pomes

Today I saw a very very very fat man in a café - a man I first spoke to in the café I used to go to when Linnea was an infant - and smiled at him. It was, unfortunately, a donut café, and he immediately started to talk about articles about why people crave fat, sugar and salt, and also to reassure me that he only drinks coffee in cafés like that, he doesn't eat the donuts.

We did change the subject when Linnea asked for words beginning in Z, and then accused me of making words up (Zoroastrian, Zarathustra) and he defended me to her. So that was nice. But I wish I'd been able to think of a way to say "You can eat donuts if you like. It's none of my business," to him. He didn't know I recognised him, I think; my hair and my family look quite different now! So he just thought I was staring at him because he was fat.

Which I wasn't, particularly. It was a useful distinguishing characteristic which helped me to recognise him, though. Perhaps that's just as bad.

As Rob said, if eating donuts made you fat, what size would WE be?!

Current plant count on the table by the front window: 1 reviving avocado (two dead leaves and some promising new shoots), 2 avocado stones in water, 2 pots of tomato plants (about 9 plants in all, will need repotting soonish), 2 pots of basil (none big enough to eat yet, sadly), 1 pot of chives (as with the basil, I started by cheating and buying a supermarket one and will plant my own as I eat through the first one), 1 aloe vera which also needs to be repotted in something dry and not rich, moist compost which is what we have most readily available.

Pregnancy update: 23 weeks on Monday, and if I sit upright the bump rests on my thighs. It's pretty big, at least to me. And to Rob. I don't think anyone else pays quite such close attention to it. Rob and Emer have both seen movement, and today I think the baby stretched all the way out in an attempt to break free through my right-hand side, toes first. That or it's actually stabbing me with a big nail, as Emer suggested. All is going swimmingly well except that my physiotherapist is off sick and so I haven't had hydrotherapy or a support belt fitting yet, but I'm doing well with just my exercises.

Home ed: Emer is really enjoying learning to read but isn't convinced about the flagrant abuse and overuse of e-for-Emer in the English language. The other letters are more or less fair game, but that one's hers. Linnea is progressing nicely and apparently knows about fractions, though she's not saying more than that at present - yes, I was dim enough to ask her, but never mind. She will admit to it when she finds out more of her friends know about it. Her reading is not too bad at the moment; I think she has some sort of huge difference between what she does in her head and what she does aloud, but I haven't worked out what it is, though tone and inflection have something to do with it. I'm pretty sure she doesn't understand most of the Calvin and Hobbes she reads, but she does say some of the words aloud sometimes... if she doesn't know anyone can hear her. She can't stand trying to write or spell or anything faintly resembling that, and checks EVERYTHING with someone first, or better, gets someone else to do it.

Social: Rob's social and work commitments meant an evening out I had planned never got finalised, but I'm in a position to make plans again now. Tue/Wed/Thu evening this coming week are free, and the evening of Thu 25th, and I think I'm free on Saturday 27 March but something is niggling at me, so I might have forgotten something. And then we're insanely busy until about mid-May. Er. I have to arrange a party for Linnea, too, but she can't decide what...

Mad speculation: It turns out it's cheaper to get the sleeper train to Rome than to get the train OR fly to Sweden. Since we got the trains to Sweden only a year ago, this means it seems totally possible to go to Rome. And Linnea wants to go to Venice. I have been looking at accommodation websites into the wee small hours. This is partially because it's Winter, and partially because there's a sleeper train. Oh, wow...

That's about it for a current summary. I'm really, really tired, so I can't come up with anything more interesting right now.