Lisa Jewell: Diary September 2007

Diary

September 2007

Me and my girls.
July 2007

I apologise in advance for any stylistic/grammatical/logical errors in this diary entry. Evie has a terrible cold and ear infection which has been keeping her awake all night and I have been averaging about four hours sleep a night this week. My brain feels like something very small and squashy with not very much in it. I have no idea how Maggie Thatcher managed to run a country on same, but I am obviously a wimp.

But terrible colds and lack of sleep aside, it has been a superb summer and Evie has been a joy to have around. She is absolutely gigantic. In technical baby terms she is just above the 98 th centile, which means that less than 2% of baby girls of her age weigh more than her! Nearly all her lovely auburn hair has fallen out now, and she is left with just a little Tin-Tin quiff at the front which gets smaller and smaller every day. Her eyes on the other hand, get bigger and bigger, as do her cheeks and she looks pretty much exactly like Amelie did when she was a baby. Personality-wise though she is completely different. Where Amelie was always very queenly and slightly stand-offish, Evie is delighted by people and even smiles at brown-teethed old ladies in Waitrose. She is very mellow and very laidback and happy to sit wherever you put her. She stares at her hands and shoves them in her mouth and is always covered in a slick of dribble. She is adorable and I am loving every moment (except for the recent screamy ones in the middle of the night).

Amelie on the other hand is finding having a sibling something of a mixed blessing. After a good start (see last quarter's diary entry) Amelie has decided that although she absolutely adores Evie, she really quite hates her too. There have been surreptitious pinched cheeks, strangleholds, scratches and hair-pulling when she thinks nobody's looking while the rest of the time she's smothering her half to death with kisses and hugs. When Amelie hurts herself she launches herself at Evie for comfort, but when Amelie is cross with me she takes it out on Evie, kicking her seat or telling her she hates her. As my sister said when I was pregnant, you do know that you're about to ruin Amelie's life, don't you? I didn't believe her, but she was right. Hopefully in time she'll get over the trauma of Evie's arrival and they'll become friends. But realistically, I just hope that when Amelie and Evie are adults, they appreciate each other as much as me and my sisters do. If they haven't already killed each other, that is.


‘Now I'm going to chew your nose off' On the sofa. June 2007	Daddy luvs Evie 4ever. Aldeburgh. September 2007

I write on a momentous day – Amelie's first day at school. She didn't get into the state school we really wanted her to go to or to or any of other the three other state schools we'd have been happy for her to go to, so quite against my principles (and the elasticity of my bank account) we are sending her to a private school. There are lots of things I would like to rant on about regarding the provision of quality primary education in the London Borough of Camden, but this is neither the time nor the place! Anyway, here's Amelie this morning in her posh uniform looking excited as can be. Let's hope she looks equally as thrilled when I collect her later on.

Next stop, Mallory Towers
September 2007

Her return to school of course also heralds my return to work. I have barely written a word since halfway through my pregnancy and am horribly behind, but I feel sure that I can make up the time and get something to Penguin in a vaguely timely fashion. The paperback of 31 Dream Street is published in April and I would like to have delivered this new one before then so that I can concentrate on all the fun publication stuff (and also get some money so that I can pay Amelie's school fees, grrrrr ….) and I would imagine that Penguin will want to publish it in Spring 2009. Which, when written down like that, suddenly sounds like a very long wait for which I do apologise …. I must stop having babies.

So, news. What is there? Well, we spent a week in Cornwall at the end of July which thanks to our non-summer, was a classic English holiday – lots of wet and windy walks on the beach, cold barbecues and Wellington boots. We stayed in a complex of four cottages with loads of friends with kids the same age as Amelie and of course it was excellent fun.


We're all going on a summer holiday.Wrapped up on the beach in Talland Bay	Raincoats and threatening grey skies in Talland Bay

Last weekend we went up to Norfolk with Jascha's parents for a couple of days of overeating and being waited on hand and foot and enjoyed the last few fading days of summer on the beach at Aldeburgh. But 2007 does look to be the first year in many a year to pass by without me setting foot on an aeroplane, which is a shame. On the plus side though, my carbon footprint will be tiny. Amelie turned 4 in July and she had one party with her little friends in Cornwall and another party back in London in the beer garden of our local pub with just the family.


Party no. 1. Liskeard July 26th 2007	Party no. 2 Swiss Cottage July 29 th 2007

The rest of the summer consisted of many kids' birthday parties, my old friend Libby's lovely wedding in Leigh on Sea and hanging out with friends.


Amelie as pink dog at Zac's 4 th birthday. July 2007	Jascha, Evie and my sisters at Libby's wedding. July 2007

Amelie's cousin Mia with my dad at Libby's wedding. July 2007	Me and Evie at the Biros. August 2007.

The only other news is the House. It is nearly finished. I write on a Thursday and have been told that all the work will be complete by Friday. Tomorrow in other words. That looks highly doubtful, but, we are very nearly there. A few tweaks, a bit of carpet, some light shades and curtains and we'll be ready to move upstairs. At present though, we have so much dust in our house that I have given up keeping the house tidy completely and it looks vaguely derelict. My keyboard is covered in dust, as is my hair and absolutely everything I touch. I have probably, in fact, eaten about a pound of dust over the past few weeks too. It is Dust Central. But I know that next month, while I'm sitting at desk in my beautiful new study at the top of the house, with my Osborne and Little Hummingbird wallpaper and my view over the rooftops of West Hampstead, all this dust and mess will be a distant memory. Bliss! …

Someone a few months back asked me to update my recommended reads which I promised faithfully to do. I failed. So here is a little list of books I've read in the last year or two that I think you might all enjoy. I'll put them on my Favourite Books page when I find a minute. But don't hold your collective breath.

Hide and Seek by Clare Sambrook

About Grace by Anthony Doerr

Darling Daisy by Anouchka Grose Forrester

Little Children by Tom Perotta

Lawnmower Celebrity by Ben Hatch

Well, that's it for now. I'll be back again in December, by which time of course I'll be racing through my book and Evie will be sleeping through the night. Um, didn't I say that last time? ….

Love to you all and have a great autumn, and just for fun, here are four ways to have a laugh at the expense of a three month old baby:


1) Put in big sister's glasses	2) Put in big sister's friend's tiara

3) Put in big sister's friend's ‘Stephanie' wig	4) Don't put her in anything at all and just let her be her lovely, glorious, unadorned self.

Lisa xxx

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