised that I didn’t have tights! A quick drive to Payless solved that, though all they had were “control top” tights. I shrugged and figured they would make me look even better in the dress.

By the time I came home, everyone was getting ready. I managed to get some mirror time, just enough to brush my hair and put a little makeup on. I never wear much, and that day was no exception. I took the least time to get ready of anyone in that house, with plenty of time to help Kathleen with her hair.

I remember very little after driving to the church in the van. Martin and I had memorised our lines, and were word-perfect through the ceremony, but I don’t recall much of it. We drove to the reception in Jeeps, with white streamers tied to the roll bars. We ate, drank, and were merry, but again, I remember very little of it.

I was just too happy.

I’m still happy now, a decade later. Not in the same euphoric, memory-destroying way, of course, or they’d have to lock me up as a danger to myself and others. But my marriage to Martin has been even better than the wedding.

There have been bad times, of course, and no doubt there will be again. But the greatest joy of our marriage is that we can overcome adversity better as a couple (even adversity within the couple) better than we could individually.

It is far from time to rest on our laurels – with a toddler running rampant and a baby on the way, we certainly have some challenging times ahead. But we have made a good start.

I love you, Martin, even more than I did on the day I cannot remember.

Personal

Virtual Identity

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A few weeks ago, Martin was musing on what these blogs are, really, and why we maintain them. He, like the blogger who prompted his article, used a number of real-world analogies to make his points.

I’m not so sure how far analogies can take me in describing why I do what I do on the web. (Come to that, I’m not sure I know why I do all that I do on the web.)

First things first, though.

Who are you on the Web, Abi?

My main Net identities are:

Naturally, I have several “spoof” and temporary identities about as well, which I would rather were not linked to my “core” identity. Nor am I alone in this. I suspect that the vast majority of E2 users, for instance, have secondary accounts for various reasons. But these are the ones that I identify as “myself”.

These identities are not all linked up (or weren’t, until I posted this!), but together, they present a multi-faceted image that I am willing to make available to absolute strangers, friends, and family.

Why do you spend all this time on these identities?

For a long time, I didn’t have a web presence. I didn’t feel that I had anything that important to say. Further reading convinced me, however, that most of the other people on the web don’t either. One of my teachers at Napier advised me make a site of all the things I would want to find on the web (and I have, both in my factual work on E2 and in the Bookweb).

This blog came about partly by imitation (because Martin had one), and partly to communicate with my family in California. But its usage has evolved. It’s now part of my “shop window” on the world, an expression of who I am right now and what I’m thinking.

But (to ask a basic writer’s question), who is my audience? Martin and I have received a number of comments and emails lately that have clarified this for me.

  • One of Martin’s high school friends Googled her name and found a reference to herself in Martin’s blog. This led her to get in touch, as part of the re-consolidation of that set of friends from his youth.
  • I got a comment on my blog from someone whom I have never met, who Googled his way onto the Bookweb and followed the trail here. Reading my blog convinced him that I might be worth chatting to, and we exchange the occasional email now as a result.
  • Another email was from someone I knew at St Andrews, who found the site (don’t know how) and sent me a “remember me?” email. Again, contact is being re-established.

Enough verbage. Who is your audience?

My audience is those people on the web who were, are, or might become, friends. As friendship extends into the virtual realm, so will the art of meeting people. My web presence is a shop window, an entry in a Personals column, an extended hand.

So?

So if you think you might want to know me further, click on the rooster at the top of the page and send me an email. Alternatively, add a comment here.

Because it’s a big, scary world out there, I’m not going to fall all over myself to be friends with everyone who drops me a line. I’ve made my pitch, described myself. But friendship is a two-way street. Tell me about yourself, make me care.

And in the spirit of Martin’s friend getting back in touch, I’m going to list a few people I would love to hear from again, even just a brief note. This page is indexed by Google, so if they search on their names they’ll find themselves here. If this is you, click on the rooster at the top of the page and get in touch. Tell me what you’ve been doing!

From Piedmont High School:

  • Liza Groen
  • Lisa Wright
  • Alta Swinford
  • Paul Casey

From Skyline High School:

  • Jason Camara

From Richmond High School:

  • Jetsun Eddy (Or are you spelling it Jetsün Eddy?)

From UC Berkeley:

  • David Corcoran
  • David Beckerman
  • Eleanor (El) Casella
  • Charlton Horne
  • Keith Gordon

From St Andrews:

  • Andrea Kagan
  • William Grant
Personal

The Prisoners Problem

Martin has got me involved in the Prisoner Problem. As a software tester by vocation as well as profession, I’ve been his gadfly, pointing out the flaw in his solution.

Continuing the gadfly/software tester/push the limits theme, I would like to propose a solution.

In addition to randomly flipping switches, each prisoner writes his name on the wall of the room when he visits it. Since the warden promised not to let anyone in the room except when the prisoners are there, the names won’t be erased or added to without the prisoners’ knowledge. When all the names are there, then they’ve all visited the room.

Illegal? Nope. The warden says nothing about doing anything else when visiting the room, as long as they flip one and only one switch.

Wrong? Of course. But what are a bunch of dumb lags to do?

Personal

I’m Rich

Rich, I tell you!

No, no, I didn’t win the lottery.

Last night (Sunday, December 29) was the annual Almost New Year’s party of one of our dearest friends from our university days. And after living so long in a country that doesn’t celebrate Thanksgiving, I find I have moved the date of my annual stock-taking, the day that I count my blessings and review the past year. Now I do it at Paul’s party. This has the added advantage of moving the stocktake after the solstice, when the balance of the year has shifted toward the light, when I know [Seasonal Affective Disorder|my mood] will get better now before it gets worse again.

Here’s this year’s tally:

· We are all healthy, sound in body and mind.
Oh, yes, we all three of us get ill from time to time. I have a cold as I type, Alex has been coughing nights, and Martin isn’t doing too hot either. But these are passing things.
· We have a nice house
It’s pleasant, on a good street, with good neighbours. The mortgage is affordable, and will remain affordable even if interest rates go up.
· We have secure, well-paid jobs in these times of redundancy.
I hope I’m not tempting fate by saying this. But we’ve both survived one round of redundancies in our workplaces. We’re even paid enough to be able to work part-time and still have enough money for our needs and our desires. We are, to use the phrase of one of my former colleagues, hardcover book rich.
· We have time
Working part-time means we each spend entire days with Alex. I get two days a week with him, Martin one.
We even have time to spend on our hobbies. Martin does web-type stuff and plays the drums, and I bind books.
· We have love
Martin and I are heading for our tenth anniversary. The years have not always been easy – no long-term relationship is universally smooth. But even in the worst times, we have never stopped loving each other.
Now we have Alex, not yet two, and we love him more than we can express. He loves us too, though he does not yet understand the concept.
We have loving families – brothers, sisters, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, a whole network of relatives. We may disagree from time to time, but that never gets in the way of the love that ties us together by marriage and blood.
And we have dear, dear friends, some we see often and some we see less than once a year. (A fair number of them came to Paul’s party.) I have friends I have never met in the flesh, but still am enriched by (and ones that, I hope, I enrich).

And so many things that we have, that so much of the world lacks, don’t even make it on the list. Our water is safe to drink, we have plentiful food (more than plentiful – I need to lose weight). Our home is safe from confiscation and our health from epidemic disease. We have a voice in our governance, and the right to say what we please in public. Realistically, we fear no violence in our daily lives. We even have access to cheap public transport and good quality health care.

What can I say? We are rich.

Family, Personal

June and lovin’ it

I’m aware that I don’t blog enough. Martin’s always got something new up, and my last log is from March. Sheesh.

The thing is, when it’s winter, I’m struggling to cope with the ordinary demands of life. Commenting on the way things are going, or even standing back far enough to observe how they’re doing, is low on the list. I’m just too tired.

Then summer comes, and I’m doing all the things I couldn’t do during the dark time. And somehow, I get so absorbed in all the things that are going on that once again I can’t step back and describe them. I seem to be too busy.

Now is a good example. My mother’s over for a fortnight, getting her Alex time in. As with my Dad’s visit in January, Martin and I aren’t taking any time off. But we’ve taken Alex out of his nursery for the time she’s over. So I’m being a working Mom, a daughter, and a hostess all at once.

Plus I’m binding her a blank book as a birthday present. We’ve already been to the tannery to pick out the leather for the covers, and I’m most of the way through the bind.

But even when we don’t have visitors, we’re pretty busy. Not that I’m complaining – I only “work” (for pay) 3 days a week. Martin works 4. We both get to spend a lot of time and energy on Alex. On the one hand, it can be hard work – he’s well into toddlerhood, walking all over the place, demanding things to play with, and throwing the odd (brief, mercifully) tantrum when he is denied. On the other hand, time with Alex is tremendously rewarding, whether he’s sitting at his little table typing on a spare keyboard (just like Mom!), or sorting pebbles in the front garden. And he socialises well, riding in the backpack as I go around town or do lunch with family and friends. He’s even helped me with a geocache I’ll be posting soon. There’s a lot of hard work in there, but when he turns to me and gives me a huge kiss, I can’t seem to mind.

The days I spend at work are rewarding as well. I’m in a department I like, working with people I enjoy dealing with, on a steep learning curve. I can even wear black – unlike my previous department, where I felt too gothic, I’m rarely the only one all in black now. There are stressful times, but all in all, I find the work days flying by.

My current hobby – bookbinding – takes up a good deal of time as well. I’m entirely self-taught so far, and after six months I’m finally producing things that I’m willing to give away without apology. They’re still not perfect, but I no longer feel my recipients are being charitable by taking the books I bind. I bind for the pleasure of making things, of creating something beautiful. Being able to give them away is a bonus, and keeps me from drowning in blank and rebound books.

And somewhere in there, in hugs at the sink and long chats after the lights are out at night, I still have time to be amazed at the man I married. We spend a lot more time as comrades in nappies rather than smitten lovers now, but watching the way he delights in Alex is just another way of falling in love with him.

So this is a busy time, but every aspect of it holds some reward. And I have to get my joy in quick, like a grasshopper, before the winter pares me back to the bare minimum.

Family, Personal

All change

It’s the beginning of March, and life looks so different than it did in December.

Not the politics. Don’t even get me started on politics. No, it’s the rest of life that has changed.

First of all, it’s getting lighter. The weather may still be wintry, but the days are longer. The difference in my energy levels is dramatic; it’s like the difference in a coffee addict between waking and finishing the first cup. My brain no longer feels wrapped in cotton wool, and I can think again. The payoff is all around me, in my relationships with Martin and Alex, in the way I run the house, in my work.

Work. There’s another area of change. I’ve been back at work since the new year, but I haven’t truly settled in. I’m doing a three-month stint in my old department. After Easter, I’ll be changing divisions within the Bank, moving to a team I worked with during Y2K. It promises to be a challenging time, with a steep learning curve. I should be intimidated, but every time I think about the work, and the people, I smile. I feel like a runner at the starting gate.

Going back to work has changed the shape of my life enormously. I’m only working three days a week, Monday – Wednesday. But those days are really tightly scheduled. My focus has to be on getting everything done that needs doing, getting enough light to stay sane, then going to bed early enough to get the sleep I need. It’s like being a hamster on a wheel. How do full-time working mothers do it?

Still, the working time has its rewards. Martin has Wednesdays off, so Alex is in day care for the first two days each week. He is has settled in well, but he does miss us while we’re away. So every day he’s at nursery, I pick him up (Martin does the dropoffs, I do the pickups) and take him home, and all he wants to do for the first half hour is cuddle me, flirt with me, and play with my earrings. It’s an enormously rewarding time, like having a whole day’s attention in a short spell.

One of the real pleasures of the last two months has been the learning curve with my bookbinding. Martin got me a couple of books on the topic for Christmas (at my request), and since then, I’ve been binding non-stop. (See the previous entry for a list of what I’ve done) In addition to the books themselves, I’ve made a lot of the hardware I need, including two different types of book press.

I can hardly wait to see what spring will bring.

Family

Sutherlands Hit London; London Survives

So here we are in London.

M, as he has indicated in his daylog, is here for a web usability conference. B and I just came along for the ride. And what a ride it’s been. We’ve been relentlessly social.

  • On Saturday, we arrived at Stanstead and made our way to London. To my astonishment and amusement, the hotel we’re staying in (Jury’s in Kensington) is right opposite the hotel where I once had a course (the Regency in Kensington). To B’s astonishment and amusement, the elevator has mirrors on all sides, producing an infinity of B’s to flirt with.
    Jules arrived just as we were settled into the hotel room. After some dithering, we all went out to the Science Museum, just up the road from our hotel. It was disappointing in places – it could have done with more interacitvity. But B loved the working steam engine, big as the ground floor of our house, red, hissing and clacking!

  • On Sunday, B and I met up with James (M was at the first day of his conference). At my suggestion, we went to the Victoria and Albert Museum, “the attic of the Empire” (James’ term). Amazing place. They have full-sized plaster casts of the fronts of cathedrals. There’s a plaster cast of Hadrian’s Column, in two pieces (upper and lower). The plaster casts take up only two rooms; the rest of the museum is full of equally grand, disassociated things.
    I was worried about how James would react to B. He’s not automatically charmed by babies and children, from what I hear. But B took one look at him and gave him a huge grin, after which James was his devoted slave.
    M joined us for dinner, as did Guy (after some dithering). We had a wonderful time in the pizza restaurant, talking about the good old days (and telling Guy all the embarassing stories on James) for ages.

  • Yesterday, Monday, B and I went to Highgate to meet up with Gritchka, a friend from my online community Everything2. The three of us had a great time: we wandered around Highgate cemetery, where Gritch pointed out the graves of obscure but interesting people. Then we went on to Hampstead Heath, peering at an 18th century house on the way. The weather was bright and crisp, the scenery good, and the company excellent.
    We had planned to go visit Jules in the evening, down where he lives in Guildford. But it became clear that B was overstimulated, after 3 days of constant interaction with half of London. So we stayed at home and let him roll around on the hotel room rug.

  • Today, B and I took advantage of the fine Tuesday weather to go to Hyde Park. I had noticed that there was a horseriding trail marked on the map, and I thought the bunny might like to see some horses. We were most of the way there when M called; he was on an extended lunch break, and could he meet us? We got sandwiches and went to the park.
    B saw a whole menagerie’s worth of animals today:

    1. Ducks, gannets, seagulls and pigeons, when I distributed the bread from my sandwich by the Serpentine
    2. A parrot, two rabbits, and three rats in the pets department at Harrod’s
    3. A horse, from a distance
    4. Numerous dogs

    Of all of them, the horse made the least impact.

The days have been great. Good weather, Bunny a comforting weight in the backpack, a virtuous soreness in my legs and feet form all the exercise. The nights, on the other hand, have been difficult. He isn’t sleeping well. I don’t know if its the hotel cot (rickety; if he could stand in it it would be unsafe), the room (occasionally too hot), or the overstimulation, but he wakes up crying loudly in the middle of the night. Repeatedly. Last night wasn’t too bad; the deliberate choice to spend an evening in seems to have had a good effect.

It worries me, because the trip to California is going to be a series of day-long meetings of the Alexander Beowulf Fan Club, what with all the residents of the Piedmont house. He may very well wig out under the excitement; we shall have to allow decompression times to compensate.

Personal

A date! A date!

Night out last night, without B for once. We took Scott and Angela up on their standing offer to babysit and went out to AI. Having a night out was pleasant, but the movie itself was disappointing. I suppose it was inevitable. A life-like, live action science fiction film where characters go searching for Pinoccio’s Blue Fairy so she can turn an android into a real boy cannot end with success. As the characters chased the dream further and further, the plot felt like it was too far out in front of itself. There was no possibility of a satisfactory resolution.

Since it was a Spielberg movie, though, AI made up for what it lacked in plot with emotional drama. We were pulled through visions of uncondional love between parent and child, loss, and abandonment. Emotionally, it was powerful. Intellectually, sadly, it was not. Of course, it didn’t help that my mood was already somewhat precarious before we went into the cinema. Martin has a colleague who was 20 weeks pregnant; she just lost the baby. He told me in the takeout Mexican restaurant before the film.

I remember being 20 weeks pregnant. We were in California, and B was already kicking. The 12-week danger zone was past, and I felt much safer. The anticipation was wonderful – I was looking forward to days like today so much. To lose that would have been devastating. Harder even that the miscarriage at 8 weeks last January, and that one nearly broke my heart.

We got home to find B awake but exhausted. He had behaved beautifully for Scott and Ange, but that didn’t extend to actually going to sleep. He went into hysterics within minutes of us coming home, hysterics so strong that he wouldn’t nurse at first. He sounded overtired and overstimulated. And between his stress-out and ours, we decided that this was a night to share the bed with B.

It was a sweet idea, and it started well. I fed him lying down, and he dropped into a deep and reassured sleep. We positioned ourselves carefully, so our pillows were nowhere near his head and the duvet was safely low, then prepared for a shallow but satisfying night of family sleep.

Alas, it was not to be. M had a nightmare and woke up screaming. B slept on, but I was awake. And then the niggling back muscle that had been paining me all day exploded into agony. I couldn’t move without gasping and whining, couldn’t turn, and certainly wasn’t getting any more sleep straight away.

M was a star, rubbing my back, helping me move to the guest room, then rubbing again so that I could sleep. He put B back in his own crib. Family sleep had lasted about one hour; then we were spread across three beds. I was somewhat better in the morning, but still had to be careful about picking B up (he is over 17 pounds now, after all). M came home early to help, proving once again what a wonderful guy he is.

Developmentally, B continues to charge ahead. He crossed from the living room to the kitchen on Monday, overcoming a psychological barrier that had baulked him for a week or two. I don’t know why it mattered so much to him; perhaps he had not realised the two spaces were truly connected?

He is still not crawling; his tummy stays on the ground as he moves. He uses a swimming motion, like a man breasting his way through molasses, and gets the most amazing amounts of lint on himself in the process. I vacuum and dust mop almost constantly, but he keeps finding more dust to pick up.

He has also discovered peekaboo. I started doing a large “bye bye” production when I left the room about a week ago, in response to his increased fretfulness upon finding himself alone. And the corollary to “bye bye” when you leave is, of course, “hello” when you return. Peekaboo is just a tiny step beyond that. He loves it, even though I am not sure he has really grasped the idea that I still exist when I’m out of sight. Maybe he percieves it as a game of destruction and creation, not hiding and return?

The odd thing about it is, he seems to like controlling the game as well. Twice today, he was the one moving in and out of sight, once with the hem of my skirt and once with the kitchen doorway. Maybe it was unintentional…but if so, the fun he had doing it will probably get him to try it again.