Diary of an (ex)London mum

I have been listening to a series of podcasts on BBC Radio 4 on the subject of Beauty and was quite struck by the discussion of how people evaluate beauty in music.  The mathematical analysis on proportions and how that relates to beauty  aside , I found intriguing the idea that music could mean very different things to people depending on how they relate to it.  To some people music may be more about the sound and to others it may be more about people and incidents that they associate with the music.  It was obvious when it was pointed out- certain pop songs from my youth have particular resonance because they serve as a reminder of the people I was listening to them with.  More recently I have found it hard to listen to church music and it has upset me a little bit; it is not the music but the fact that I associate the sounds and lyrics with a faith that no longer resonates with me that has made it hard for me to listen to them. And I miss being able to ...

I travel a little for my job; occasionally I visit collaborators or go away to conferences.  Before Baby that has not been a problem at all; now there has to be some coordination with Hubby to ensure that he is not also needed away at work or have to work stupid hours for a project at the same time.  There is always back up of parents and babysitters that could help but we prefer to be self-sufficient.  It is also better if Baby didn't have to cope with two absent parents at the same time.  So far we have managed to match time-tables.  Its obviously more work for the person staying with Baby with the other away, but it is not easy for the parent that is away either- there is another person to miss and there is the guilt of leaving more work for the other half. I am trying a slightly different strategy for this work trip.   I am away at a conference in Vienna at the moment and this time the whole family is here.  We are in a serviced apartment ...

I am writing this on my Kindle on the bus for the tube station where I will catch my train to work. This is my favourite computing device at the moment as it allows me to run my life in a way that no other device can. ...  And I am now writing on the tube; one of the freedoms offered by a mobile device such as a tablet computer- flexible work flow. As a scientist, my work is fairly intensive on the reading front- I need to keep up with the latest development in my field, and read historical manuscripts, to inform my thoughts and for theorizing. I am glad the days of lugging reams and reams of printed paper in my bag to read on the move are over. I can now also jot down my thoughts as they occur and not worry about losing bits of paper on which I have noted down an idea- very important if you are as scatterbrained me. The fact that I can write and connect to the internet while I am travelling makes public transport a mobile office. This is an efficient use of time for anyone ...

Its been a hot week and, rather unusually,  it feels like a proper summer has arrived in London.  With the warm weather and longer nights, we have been spending more of our evenings outside. Today we went to the London Aquarium on London's South Bank in the afternoon,  and ended up spending the evening exploring the rest of South Bank's offerings. For a start there was a real food market behind the Royal Festival Hall which we visited before the aquarium. We had already had lunch but the smell of the food made us hungry again. Hog roasts, vegan curries, crepes, specialty chocolates- you name it, they have it. It was the best of informal eating and the first time Baby has been to anything like this. He must have wondered why people were randomly giving him food to taste but obliged with the tastings anyway. The food market will be on every weekend during the summer and we will surely visit again. There was, as always, a variety of performers by the river and they att...

As we are still in the process of potty training, I am not sure if our strategy will work out O.K. in the end. However, I did find it helpful to read about/listen to other people's experiences so I thought I'd share ours as a work in progress. It seems to be going very well at the moment.  It is not the fastest strategy but it is quite stress free.  We have always been of the opinion that each child is different and therefore we will need to adapt whatever we read or heard from other people to suit our child's temperament.  Baby is quite chilled out and we have found that most things work out easily as long as we are calm as well, so we've pretty much let him lead us after we had made the decision and prepared a few things to help him along the way.  We did our fair share of reading and asking around before we decided to start.  I have to say that I did panic slightly when people mentioned that they had used potty training camps: could it really be so bad ...

People's views on having animals in captivity will vary and there will be those amongst you who will feel quite strongly against keeping animals in zoos and aquaria.  However, the learning opportunities at these places for a child are immense.  I am a firm believer in the power of 'seeing is believing' and have no doubt whatsoever that Baby learns more efficiently from meeting those things that we talk to him about from books or TV documentaries.  I think the images of animals are captivating and a good picture is great; seeing the animals move and do things on TV will keep him transfixed for hours (literally), but seeing them for real makes him think and talk about them forever.  He makes a link with them and they become important to him- they are part of his world. We knew that from observing him when we visited city farms and, about six months ago, after watching Finding Nemo for the N-millionth time, we got an annual membership to the London Aquarium . ...

Its almost two years since Baby was born and I have been rather bad at updating this diary.  Its partly because I am rubbish at writing regularly and partly because I have been genuinely busy over the last 24 months.  A brief update... It has been a very steep learning curve going back to work full-time and trying to spend sufficient time as a family to make life interesting for Baby.  I must say that our nursery is brilliant and Baby comes home everyday having had a great day and made progress with becoming a little man.  We feel happy leaving him there for the day as we know he loves the people who look after him, and they are affectionate towards him.  He has made friends with the other kids in his room and is gradually learning the social norms for a group.  We were worried how we would be able to teach him to share things and be considerate of other people as he is an only child and pretty much always gets his way at home.  Nursery has been ...