trick or treat

Tonight, in a fancy restaurant deep in the heart of London's Soho, my friends and I saw something that shocked us. Four young children, the oldest not more than eight or nine, came in trick-or-treating. They were on their own and it was obvious that there wasn't an adult outside waiting for them. The staff were in a dilemma, clearly they didn't want to send the kids back out onto the street but they also couldn't have them trick-or-treating the customers. In the end someone whom we presumed was the manager took the kids to the back and I guess she must have tried to find out how to contact the parents. My friends and I left pretty soon afterwards so I don't know what happened in the end.
I honestly do try not to judge others, but I couldn't help it this evening. Why would you think that it was a good or safe idea to let a kid do that?
Even now I still can't stop myself from thinking that sometimes the wrong people get to be parents.

un-captcha'd

Finally remembered to take captcha off my blog - thank you for the prompt, Tireegal!

I aten't ded

Last week I briefly met a man at a work thing.  It was just a quick "hello, nice meeting you", hand-shake and move on type of thing and I am never likely to meet him again.  In fact, I can't be sure I remember his name correctly as I met a lot of people at this event, in a short space of time.  I just mention it because for the first time since A left, I looked at someone and thought "gosh" and felt a teeny, tiny flutter of interest.

It's nice to know that I'm still alive under the layers of hurt, confusion, fat and unflattering clothing I've been covered with for the last 18 months.

predictably...

...and yet I failed to predict it. Today I posted a couple of photos I took of baby L yesterday on FB. And got a host of (thankfully private) messages congratulating me on the birth of my daughter. Even though I had tagged my cousin on the photos. So now I have to reply to them all and say "actually...". My fault, I should have thought it through properly. I am an idiot!

mixed emotions

Yesterday afternoon my uncle died. He was my mother's brother and also my father's best friend. He used to call me (among other, more rude, names) his "other daughter". He had a good life with not a single day sick until 3 months ago when he was diagnosed with cancer. He died peacefully at home with his family and for that I am truly grateful. But it still hurts that he's gone.
But in the midst of it all we heard that my cousin from the other side of my family gave birth to her first baby last night. She's in the maternity unit of the hospital where I work and where I was for my pregnancy with Tilly. This morning I went to see them and I was the first person other than her parents to hold this new life. Less than 12 hours old and already baby L looks like her mother, which means she looks a little like me. Baby L's father is caucasian, like A, so I really had no trouble imagining what Tilly would have been like. In fact I've had trouble stopping.
I am beyond happy for my cousin. But I am so sad that my uncle has gone and that my daughter died before I could hold her and say "I am your mummy".
Today is 15th October:

summer reading 2012

I have been on a real crime and thriller kick this summer, with the Amazon daily deal for Kindle aiding and abetting my addiction.  Well, at 99p a book, it would be rude not to.  Since the beginning of June I've read 26 books; some good, some fair and some frankly hardly worth the space they took up.  As I don't want to lose your friendship, I've selected highlights to share rather than all of them :-)

June and July were taken over by chain-reading five Jo Nesbo books.  I read the first one - "The Redbreast" while I was in Oslo and was completely gripped.  The hero Harry Hole is flawed, to say the least, but nonetheless he's compelling. It's the third Harry Hole book, but the first to be available in English (although the first in the series, "The Bat", was published in English this week).  Even when I was back in London, I couldn't get enough of Harry and read "The Devil's Star", "The Redeemer", "Nemesis", and "The Snowman" in quick succession.

While in Italy last month I swapped one flawed hero for another, albeit slightly less flawed: Lee Child's Jack Reacher. Slightly more restrained, I have only read three of the series so far :-) "The Killing Floor", "Die Trying" and "Tripwire".

I did manage to read some non-crime books too, my favourite of which was "600 Hours of Edward".  This was brilliant: funny, moving, entralling.  Edward is in his late 30s, has Asperger's, obsessively records data and is slightly fixated on the old TV show "Dragnet".  His days follow a pattern until new neighbours move in across the road - I won't say any more in case you want to read it (and you should!).  And finally, "The Last Werewolf" by Glen Duncan.  I'm not usually a big reader of vampire / werewolf / Twilight-type but I read about this book on a books blog I follow and it sounded intruiging.  It's about a 200-year-old werewolf, the last of his kind.  He's tired of life and is welcoming death until something remarkable happens and everything changes.  Again, no spoilers in case you want to read it (and again, you should!)

Sicily

Twenty hours on a ferry from Genoa and we fetched up in Palermo. If you haven't been to Sicily, and even if you have, come as soon as you can. It's gorgeous. And Palermo is even more chaotic and crumbling and charming than Genoa. Mali, I'm looking at you in particular. Come here and fall in love for yourself!