taming the baby

7th February 2021

Last night Um and the Baby and I had a lovely tin of beans for supper.

We all felt drowsy afterwards.

The Baby snuggled up in Um’s pouch and actually fell asleep. That doesn’t often happen.

I would have loved to go straight to bed too. I have been feeling quite tired.

But Ellie had kindly set up the next Book Club meeting to be specially helpful for me, so I couldn’t miss it.

By the way, I’ve resumed my duties as curator of the Book Club page. If you go there, you can see all the books we’ve read.

the Book Club

I chose an uncluttered and comfortable background, and got ready to Zoom.

So it was an encouraging meeting, and I promised that I’d make a start on one of the useful books.

called up

19th February 2021

My kind friend Lopsy comes round each morning, to take the Baby for a run round the park.

The Baby has been waking early and waiting at the window to see Lopsy arrive, so I think it must be enjoying the outings.

Just after they’d set off today, two letters came in the post.

I used to leave the post for a day or two, so that the Virus could disperse.

But the Baby enjoys shredding any kind of paper, so these days I put on my gloves, and clean the letters, and read them straight away.

One of today’s was a note from Monkey. It was written on the back of a bill for ten kilograms of icing sugar and eight bottles of E124 food colouring.

He says he’s going back down to Outermost Wessex to help with the sowing and planting, because Bunce and Snowy are not feeling well.

Oh dear, I hope they’re all right. They live out in the middle of nowhere, so they surely can’t have caught the Virus. Perhaps they’ve just got a sniffle from all this cold weather we’ve been having.

Monkey’s having to get rid of his kebab-van stock. He says he’s left one of his doughnuts on my doorstep. That’s very kind of him.

Sure enough, there was a box outside the door, with a beautiful doughnut in it.

I gave the box a wipe and called Um.

She took one look at the doughnut and put it in the bin.

I tried to ask her why, but we failed to communicate.

Jenny’s right. We do need to find a solution to this communication problem.

Perhaps Um thinks the sugar would be bad for the Baby’s teeth. I’m not sure that it has any teeth. It certainly hasn’t bitten me yet.

Though now I come to think of it, Bimbo’s father used to have a bad reaction to pink food colouring, so Um may be right about the doughnut.

Of course I got it out of the bin, and hid it so that I can enjoy it on my own later on. I think I can manage a bit of sugar and E124.

But I was sad that Um wouldn’t try it. I think she could do with a treat.

I’ll cook her something pure, that she can’t disapprove of.

The Baby might enjoy baking with me. We’ll make something when it gets back from its run in the park.

The other letter was from the NHS.

Um was interested in the page about languages other than English – Arabic, Bengali, Spanish, Farsi, all sorts of languages. Perhaps she’ll be able to tell me which one she speaks.

If it turns out that her language is Tagalog, should I stop learning Welsh, and switch to Tagalog?

Dw i’n hoffi dysgu Cymraeg, ond hoffen i gallu siarad ag Um.

But the subject of the letter is that I’m invited to get my Covid vaccination!

That’s exciting news. I’ll ring and tell Ruffy.