Greenbelt etc.

Date: 30 August 2008 14:08:23

Thank God it is Saturday. This week has been lovely, but quite a challenge. Mr F has taken the baby out shopping, complete with bottle and instructions not to come back for a while. I'm taking the opportunity to process a few things that are going on at the moment.

Greenbelt this year was a very different festival to the last few years. All my shortcuts to places seem to rely on flights of stairs: not do-able with the pushchair so I spent a fair bit of time exploring. Messy space (in the bottom of the grandstand) was a real gem. Somewhere to sit quietly and feed the baby without it mattering if he decided to be loud. I ended up bumping in to a couple of people I hadn't seen for a while there (neither of us knew the other had a baby). In fact, Greenbelt was all about the people this year. People from college who have left, people from college who I will see again in a couple of weeks, friends, relatives and random people from the internet (that' s you guys - lovely to meet you / see you again).

Normally the talks have been the highlight for me, but I managed to hear only two part talks. I tried to find the forum called "I am a mother" when we got to the site but, in a moment of extreme lack of spatial awareness, was unable to find the correct tent so ended up in (I think) nuts cafe hearing part of a talk on science and religion. This was fine except that when they needed to grind coffee or make smoothies I couldn't hear anything. The coffee and chocolate brownies were nice. After coming out of that tent, I then realised that the tent I had been looking for was right next door with a big sign on it saying its name. Ah well. Later, I heard most of John Bell's talk on miracles, until a very explosive nappy* forced me to retreat to deal with it. Mr F and I are going to have our annual downloading of talks mp3s shortly so I should be able to catch up on the things I missed. Thanks to those of you who have blogged about it for suggestions.

The baby celebrated his first festival by sleeping through the night 3 times in a row. Then he stopped and went back a few weeks. This did not do wonders for my energy levels. I particularly did not like the day he insisted it was time to get up at half past four in the morning. This week I have been making the most of having weekdays free by going out, meeting people and doing things. What with one thing and another, there are only about another 3 full days I have free before college starts. Anyone with any plans, or wanting to meet up (hey Michelle, are you still reading this?) should get in touch soon.

Yesterday I wandered (literally, a 5 mile round trip pushing the buggy - boy was that a hot and sweaty experience) over to college, had a lovely time chatting to people and then was really surprised by an answer I found myself giving to a question of Jude's. Jude was asking about life with a baby and how I was finding it. Now I've taken to it much better than I thought I might, but I discovered that part of me is still mourning the loss of a final carefree summer before work starts. I had big plans: trips to Israel and possibly a placement in New Zealand. I always knew that we might have a baby this summer, and I'm so happy that we have. It just appears that in the parallel world where we don't have a baby, I'm off doing something exciting and a small part of me wishes that I was. How bizarre.

In between trips out this week, I have been using feeding time to re-watch season 2 of the West Wing. I think it is my favourite series. This morning was the Stackhouse Fillibuster. Genius.

Well, they have been gone a few hours and now I'm really looking forward to seeing Mr F and the baby again. Just a bit of peace and quiet was what was needed. I might even go and have a short nap.

* sorry, I hope you weren't eating. I appear to have turned into one of those people who will talk about their baby's poo at any opportunity