In search of The Good Life

I suppose I've always hankered after a little slice of The Good Life. In fact, I can remember watching it with my parents as a teenager, when I should have been more interested in watching Top of the Pops or Going Live! or Knightmare. (Actually, I loved Knightmare - which 80s child didn't want to don that ill-fitting, over-sized helmet that prevented you from seeing anything other than your feet? And who can honestly say that they weren't a tiny bit worried that the contestants actually dropped into oblivion and were left to languish there for all eternity?)

In our last house, I tried and failed to create a little bit of a country retreat. Technically, we lived on the outskirts of a town, but our secluded position down by the river in a quiet cul-de-sac known as 'the island', thanks to the river that looped around it on all sides, meant that we felt much more rural than we actually were. But our garden was relatively small, and I knew nothing about gardening. I planted a few fruit bushes down in a particularly shady and damp part of the garden, so they did nothing in the five years we lived there. I had two small fruit trees, whose reluctance to crop while kept in pots resulted in exactly zero pieces of fruit. And I had a small cold frame with which I managed to produce about three courgettes, and a couple of low planting beds that grew me precisely one beetroot and one twisty carrot - it wasn't exactly the Garden of Eden.

Here at Redhall we have more space. Lots more space. And the garden is in many ways much more amenable to growing things. There are a few things already established - a huge blackcurrant bush that gave me a couple of kilos of fruit shortly after we moved in last year (netting me 3 whole jars of jam - what is it with the disappointing fruit/jam ratio?), a few fruit trees that seem to decide from year to year whether they fancy producing fruit that particular season, and a huge section of unchecked land that we call 'the mound' and that I hope will eventually be home to a slightly more meaningful orchard, in which Andy plans to nestle a little music 'studio' (read = sound-proofed shed).

We also have a little wooded copse up the top, where we've added a chicken coop, and we can let the hens out to free range during the day. If one of us (Andy) forgets to close them up at night, however, a fox will come and take one away for his dinner, leaving us with three rather traumatised hens who will give up laying for at least a couple of weeks (that's one mark deducted from our Good Life tally).

But the best bit is round the side of the house, where the former owners used to house a large trampoline. It's a good size, south facing, sheltered on three sides by fencing/the house and is hence the perfect location for raised beds. At last, my dreams of becoming Barbara can come true...

The only snag is that to make raised beds, I was going to require some assistance from my husband. And Andy really doesn't care about gardening. I mean *really* doesn't care. Thankfully, his sister had a great idea: buy some great big, sturdy potato boxes from a local farmer and use these instead - bingo. That's exactly what I did. I sourced four 6' x 4' x 3' boxes at £15 a pop from a farmer in Larbert, had them delivered for about twice the price (a total palaver - let's not dwell on that bit), left them languishing on the drive for a few weeks and then, with a bit of help from a friend and her husband, got them into place in the aforementioned sunny spot.

The boxes were far deeper than I was going to need, so we* cut about a foot off the tops, then I lined them with permeable membrane, and filled them with top soil. Two tons of top soil. I'm quite proud of the fact that Andy and I managed to shift all of it in two 45-minute sessions on consecutive evenings after the kids had gone to bed. I dug in a bit of compost and - hey presto - raised beds.

A few days later I planted two courgette plants and some rhubarb, and sowed everything I could that the books told me I wasn't already too late with: salad leaves, rocket, spring onions, beetroot, carrots, chard, cabbage, radish, mange tout and green beans.

Two weeks later and things are starting to grow, so I'm hopeful that we might manage to eat something home-grown over the coming months. Given the outlay, something more than a single beetroot and a twisty carrot would be ideal.

So the morals of the story are:

1. Potato boxes are a cheap, effective and time-saving way of creating some raised beds
2. With a bit of grunt work you can do it all yourself, and don't even necessarily need your extremely helpful husband to do it for with you
3. Don't use the same people we did to deliver your potato boxes if you want to save yourself time, money and unnecessary spousal arguments
4. It's never too late in the season to sow some vegetable seeds (right? right??)
5. Don't leave Andy in charge of putting the chickens to bed.


*Ok, I admit it, I managed one corner. Andy and my Dad did the rest.

One year on - and a new home

It's funny how having two children, moving house and returning to work have seen 12 months elapse since the last time I wrote. I've just re-read my last post and I honestly can't remember writing it. Not a single word of it. I must have written it in those heady, sleep-deprived early days of Edith's first weeks when my world consisted of little more than the four walls of our house.

Our old house. Since I last wrote, we've moved. No longer the owners of an eighteenth-century chocolate-box cottage in Penicuik, we are now the owners of a rambling farmhouse in rural central Scotland, somewhere south of Falkirk and not very close to anything. It's totally idyllic. We have sheep on one side, cows on the other, and it's 2 miles to the nearest shop. We have chickens, raised beds, a big range cooker, off-grid heating, and a little bit of land with a copse - where the chickens live. Ok, so we also have foxes that steal chickens, an inconvenient tendency to run out of oil in the middle of winter and rather slow broadband. But let's focus on the positives.

Over the past 12 months, our view has ranged between this:

And this:

Our neighbours look like this:

And just down the road we have this:

There are downsides. We had to move away from some wonderful friends, although they are still only 45 minutes away. And we all now spend a lot of time in the car. The round trip to take Alec to nursery is 50 minutes, and my commute to work (on the 2 days I have to do it) has doubled. But Andy's has halved, and he has to do it every day, so that is a huge plus. And driving home down windy country lanes, gazing out over the hills, with little else on the horizon but lush green fields, forests and the occasional wind turbine, truly makes it all worthwhile. I can't think of anywhere else I would rather be right now.

And then there were two...

We're now seven weeks in to life as a family of four and, for the most part, I can say it's not too bad. Andy and I have each had one day when we wanted to scream and run away, but one day each out of 49* isn't so terrible is it?

For me, the thing that makes me want to scream is both children crying at the same time. One child I can deal with. Two, however, and I feel like I must be failing at parenting. And when one of those children is screaming because they're beyond tired but resolutely refusing to go to sleep is infuriating - it reminds me just how poorly designed babies are. Here's a small creature that needs around 20 hours of sleep a day, and yet it doesn't know how to go to sleep by itself, and even with all the help in the world it will often still resist it. That is simply poor engineering.

The other child is usually screaming for a more mysterious reason. Perhaps because I carried his dinner through to the table myself, instead of using my psychic powers to deduct that he wanted to take it himself this time. Or perhaps because I picked the bugs t-shirt instead of the shark one. Or because I gave him milk to drink when he obviously doesn't want milk (even though he asked for milk). Yes, I know. Reasoning is not a toddler's strong point.

There is definitely no Me Time anymore. Or any Us Time either, for that matter. In the tiny window between Child One going to bed and beginning the process of Child Two's (usually more protracted) bedtime, we shovel food down our throats as quickly as possible to give us sustenance for the gruelling night ahead. Then it's bedtime number two, after which I at least am so exhausted that I usually manage about half an hour of gazing blankly at the TV before I cave in and submit to sleep myself.

OK, perhaps I'm over-egging it a little. Edith has proved herself to be a reasonably good sleeper, given some very specific reuqirements which we are gradually beginning to discover. She's not as amazingly adept at it as her brother was. He, if I remember correctly, was basically sleeping through at 8 weeks. She still needs me every 2-3 hours. But waking up to feed her during the night seems like a strangely familiar process, and one that isn't nearly as disruptive this time around. I am just an automated milk provider: reach for child, feed child, return child, back to sleep. Repeat as required until Child One tells us the morning has arrived. She is also a better daytime napper, which allows me some sanity, although naps in the cot are still largely elusive.

But the challenge of having a newborn now seems puzzling - what was all the fuss about last time? They're so easy! As long as you give her sleep and food at the appropriate times, she's happy. The real challenge is managing the two of them together. Especially when one essentially wants to be static most of the time and the other runs around with seemingly limitless energy, is overflowing with questions and demands, and is liable to flick into tantrum mode at a moment's notice for an unguessable reason. Oh, you wanted the blue cup instead of the green cup today, did you? How silly of me!

To be fair to Alec, most of his tantrums took place during the 2 weeks that he was suffering from a really horrible heavy cold (which he kindly shared with the rest of us), and since his sinuses have cleared up, so too have his grumbles. He is a very loving big brother. Each morning he asks to see Edith and give her a cuddle. He brings her blankets, rocks her in her car seat and comes running to tell me as soon as he hears her crying. He picks up Peter Rabbit and holds him to his chest to rock him and pat him in the same way I do when calming Edith to sleep. And although he's slightly resentful of the fact that she takes up so much of my time ('Mummy, put Edith in the chair. Mummy, give Edith to Daddy... etc'), he's not at all resentful of Edith herself. In fact, he's started speaking to her like a friend: 'Look Edith! A gingerbread man!' I think the whole process may even have made him slightly more empathetic. On Sunday, as I attempted to navigate Glasgow's infuriating one-way system with a sat nav that wasn't up to date and Edith crying in the back to be fed, Alec piped up from the back: 'It's tricky isn't it mummy? I know.'

We're doing OK, the four of us.

*If you knew how long it had taken me to do my 7 times table and get the correct number there, you'd be pretty disappointed - a little glimpse into my addled baby brain.

Introducing Edith

Sometimes life surprises you. Two hours after I wrote the last blog post, my contractions started and seven hours later, Edith Mary Buckley joined us in the world.

Brand new

Although she was a week behind schedule, when Edith decided that it was time to come out, she didn't hang about. I arrived at the hospital at 5.30pm unsure whether I had come in too early, and after being poked and prodded by one of the midwives, they packed me off to the labour ward at around 6.45pm. That's when Edith decided she was ready for the world, and with a sudden surge of contractions it became clear that she was going to arrive sooner than any of us expected, and 45 minutes later she was born. It sounds easy, doesn't it? It definitely wasn't. But it was worth it.

She's now a week old, and we're settling in to life as a family of four. Alec adores her, which is a huge relief for us, as we'd expected him to be nonplussed at best and had anticipated some jealousy and bad behaviour. But instead he keeps bringing me blankets for her to make her 'cosy', and he loves to stroke her hair, give her kisses and he makes sure to tell me every time she cries. "I've got a sister now!" he proudly told us in the car the other day, as he looked across at his new friend in the back.

Alec meets Edith

Ok, our weekends look likely to be quite sedate for the foreseeable future, and getting everyone out of the house at the same time is quite a major operation that definitely requires four sets of hands - I can't yet envisage how it will all function once Andy's back at work or away for any length of time. But presumably we'll get used to it, as thousands of bewildered parents have done before us.

For now, Edith is still in that blissful sleepy newborn phase where a juggernaut couldn't wake them from their slumber, so we are making the most of these easy early days. Give it a few months and I'll be blogging about napping techniques and sleep training all over again.

Preparing for two...

As I write, I'm a week overdue. Or rather, it's not me that's late (I'm never late) but Baby Buckley 2.0, who was due on 4th May. So I'm hovering about in that strange space between nothing and something, waiting for something Very Important to happen, but having no idea when that might be. Baby B has been a tricksy little thing, having been in the GO position for ages now and giving me a few twinges about two weeks ago that left me convinced I'd deliver early. But here I am, many days later, with Alec at nursery, Andy working away at all the physics, and me with little else to do but watch Downton Abbey and bounce hopefully on the birthing ball.

The odd thing is that preparing for No. 2 feels no more real than preparing for No. 1. Yes, I know there will soon be another small creature in the house - and the readied Moses basket and tiny nappies suggest that it's likely to be a baby - but it's still impossible to piece together this information with my bulging belly and picture a brand new human being. I know what to expect this time, of course: there will be sleepless nights, hours sitting on the sofa unable to move because of the feeding/sleeping baby and many, many nappies to change. But there are still so many unknowns too: What will he/she look like? Will they have hair? Will they look like Alec? Will they be a good sleeper/eater? Will they have colic? Will this one turn out to be completely different to the first?

And then there's the prospect of two. Given how much time is taken up just looking after our fairly competent toddler already, where will the extra time come from to look after the baby? And of course there's the dreaded destabilising of our happy status quo: what will Alec make of the baby...?

Friends tell me that yes, having two is hard. That you will marvel at how much time you had before you had two of them, how you had it so easy and simply didn't realise. How sleepless nights are so much more difficult to manage when you have a toddler to get up for in the morning, and how no time will ever be your own again - if you aren't with one of the children, you will be with the other.

But if this were the full story, no one would ever have more than one. They also tell me that seeing your two children together is one of the most beautiful things in the world and that even though you thought there was no more love left in you after No. 1, somehow you find it all over again for No. 2. So we're going ahead and doing it. It's too late to back out now. See you on the other side.

Alec turns two

Yesterday morning, I went to get Alec up and found him sitting in his cot looking a bit forlorn and repeating the word 'messy' as he looked around him. He'd been sick. Everywhere. His carefully washed hair was entangled with bits of last night's dinner, Peter Rabbit was a subtle shade of orange, and there were peas in between the sheets. I hadn't expected it, as I had only heard what I thought was him coughing during the night, but now I realise it was bang on schedule. Alec is two today, so as toddler tradition dictates, he must be ill just in time for a special occasion.

This isn't quite how I'd expected to blog about reaching the two year milestone, but toddlers are unpredictable little creatures in many ways. In others, they're a little too predictable for our liking. Yes, we've already had the pleasure of discovering the Terrible Twos. They arrived a few weeks ago, unannounced, as though someone had simply flicked a switch on my adorable little boy and turned him into that wailing cliche you see on the TV. One morning, as we all did our best to get ourselves out the door and away to nursery/work, Alec threw himself to the floor and burst into tears at the injustice of being denied a showing of the Gruffalo film at going-out-time. Andy was there to witness the event and we couldn't help laughing - much to Alec's disgust. He pursued this line of behaviour - quite valiantly and with enthusiasm, I must admit - for about a week and then, like a switch once more, he flicked back into being a delightful little soul.

The language is coming thick and fast, and every day he surprises me by remembering things I had only mentioned in passing but which have stuck in his mind like glue. Like the fact that there will be a red fire engine ('nee-naw') birthday cake today (who could forget that kind of promise?) or that Daddy is 'away' for 'work' and that, adorably, a heart means 'love'. (It's best not to pursue the love thing with toddlers, I've found. While Alec admitted that yes, he does love mummy and daddy, when pressed he also told me that he loves a hedgehog and a cow.)

Alec's nee-naw cake

He loves the drums, and especially loves playing the drums with daddy. He loves to sing Baa Baa Black Sheep at every opportunity and shouts 'Yes Sir!' when I ask if he has any wool. He loves Baby Ballet, which he does on Wednesday mornings at nursery, and talks about for the rest of the week. He loves our Monkey Music classes on Friday mornings, but mostly because of the bubbles and stickers which come at the end, but which he always tries to demand from the teacher right at the start. And he is totally obsessed with the Gruffalo (known as 'Mouse' in our household), and will spoil any sense of suspense by telling you exactly which animals are about to appear on the screen before they've made their entrance.

Taking the drums very seriously

Ok, so he has Opinions now, this is true. Like taking an extreme dislike to his new dressing gown, which Grandma bought him for Christmas, which keeps him warm in our freezing house, and which he adored when he first clapped eyes on it on Christmas Day. And his new coat, which was a bargain in the Mothercare sale and is actually a better fit for him than the one he insists on wearing every day because it has stars on it. Oh and gloves - don't get me started on gloves...

See? No gloves. In fact, he's flicking the V-sign at gloves.

But otherwise the Twos have so far been kind to us and I'm hopeful that the next year will bring more moments of laughter than it will tantrums. We have lots to look forward to. Alec will be getting a new brother or sister in early May, and he already seems quite excited about that, gleefully pointing at my tummy, saying 'Baby!' and waving hello. Whether it will be a boy or a girl, though, he's not too sure. Some days it's a brother, other days it's a sister. And on others it's a brother who he plans to name 'Sister'.

3 months to go...

So happy birthday, Alec, and thank you for two amazing years of getting to know you. I'm getting a little teary as I write this (I blame the pregnancy hormones), not so much at the thought of you growing up and becoming a proper little boy, because that is wonderful to watch, but more at our miraculous fortune in being blessed with such an awesome and fun little child. I know every parent is deluded into thinking that their child really is the best one but... well, ours really is. 

Being normal

At the ripe old age of 31, it seems like I finally have the semblance of a normal life. Which isn't to say that until now I've been living life on the edge, fighting off bears and trekking across uninhabited wildernesses. But (and I'm sure a few other freelancers will relate to this) until now I have always dreaded that inevitable first question as you sit down at the hairdressers for a restyle: 'So, is it your day off today?' Well.... where do I begin...? I usually just say yes and be done with it. But if she (for usually it is a she) presses me with 'So what is it you do then?' I tend to um and ah and mutter something about being a musician. 'Ooh! What do you play! My brother's in a band!' (I'm not meaning to typecast hairdressers with all these exclamation marks. If you're a hairdresser, please don't take offence. This is just my hairdresser. She has a lilting Penicuik accent and always follows up anything remotely negative with 'Ooh! Wha' a sheeyme!')

'Oh, I'm not that sort of musician', I say. 'I don't play for a living'. Crestfallen face.
'Ooh! Do you teach then?'
'No.'
Confused face.
'I'm, er, doing a PhD. On Beethoven. I also manage a contemporary music ensemble. And I run a choir.'
'Ooh! You sing!'
'Not really, I just run the choir.'
Return of the confused face.
'It's a managerial sort of thing.'
'Oh! My brother's band needs a manager!'
Er...

But this time, when I went to the hairdressers, I assumed the role of a Normal Person. Behold.

'So is it your day off today?'
Firmly: 'Yes it is.'
'So what is it you do then?'
'Well I'm just back at work after having my little boy.'
Cue squeal of delight. 'Ooh! What's his name? Have you got a picture?'
I get out a picture, and we discuss his blonde hair (yes, I say, I was indeed blonde as a child too), his enormous eyelashes and whether or not he sleeps through the night (he bloody well does). She asks me about his eating habits, how many words he has, when he started walking, whether he gets up to much mischief, how many days he does at nursery, if I want another one, and so on and so forth. This all goes on for a good half hour, during which time my hair is lopped, coiffed and straightened. As she's just dusting off the stray hairs from around my shoulders she remembers to ask:

'So what are you doing for work now when Alec (she's on first name terms now) is at nursery?'
'I manage a record label.'
Her face lights up.
'Ooh! My brother's band are looking for a record label!'
'It's a classical music label.'
Sad face.

Bienvenue en Ecosse

A month on from my last post and now the question I am hearing often has changed to 'so what's it like to be back?' We've been back in the UK and back in our old house in Penicuik for a week and a half now, and to tell you the truth it's a little bit surreal. I'm not completely convinced that we ever went to France. All the evidence suggests that we probably went on a long-ish holiday somewhere, but since everything in the house looks the same, all our old belongings are in the same places they used to be, and our lovely neighbours are still there - I suspect it might have all been a dream. There is just the small but noisy object that is Alec to remind us that a few things have changed in the last 2 years.

I have to say though, it is good to be back. I say that with a slight sense of hesitation, because I am worried that people will think we didn't enjoy our time in France or - worse - that we don't miss the people we left behind. We did and we do. But coming back to Penicuik has been like slipping on a comfortable pair of slippers - a pair that you had almost forgotten you still had, hidden down the back of the wardrobe somewhere, and now you're wondering why you ever thought about throwing them out.

While our tenants didn't exactly leave our house in a wonderful state ('cleaning' doesn't seem to have been a familiar word to them), and there has been a lot of stuff to sort out since we came back (clearing the garden of bags of dog s**t for example...), getting the house back in order has been mercifully quick and coming back to it after a 2 year break has spurred us on to do all those things we never got round to before - repainting the dining room, fixing that bit of broken gutter, chopping down a few trees in the garden. We have a renewed hatred for letting agents and their weasel-word contracts, which promise nothing but charge you 15% for the pleasure. And we have vowed never again to let our house out to someone with 'a dog' - or rather, as it transpired, 'three dogs, three cats and two rabbits'.

Happily, we have also swapped the sound of French motorbikers racing down the road past our house day and night for the gently rippling sound of the river at the bottom of the garden. And we have been reunited with our wood burner! Even in July, the Scottish weather is kind enough to let us use it.

Armed with an energetic toddler who demands entertainment every waking hour of the day, I've also started to see the area through new eyes. The woodland walks and rambles around our local woodland and the Pentland Hills that I used to enjoy so much on my own have been transformed into exciting nature discovery adventures that will keep Alec happy for hours. I've also found a new community centre 5 minutes up the road that has cheap coffee (tick), free wifi (tick) an indoor play area (tick) and a playground (tick) for slightly less adventurous days. Another 10 minutes in the car takes us to The Kabin in Loanhead, a great soft play centre (also with cafe and free wifi) that Alec thought was amazing, and 10  minutes more takes us to the Toots play cafe - an ingenious idea started by a fellow mum looking for a way to drink her cappuccino in peace (yes, there's wifi there too). I've discovered the children's area at the National Museum of Scotland, which Andy and I previously bypassed on our regular trips to the museum, and I haven't even got started on the Museum of Rural Life (animals - tick), Dynamic Earth (science and buttons to press - tick) or Andy's favourite, the Falkirk Wheel (big machinery - tick).

Of course, I'm back to work 3 days a week now, so all this activity has to be sandwiched into my 2 days with Alec during the week, but that is also a good thing. Instead of getting up each morning and thinking, 'Right, how can I entertain Alec today?' I'm now happy to be getting time to myself on work days, thinking about more than snacks and naps and nappy changes, while on my days off I get up thinking 'Lovely, a day off and some time with Alec!' There is still time, of course, to be worn down by the monotony and rigour of daily life, but for now it's Bienvenue en Ecosse and Och aye the noo. Scotland, thanks for having us back.

This is not goodbye, it's just au revoir...

In less than three weeks time, we'll be back in the UK, our petit sojourn in France having come to an end. The title of this blog is a little misleading as our 'year in France' became nearly two, thanks to a bit of crafty contract extension, but all good things must come to an end, and Scotland is calling us back.

As we start packing up and saying our goodbyes, I am being asked a lot: 'Are you looking forward to going home?' In truth, it's a time of mixed emotions. Yes, I am very much looking forward to going back, but there are many things I will miss about living here. Life in France has very much lived up to the idyllic image I had hoped for, much of the time. Take today, for example, when I cycled along to the park in beautiful sunshine with Alec sitting in the seat on the back pointing out the cows along the road, as I looked across the valley to Mont Blanc in the distance. Earlier, we sat on the terrace looking up at the mountains, both of us without a care in the world.

Part of the reason our stay here has been so wonderful is down to the fact that I haven't been working (at least for the most part). I had a relaxed pregnancy, during which I went to French classes, joined a needlework group, went swimming regularly, and met lots of other lovely women in the same position. And since then I've been fortunate enough to spend 16 blissful months with my son, in what is certainly an extremely generous amount of maternity leave. But the friends you make when you have a baby are really important: you share with these people perhaps the most important experience of your life, you talk with them about things you would never discuss with other people, and you build up a closeness with both them and their children that it will be hard to replace. (Just have another one then, my friend said to me the other day...) The people we've met here are, without a doubt, the thing I will miss most when we return to the UK.

And as for the weather... yes, this is number two on my list of things that I will miss. Closely followed by the pastries and the bread. And the wonderful seasonal fruit. And the markets. And the mountains. And in a funny way I will miss speaking French every day too. When I arrived with my rusty GCSE French, I could do little more than order a coffee and a croissant, whereas now I can get by in most situations - give or take a few too many d'accords and a rather liberal use of the verb faire. It would have been interesting to see how Alec responded to speaking two languages too. I had assumed that his two half days a week at the local French creche wouldn't have made much of an impact, but today he surprised me by saying his first word (or words, in fact) and it was French: 'a-va' (au revoir) to the French children in the playground.

But as rewarding as it has been, speaking French has also been one of the most challenging parts of living here too. Not being able to express yourself precisely the way you would like to, not having any 'chat' and not being able to pick up the phone and know with confidence that you'll be able to ask the questions you want and get the answers you need - that has been frustrating. It sounds lazy to say I'll be pleased to go back to an English speaking country, but it will certainly be easier.

Neither will I miss the expense of living here, which far exceeded what we expected. And while I admire the gesture towards quality family time, I'll be happy to live again in a country that considers Sunday a viable 'doing things' day too (nothing - by which I mean nothing except bakeries - is open here on a Sunday). I'll be pleased to have a reliable source of bacon again, not to mention the soft white bread to put it in, and it will be nice to be able to buy a crumpet or a tea cake without any fuss, instead of having to venture out to the British shop and pay five times the price for a little taste of home. And don't get me started on a decent cup of tea... (A note to the French: a cup of hot water and a tea bag does not a cup of tea make.) I'm also looking forward to going back to work properly, and for Alec to start at his new nursery. And best of all, I'm looking forward to returning to our friends and family in the UK, who we've missed a lot while living away.

As we drive away on that final day, I expect I will feel a little bit emotional to be leaving things behind. But most of all it seems strange to me that there will be a little corner of France (and also a little corner of Switzerland) that we will know really well, that will continue to go on as normal, but we won't be a part of it. That in years to come, we'll look back at photos of our time here and of Alec's birth and first year, and say 'Do you remember when we lived in France?' 'Do you remember that house we lived in, and our little village?' That we'll forget the names of the roads we knew so well, just as I've forgotten the names of the roads I walked along every day in Cambridge, now more than a decade ago. And that Alec won't have any memory of this funny little period of his life. ('What do you mean, you're Scottish, but you were born in Switzerland and lived in France?'). When I started this blog, the idea was to give my view of life in France from the perspective of an expat. I wanted to write about all the things - big and small - that I found strange and surprising and novel about living here, having come from the UK. And in the early days, there was a whole rush of things to write about: What do you mean you have to eat lunch between 12-2pm? Why can't I get milk on a Sunday? And what is this priorité a droite rule all about (OK, I discovered that one a little late, and got beeped at for the best part of a year before I realised my mistake...). But the reason the blog posts have slowed down in recent months is not just because I have a small child taking up most of my time these days, it's also because life in France doesn't seem so strange anymore. In fact, I really can't remember the feeling of alienation that we had when we first arrived, nor put my finger on why life here is any different from anywhere else.

And so now we reach a quandary: what to do with this little blog? A Year in France: Life as a CERN Wife is a rather specific title to write under, so I either pass on the baton to another willing CERN wife, or this CERN wife starts blogging about going back to life in the UK (I've heard it's strange there, you know. The shops are even open on Sundays!) and the prospect of a Yes vote in Scotland. Ok, Ok, that's another topic for another blog. Until then, this is not goodbye....

A brand new human being: one year on

The time has really flown but believe it or not, on Wednesday, we celebrated surviving 365 days of nappies, milk, teething and baby sick. Alec William Buckley is now a one-year old. And according to our paediatrician, that means he's no longer a baby, but is officially a little boy.

The idea of reviewing the year seemed like a good one when I started thinking about writing this blog entry. But now that I'm trying to do it, I find that it really is a bit of a blur. Milestones that seemed like such a huge deal at the time now seem like a fuzzy string of events, whose timings I really can't quite recall. When Alec rolled over for the first time, we were so excited that we videoed it and immediately shared it with friends - I was sure I wouldn't forget when this happened. But the memory is a bit hazy now - was it 3 months, 4 months, 5 months? And when exactly did he start saying Mama? I'm not sure. All I know is it was before he started saying Dada, and that's the important bit to remember.

Many parents make note of these kind of things in a baby book - apparently, so that they can look back and reminisce and share these little developmental gems with the child when they get older, but really I think it's so they can pretend they remember how it all panned out. In the absence of a suitable baby book to mark these events, I've been doing it the modern way - on Google calendar. Alec has his own little calendar in which I mark things like 'rolled over in his cot - and got stuck' (17th July, aged 5 months), 'first ride in a shopping trolley' (26th October, aged 8 months) and 'climbed the stairs to the kitchen' (11th December, aged 10 months). I've even marked the occasion of his first blood (4th January, aged 11 months - bashed his lip when he fell over). The first time he slept 12 hours in one go is also documented, in CAPITALS for emphasis (28th June, aged 4 months).

The great thing about a timeline like this is that I can look back and see how far we've come in such a short time. Now that we have a noisy, energetic toddler on our hands, it seems like a lifetime since he was just starting to sit up for himself (30th July, aged 5 months). And it helps to jog my memory of all the momentous things that happened amidst the blurry bits too. I remember how we were all in stitches when Alec laughed properly for the first time, as his daddy tickled him (14th May, aged 3 months) and how sad I was the day Alec took one look at my boob and then turned away, deciding for himself that he'd had enough of breastfeeding (11th December, aged 10 months). I remember the delight on Alec's face when he used his toybox to pull himself up to standing for the first time (23rd November, aged 9 months) and the day afterwards, when he got carried away and toppled head first into it.

At the risk of getting soppy and blubbing over my keyboard, I can honestly say it's been the most wonderful year of my life. And I'm pleased to say it's also been far easier than I ever imagined. It's not the done thing to say you had a dream of a time with a young baby, because it seems too much like bragging, and sleepless nights are supposed to be a rite of passage. But if you found the whole thing enjoyable, why not say it? We've had around half a dozen sleepless nights out of 365, so I think that's pretty good, and the inconsolable crying episodes have been mainly confined to periods of illness or extreme tiredness. We've had just one overnight hospitalisation (Berlin, 15th January, aged 11 months, for an unidentified rash and fever) and only two truly horrendous exploding nappies. But best of all, we've stayed sane, and although I can't really remember the details of everything, I'm fairly sure we enjoyed 90% of it.

So happy birthday, Alec, you wonderful little nutcase. I love your enormous eyelashes and your huge great smile and the fact that everyone who meets you falls in love with you too. Here's to the next 17 years, and may they please go a little more slowly.

The Grand Canyon

Our time in Arizona was not without its misfortunes. It began with a forgotten bag, left behind in Flagstaff, which we had to drive back to collect. Next came the loss of our car seat adapters for the pram (which enable us to use the car seat as a pram top, eliminating one extra thing that you need to carry around), which were left behind in our rental car when we dropped it off in Phoenix. Since the car seat doesn't fit on the pram base without them, the pram was utterly useless to us for the rest of the trip. Then we had to reschedule our plans for Utah on the basis that the ancient RV was way too slow to cover the mileage needed to get there. Then I drove the wrong way down a one way street in the aforementioned RV...

Personal misadventures aside, nature also had a few challenges to throw at us. Back in February, the road just south of Page (which is the closest major town to the Grand Canyon North Rim) decided to shift it's position a little, and ended up looking like this:

As part of our route, we had planned to stay a night in Page, before heading on to the Grand Canyon the next day, but the landslide was in danger of scuppering our plans. Although the landslide is tantalisingly close to Page, out here in no man's land there aren't a huge number of alternative roads. In fact, the route to Page now involves a 45-mile diversion through the Navajo Indian Reservation - not good news for us, our tight schedule and our trundling vehicle. What's worse: I had booked a night in Page as an ideal stop-off before continuing on to the Grand Canyon, but thanks to the landslide, the direct route from Page to the Canyon was also now a no-go. Cue another 45-mile diversion north of Page to access the Grand Canyon National Park.

Although this meant that we spent two long days in the RV and covered a lot of unintended extra miles (with a mileage charge of $0.34 for every mile covered....!), our stop-off in Page did allow us to see Horseshoe Bend, something that the landslide will have prevented a lot of tourists from reaching. This horseshoe-shaped kink in the Colorado river must be one of the most photographed images of this part of the state.

Without a wide-angled lens, our camera didn't really do it justice: if you want to see just how spectacular it can look, this guy has done a pretty amazing job.

From Page, we set off for the big hole in the ground that they call the Grand Canyon. When we were planning the trip, someone said to us 'visit the North Rim, it's much less touristy', so without consulting any maps or actually checking the logistics, we booked two nights in the North Rim campground. Not only is it far less touristy, it's also around 10 degrees cooler, and the terrain is much more varied than that of the South Rim. What we hadn't realised, however, is that although the South and North Rims are just 10 miles apart as the crow flies, there are 215 miles of driving between the two - and that's without the two 45-mile detours that we incurred en route. Happily, it was worth the trouble. We arrived to find our spot in the quiet, secluded woodland campground, with chipmunks scurrying by and birds tweeting all around us. Harvey the RV felt quite at home.

We set off to explore straight away (after clearing up what can only be described as Alec's most explosive nappy to date, a truly extraordinary present to celebrate our arrival) and within minutes we were at the Canyon's edge, looking out at this:

It sounds silly, but I didn't know what to expect from the Grand Canyon. I purposefully hadn't looked at pictures in advance, and in my head I think I expected to see a great big chasm, and a lot of nothingness. I hadn't appreciated how many ups and downs there would be, how many tributaries and offshoots the Canyon has, and how varied and interesting the landscape would be. It is so vast that in places you can barely see the other side, and we certainly couldn't see the bottom from any of the vantage points we found. On the second day we were fortunate (?) enough to get caught in the middle of a thunderstorm, and although we got fairly soaked before we reached cover, we were able to sit at the big picture window in the North Rim restaurant and watch as the lightning and thunder rolled around the rocky landscape. On the final evening, Andy also raced off across the campground just in time to watch this spectacular sunset:

Our two days there were undoubtedly the most memorable of our whole trip. We spent the days wandering around the rocky trails and the evenings toasting marshmallows around our campfire. As for Alec, things got a lot better after The Great Grand Canyon Surprise Poo and he just adored looking at the trees and charming the passers-by on our walks.

Of course, our good luck had to come to an end sometime. And as we rolled out of the campground on the final morning, to begin the long 400-mile journey back to Phoenix, we called in at the gas station to get some air put into a rather low looking tyre... Well, what do you know, it turned out to be flat.

Arizona: the first in a mini-series

Although I'll be posting this after arriving home, I'm writing it in Flagstaff, Arizona, sitting outside our RV (otherwise known as a mobile home to all you UK folk and, funnily enough, the French too - who call it un mobilehome) on a balmy August evening. Family Buckley is on a road trip, American style. There have been (many) pancakes with bacon and maple syrup, a good deal of fried goods, too many meals served with 'whipped butter' and the occasional root beer. There have also been long, long, straight roads, plenty of cacti, and lots and lots of trucks.

Since other people's holidays really aren't very exciting to read about, I'll try and keep the entries relatively brief. But Arizona deserves a bit of good PR. It's largely known for being hot and deserted - in both senses of the word - and for laying claim to one of the seven natural wonders of the world, The Grand Canyon. But the one thing that has struck me in the days since we arrived is the enormous variety of terrain and landscapes in a relatively small area.

The RV signifies the second half of our stay in Arizona and the start of our holiday proper. We arrived a week ago for a conference in Flagstaff. Alec and I hung out in the hotel for a week, while Andy did some clever physics. In the midst of this, I also turned Thirty (I think it deserves a capital letter). Although there were no fireworks or surprise parties or even, in fact, a card from my husband (the less said about that the better), it turned out to be a good day. We drove east of Flagstaff to see the 'world's best known and best preserved' Meteor Crater: nearly a mile across and 550 feet deep, there's no denying its a Very Big Hole in the Ground. At $16 a pop, it ought to be. Sadly, the visitor centre is about 30 years out of date and the exhibits tangential to say the least - after all, there really isn't a lot to say about a big hole in the ground. 

The celestial object that caused it was about 45m across and travelling at 40,000 miles an hour when it hit, which are impressive stats, but that is about as far as it goes. A little disgruntled, we headed back to Flagstaff and north to the Wupatki National Monument. The first thing you need to know is: it's not a monument. The US seems to have chosen to call sites of national or historic interest 'monuments', the equivalent if you like to our national heritage sites in the UK. The Wupatki 'monument' is actually a series of early American Indian settlements, pueblos, which have been found scattered across the barren Arizonan landscape. Built around 900 years ago from simple bricks and sand-based mortar, they seem older than they really are. 

If you consider that Durham Cathedral was built and already been worshipped in around the same time, they start to look a little sad. But they are an unusual feature out in the hot Arizonan desert, in what is in any case a 'young' country. More impressive, however, was the lava field we drove alongside to reach them. Having been created when lava cascaded down from the volcano at Sunset Crater around the same time as the Wupatki settlements developed, the lava fields now look like ridiculously deep overturned fields of earth. Except that this 'earth' is solidified molten rock. I've never seen anything like it.

That stuff that looks like ploughed earth? Actually solidified lava.

The lava fields were just one of the many incredible vistas we've seen as we've driven across the state. When we left Phoenix airport (ground temperature: 41 degrees) and drove north to Flagstaff, we passed through cacti country. Barren, sandy and rocky, with poker-straight roads carving through the middle of it, this was exactly how we had pictured the Arizonan landscape. But as we headed north and climbed up towards the plateau on which Flagstaff sits, we found mountains, forests and an abundance of vegetation. We are back in Flagstaff rather unintentionally. After leaving the conference, we drove back to Phoenix to collect our RV. Enthusiastic and woefully over-optimistic, we intended to drive north to Saint Johns (roughly 200 miles north east) that same afternoon. Unfortunately we hadn't checked any topographical maps (Arizona is flat and dusty, right?) and we soon found ourselves limping through an unwieldy mountainous landscape that our rattly old RV simply couldn't cope with (in fact, this will turn out to be just one of an impressive series of bits of misfortune during the trip...). The scenery was staggering, all the more so because we passed through a dramatic thunderstorm en route, but by 7pm we'd only traveled 80 miles, so we called it quits and holed up in a roadside RV park for the night. The next day - today - we had to rethink our plans, which had originally included driving still further north to Bluff, Utah by tonight to see Monument Valley. Looking at the huge expanse of map ahead of us, and having now become accustomed to our RV's rather leisurely pace (if the road signs specify a 55 mph speed limit, we can be fairly confident we won't be managing much more than 30), we've scaled back. The stop-off in Flagstaff tonight is part of our new journey towards Page tomorrow, and the Grand Canyon the day after. Happily, this change of route allowed us to see the Painted Desert today: a vast, rolling area of rocky desert in which the rocks are stratified in different colours. While much of the Painted Desert is nothing out of the ordinary, some of the vistas are breathtakingly beautiful, such as the lookout we found just north of Winslow.

Arizona continues to amaze and surprise us, and we haven't even seen the Grand Canyon yet. With a bit of luck, out RV will manage to trundle all the way up there.     

Long time no blog

Oh dear: no blogs since May. My Aunt in Chester-le-Street will be very cross with me, as I know she checks in at Life as a Cern Wife every time she turns on her computer. She has probably given up hope by now. In fairness, we've been a little busy, with trips to the UK, visits from friends, finding a new house to live in out here, trying to find tenants for our two houses in the UK... And for me there's all those playdates, lunches, baby swimming, walks along the lake, coffee with other mums. It's a tough life and I won't hear otherwise.

It's a little while since I blogged about Alec, so I think that means I'm allowed to give a few updates. In case you were wondering, yes he is still very cute. Here's proof:

Alec is 5 months old this week, and lots seems to be changing at the moment. He's just moved into his own room and has decided that he's now happy to sleep through the night, 8pm-8am, which is good news for those of us who haven't slept for a solid 8 hours in a long time. Although, it seems when you are a new parent, you are programmed to wake up every few hours wondering if the silence on the other end of the baby monitor is a good or a bad thing - meaning that a solid 8 hours sleep still evades you. At least, that's the case for me. Andy sleeps on happily and wakes in the morning to ask, 'How was the night?' He's done this since Alec was a few weeks old.

As well as stocking up on sleep, Alec is also stocking up on food. Real food. After many, many conversations about weaning with just about everyone I came into contact with, I can now report: Yes. Alec is eating solids. Sweet potato, carrot, cauliflower, green beans, banana, pear, apple, apricot. You name it, he eats it. I am doing the usual mummsy thing of making up batches of puree and putting them in ice cube trays in the freezer. Although it turns out we only have novelty ice cube trays, so his sweet potato portions look like this:

Real Food also means Lots of Mess, so a highchair has become the latest addition to the growing mountain of Alec's stuff, which is slowly but surely starting to take over the house.

He has also become lots more mobile in the last few weeks, and wriggles and rolls all over the place given half a chance. This isn't great news for us, as we now have to keep a beady eye on him at all times. Or something like this tends to happen:

We had our first family holiday last week - to Talloires, halfway along Lake Annecy. Those of you thinking -'Annecy sounds familiar' - that's probably because it was in the news a lot last year, after a cyclist and a family were shot there in quite mysterious circumstances. There were lots of cyclists while we were there, but thankfully no shootings. We were staying in a little cabin which the French call a mobilehome (ah, the French and their Franglais), although there was nothing mobile about it. A tiny bedroom, living area and bathroom, all squeezed into 15m2, and a large deck out the front nearly the size of the cabin itself. But as fate would have it, it turned out to be the same campsite where my brother-in-law has been staying with his family since he was a wee lad. Perched up on the (very steep) hillside, the view over the lake was stunning, even in the mostly cloudy weather.

The paragliders you can see floating around are the real reason we were in Talloires. After we did a paragliding course a few years ago, Andy decided he wanted to learn more so he did a week's course, and Alec and I tagged along for the holiday. Andy is now the proud owner of his first autonomous paragliding pilot's licence, which allows him to fly in calm conditions in places that he knows. I won't be letting him jump off the Jura just yet.

The next couple of months have lots in store: lots more visitors, moving house, a trip to the UK and then a big trip to Arizona for most of August. At this rate, expect another update somewhere around Christmas.

France: it ain't all great

Andy tells me that it is only right that I should follow-up my blog about why it's so great living in France, with a blog about the things that drive me mad. I argued that telling the world how much the French annoy me probably wouldn't help in our efforts to fit in with the locals. Ok, our direct neighbours don't speak English, but Google Translate is pretty hot these days.

But Andy's point is a fair one: I ought to give an un-biased account of life in France, not one which just focuses on the good stuff. So here, in short, is what drives me mad (note that this Bad Things list is not as long as the Good Things list - ergo life in France is Good).

1. The driving
Ok, it may not be a patch on the Italians or the Spaniards (oh dear, here I go on a whole anti-European drive, never mind just a French one...) but the driving here drives me mad (if you'll excuse the pun). It's not bad driving as such - there's generally not much speeding, swerving or beeping to speak of - it's more the etiquette. No one, and I mean no one, ever lets you out. If you sit there with your indicators flashing madly, waiting to pull out from a parking space into slow-moving traffic, nine times out of ten you will be willfully ignored. Trying to do a tricky reverse parking manoeuvre while your child screams blue murder in the back? Don't expect anyone to give you any space to carry out this difficult task, you will just have to wait your turn. Which leads me neatly on to...

2. Manners
This one could get me into hot water. But if we exclude the nice French children from my previous blog, who always say Bonjour, and the sunny people at the checkout tills who wish you a bonne journée, there is a certain lack of politeness around here. My neighbours are lovely. In fact, on a one-on-one basis, most people around here are charming and welcoming and helpful. (Except the other neighbours who have never even said so much as Bonjour in 8 months, and the estate agents who ignore all your calls, and the man in the Feu Vert garage who doesn't appear to want our custom at all). But there is a general lack of awareness of other people from the average person on the street. Everyone seems to mooch along in their own world, and if they accidentally (or not, as the case may be) knock you as you walk past, you are unlikely to get a 'Pardon', or even so much as a backward glance. Getting on the tram with a buggy, I have been stared at point blank more times than I care to remember, as I apologise for having a baby and attempt to find a tiny little space in which to squirrel myself and my clearly unwelcome small child. Coming back from the UK last week just reinforced this: we left behind the helpful souls of England who all wanted to give up their seat for me, to be met by the stony, unsmiling faces of the folk of Geneva.

3. French old ladies and their advice
One of the other trials one has to negotiate when taking public transport is the French Old Lady and her Advice. Mainly, it concerns the aforementioned unwelcome infant and their well-being. He is either too hot, too cold, too tired to be out, too young to be out or just inappropriately attired for that particular old lady's whim. For the record, yes I did check the weather forecast this morning, no he doesn't need a hat today, yes he is wearing a vest underneath his babygrow and yes, he's my child and he's just perfect, thank you very much.

4. The bread is too small for toast
What sort of country doesn't prioritise the production of bread that lends itself to becoming toast?

5. Numbers
My French has improved a lot since we moved here, but I am floored every single time someone says a number that begins quatre vingts... Argh, I think, they've just said one of the stupid numbers. Now, what did they say after they said quatre vingts? Did they say a normal number like sept, so it's actually not too tricky, it's just 87. Or did they say dix-sept, meaning I have to do some quick addition in my head and work out what 80 plus 17 is (not a difficult sum, I know, but when they are in the middle of dictating a long phone number and you're desperately trying to keep up with all the other quatre vingts, it's like some kind of French Numberwang). What kind of language names its numbers thus: Ten, Twenty, Thirty, Forty, Fifty, Sixty, Sixty and Ten, Four Twenties, Four Twenties and Ten...?! At least the Swiss are smart, and have adopted the far preferable Septante, Octante, Nonante.

And that's all I have to complain about. So far.

10 things that are good about living in France

This morning I had breakfast on the balcony in the (not-so-)early morning sunshine and after coffee at a friend's house this afternoon, I took the back road home and drove through the vineyards, heading towards the snow-capped Jura mountains, with the sunshine beating down, the thermometer showing 25 degrees and a light summer breeze wafting through the windows to keep me cool. It reminded me of why living in France is so wonderful. So here are some of the things that make life here so fine.

1. The aforementioned sun
Sorry to all of you still battling the drizzle and the blizzards in the UK, but we've had some nicely well-defined seasons since we've been here and the transitions between them have been nothing if not swift. Two weeks ago it snowed, and we tucked in a last weekend of decent skiing. Then a storm came, brought a ton of rain and some thunder two nights running and lo, the following day it was spring. Since Sunday we've had more or less non-stop sunshine and 23 degrees. The trees were a little surprised by all this, and despite the lack of buds until two days ago, they have been rushing to get their leaves out quick smart.

2. French children say 'Bonjour'
Yes, it's true: everyone who walks past you in the street, even the children and the teenagers, says 'Bonjour.'

3. The supermarkets only sell seasonal produce
OK, so this is a little annoying if you need a spring onion in the middle of winter, but ultimately it's a Very Good Thing for airmiles, local produce and the like. You can't buy soft fruit in the winter, and you can't buy a red cabbage in the summer. Fair dos. It encourages you to think about what you're cooking, where the food has come from and to appreciate the growing seasons. I like it.

4. Lunchtimes
The French consider lunch important enough that everyone has to take two hours out for it. What's not to like? (well, the fact that the 12-2 closures mean you can't make any calls to businesses, visit shops in small towns or even, bizarrely, have lunch at a time that suits you (i.e. outside the 12-2 bracket) - these things are quite annoying)

5. The bread
Don't live here if you have a wheat intolerance. Avoiding bread is impossible, and why would you want to? It's incredible. Not to mention the croissants, fine patisserie, and macarons, available in the obligatory bakery in every village...

6. The skiing
Don't ski? Pah. Then why are you living in France?

7. The word for a walkie-talkie is 'un talkie-walkie'
Need I say more?

8. French radio
They have absolutely no qualms about playing songs such as 'Especially For You' by Kylie and Jason, entirely without irony, in the middle of an average programme. Mariah Carey, Paula Abdul, The Bangles and Bon Jovi are other favoured artists.

9. The wildlife
When Alec was born and we started looking for nice places to walk, I was a bit put out to realise there weren't any wildlife/bird reserves nearby that we could walk around. Then I realised it's because there is no need. On an average walk around our village, or out into the fields beyond, I will probably see as many as half a dozen big birds - buzzards, kites, kestrels and other things I don't know the name of. They are two a penny here, and rarely a day goes by when we don't seem them. There are deer in the vineyards, lizards scuttling along the pavements and something big that keeps leaving giant pawprints in the snow (admittedly, it's possibly a dog).

10. Did I mention the sunshine?

On the downside, the French are appalling at keeping their road surfaces in a decent condition. Pot holes all over. I suppose you can't win them all.

The Baby Whisperer

I was determined that I wasn't going to read any books about bringing up babies. There are so many out there, all with different agendas and perspectives, that I was quite sure reading them would just make life even more confusing. And as one of my friends nicely put it, no baby ever read a book about how it should behave. Parenting is something to be worked out intuitively, I believe, and if you follow the signals that your child gives you and take a sensible and calm approach to looking after them, I was fairly sure that little could go wrong.

But then I came across the Baby Whisperer. It's a terrible title, you have to agree. We've all heard of the Horse Whisperer, who gently whispers platitudes to an unruly horse to tame it, turning it from an untrained, wild beast into a docile animal that will accept humans, so the title of the Baby Whisperer implies you will be partaking in some kind of low-level babbling with your baby to communicate with them on a 'deeper level'. It sounded a bit hippy-ish to me. But the title kept coming up again and again, with other mums mentioning that the baby whisperer had something good to say about nearly everything, so I picked up a cheap copy for 11p on Amazon and thought I would flick through it out of interest. It's not a new title, by any means, nor is it unknown. Second only to Gina Ford it is perhaps one of the most widely read baby books of the lot. Even so, I found that a lot of my friends hadn't read it. I am now feeling almost evangelical about this book. I want to tell the world how much it has changed our lives. So excuse me while I spread the word.

Alec has been a lovely baby, very easy indeed compared to many, I think, but as he has become older and more aware of the world a few difficulties started to creep in. The main one being that around 5-6 weeks he started refusing to nap during the day. If we were lucky and we caught him at the right moment, he might nap on me or in the sling, but otherwise I felt compelled to get out of the house as soon as possible every day so that he could sleep in the car or the pram. People kept commenting to me about how amazing I was to be getting out and about with him, but I had to! Putting him down anywhere in the house to sleep, even on the sofa beside me, was totally impossible. As he began to nap less and less, he also began to cry more and more, and I started to wonder where my placid little baby had gone. The baby that everyone told me was so quiet, and about whom they commented it was amazing that they never heard him cry. It was pretty clear to me that Alec was getting tired, but was fighting off his sleep, and would only be reluctantly lulled into it by the movement of the pram or the car - and even then, he would often fight it.

The Baby Whisperer has chapters on sleeping, eating, and activity among other things, and I just casually flicked through the sleep chapter the night the book arrived. She suggests a 'structured routine' called E.A.S.Y.: Eat, Activity, Sleep, Your Time. The baby's day should consist of consecutive cycles of this pattern. A no brainer, it seems, as that's pretty much all there is in a baby's life. For her, though, it's important that the E does not come before the S, so that the baby doesn't get used to being nursed to sleep. Ok, fine. This wasn't as interesting as the next bit: when it comes to sleep, we need to recognise the baby's signals and respond as soon as possible. She suggests putting them down to nap when you see the first yawn, and certainly by the third yawn. If you leave it much longer, you risk missing the 'window' and them becoming over-tired, by which time they will find it much harder to drop off. By the time they're crying with tiredness it's too late and you will have a battle on your hands. Now this bit was news to me, as I realised I'd only really begun to think Alec was tired when he started to cry. So the next morning, we got up, I fed him, and then we played for a bit. As soon as I saw him yawn, I picked him up, gave him a cuddle, wrapped him up in a blanket and put him in his cot. I said some nice things like 'have a nice sleep, see you a little later' and patted him on the chest. He blinked at me, closed his eyes and went to sleep for the next hour - this just an hour after he had first woken up. I couldn't believe it was so easy (or E.A.S.Y. if you will...). It's been three days now and we've been following this basic cycle with huge success. In these three days Alec has been  a happy, smiley little baby with hardly any crying at all. And what's more, I suddenly have time to get things done while he naps. We haven't needed to leave the house unless there was a reason to do so (of course we still go for a walk each day, so he has one of his naps in his pram anyway) and our evenings have become so much more civilised, as he's not crying with extreme tiredness. In fact, he naps while we eat dinner. Eureka! He is also sleeping much better at night, having gone from waking every 1-2 hours, to going 4-5 hours at a stretch. For those that worry that 2 months is too young to introduce a routine, I agree. But this isn't a routine, it's more like common sense. There's no clock-watching involved (in the book she suggests we do time it, but for me Alec is still too young to be conforming to a schedule, so our times are flexible according to his cues), it's simply a case of reading the signals - signals that are simple but that I was completely oblivious to before picking up the book.

His sleeping has also been dramatically improved by some use of swaddling. A lot of people had told me along the way that I should try it and that it would help Alec sleep for longer stretches, but because he was put in a 'growbag' (a sleeping bag with arm holes) right from day one in the hospital, we were a little resistant to it. And our botched attempts to swaddle him with a small sheet at home weren't very successful so we gave up. But each night when I put him back in his cot after feeding, he would wake himself up with the startle reflex as I put him down, and start crying, until I picked him up and cuddled him, and then the same thing would happen again... One night, he was so overtired that we decided to try bundling him up in a cosy blanket and he fell asleep almost immediately. So we started swaddling him for all his sleeps and he no longer startles, and seems so much more content and settled in his sleep.

I should, however, point out a couple of things about how we swaddle him. My knowledgeable mother-in-law, a retired GP, pointed out an edition of Inside Health she heard on Radio 4 which documented some potential side-effects of swaddling, namely that it can stop the hip joints forming properly because their legs are pulled together, and this can cause hip dysplasia later in life. You can read the transcript of the programme here. Starting to swaddle from 8 weeks is also a little late in the day, particularly because at this stage babies like to bring their fists up to their mouths and suck on them. So what we do with Alec is kind of a 'loose swaddle'. His legs are free to move and kick about at the bottom, which he likes very much (and as well as the hip benefits, I think it also helps him get rid of his wind) and his arms aren't pinned by his sides - they are inside the swaddle so he is cosy and doesn't startle himself, but he can bring his hands up to his mouth. Finally, we bought a proper swaddling blanket, the classic Miracle Blanket, since our hapless attempts with a normal blanket weren't doing the trick. We will probably need to stop swaddling him around the 16 weeks mark, but by then they have more or less lost their startle reflex so with luck we shouldn't need it any more.

And that, folks, is our recipe for a Happy Baby.