Where were we?
Still here.
Where should we have been
After five lovely days in St Petersburg, where we celebrated Lucy’s birthday, we got a very late overnight train to Moscow, arriving early on Wednesday morning. We’ve had a great few days in Moscow, visiting friends and Harriet has bored everyone rigid visiting old haunts and talking about things she did here as a student over twenty years ago and how it was all very different then. (But it was). We had a fantastic Georgian meal too. We leave on Sunday on our first epic train journey.
What did we really do?
Lucy’s Birthday
On Tuesday we acquired a teenager! Any other parents will understand that your children’s constant insistence on getting older is, despite everything, always a surprise. And just like that Lucy is suddenly 13.
It obviously wasn’t the day we had planned, but it was, we think, a good day nonetheless. We broadly stuck to the routine, but with more food and less exercise (we are aware that that’s not how it’s supposed to work).
Lucy chose our walking route, and Magnus very grown-up-ly didn’t object, though he wanted to. We did some birthday learning, with poems and acrostics about Lucy. Aurora wrote her a coded message (although given the date it wasn’t enormously difficult to decipher). Lunch had the bonus treat of a pudding, cobbled together from a tin of pears (still in date) we found in the cupboard, some ice cream and the caramel sauce Ben had bought in the hope it would substitute for golden syrup (it won’t).
More Harry Potter in the afternoon, and then a long chat for the birthday girl with her friends before a special birthday treat of no circuits. Then more chats with family in the UK before cocktails, a barbecue (as mostly requested by Aurora), marshmallows, singing and cake.
Then a family film. We all started to watch The Hate U Give, which was Lucy’s choice of film, as she’d read the book. Magnus gave up fairly quickly (it’s a 12 so that was perhaps to be expected) but the rest of us enjoyed it and it has given rise to some interesting conversations with the girls on our walks over the next couple of days.
All in all, hopefully not the worst way to turn 13. And at least she probably got a better night’s sleep than she would have done on the 11.52 departure from St Petersburg to Moscow.
And the rest
Harriet learned the difference between a cowslip and an oxslip. This was exciting for her but no-one else.
Lots of parcels arrived- many for Lucy but also randomly, unexpectedly and generously from friends, and Ben’s long awaited t-shirts. He’d bought Harriet one too. It is worryingly appropriate for present activities. As is Ben’s. Sadly.
Ben had a horrid trip down the hill to the DIY shop to buy the wherewithal to sand and re-varnish the front door. He got most of what he wanted but came back unenthusiastic about any further shopping trips.
The beech trees are coming into leaf, and at a distance the uniform dark blue-green of the pines is now interspersed with acid brightness. Close up they flash in patches of light that make the woods look pixilated.
We met – at a safe social distance – a very nice Anglo-French couple. Ben was particularly delighted that they didn’t spot he wasn’t French for the first five minutes of chat.
We did round two of our quiz with friends in Yorkshire. Sophie and Lucy tied for first place and after a nail-biting tie-breaker (How many rooms in Buckingham Palace?), Lucy was declared the winner. Useful lessons on many levels (and none about Her Majesty’s interior decor).
The trivial pursuit score stands at 8:4. Harriet remains in the lead.
Magnus has started reading to his cousin by video link. The book of choice is Bad Dad by David Walliams. They both seem to be enjoying it…
Ben discovered a new app which told him about a walk we hadn’t yet been on. It appeared to be well within our 1 kilometre radius and doable within our hour time limit. One of those things was true. The children preferred the downhill to the up.
Our photo completion was selfies. It was utterly hilarious but proved that we are very definitely two different generations.
We met all sorts of interesting creatures: an adder, some stunning lizards, massive beetles, and the mouflon again. She’s now six weeks old.
In further generation-gap news, we had an Instagram related incident. It turns out that the lure of more followers is greater than the fear of breaking the “don’t let anyone who you don’t know in real life follow you” rule. No actual harm was done, but words were had. Whether we yet understand each other’s motivations, hopes and fears is still to be seen.
We all watched Star Wars Episode IX. Magnus thought it was amazing. The rest of us are pleased to be able to say we’ve seen it.
We were interviewed by the Border Telegraph. We wait with bated breath to see what they say about us. We should hit the newsstands next Wednesday or possibly the one after. No news from the BBC though.
We had fun with dandelion clocks. Sorry, gardeners of the Chartreuse.
We discovered, somewhat to our horror, that two of our children don’t know where half the places we’ve visited are (“Is that the capital of Vienna?”). Some fairly intensive geography/recapping is planned.
When asked to write about our time in Amsterdam (capital of the Netherlands, if you’re wondering), Sophie came up with: As long as your mother doesn’t make you a salad sandwich with butter in it, it is a wonderful, inspiring city with lots to do.
Ben took on the jelly baby jigsaw and won.
How was it?
Good bits
Lucy: My birthday, especially talking to my friends. I got some really nice books that I’m really enjoying. I have enjoyed reading to Sophie and Aurora.
Painting rocks has been fun, and I want to do a llama and a turtle soon.
Meeting a real mouflon was a treat, though it didn’t look at us in a trusting fashion, I think because it had only come into human society when people didn’t talk to each other.
Because I am 13, I can now access YouTube, which is great, though I haven’t seen it all yet.
I enjoyed winning the quiz.
Sophie: I liked watching The Hate U Give – it’s a really good film. I also liked being the person who spotted the snake.
I loved Lucy’s birthday because we did lots of fun stuff. The marshmallows, Aurora’s face when she broke her cocktail glass,
I had fun facetiming my good friend.
Ben: Lucy’s birthday was a great pleasure, and I hope and think she enjoyed it too. I don’t think it mattered that some of the presents had not arrived, indeed some still haven’t, and the arrivals later in the week were nice too. The Hate U Give was easily the best film we have watched together since the trip started (Star Wars 9 was pants).
Our long walk was lovely, despite being too long by 14 minutes, with views I have never seen, and great fauna too.
I have not laughed as much as during our selfie photo competition day for a long time, which was very welcome.
It is nice to finally have a new t-shirt too.
Aurora: Lucy’s birthday was awesome. I just liked making the mocktails – I crushed the ice, and was taster. I’d been waiting to have marshmallows for about 100 years, and they were finished in, like, 5 days.
I liked both the movies, although in Star Wars loads of dead people came alive and it was really weird. The Hate U Give was really good. I liked it.
Magnus: Lucy’s birthday was probably the best thing that happened this week because of the cake, chocolate and burgers. Star Wars was good.
Harriet: This remains a beautiful place to be. Lucy’s birthday was good fun and we had a lovely meal together. It was incredibly touching that so many friends and family made the effort to make it special for her. Our walks continue to be the highlight of my day. My crochet is coming on very nicely.
Bad bits:
Magnus (very reluctantly): This blog post. It’s so boring. I want to go home because home is much better. Our house is much better because it’s got a bigger garden we can run around in. This garden is just flowers.
Aurora: Duplo, still.
It’s really hard not bickering with Lucy and Magnus, but I really want Tiktok. If I don’t bicker with them for two weeks, I can have Tiktok. I’m up to 5 days, and I hate it because it’s so difficult.
I didn’t like the big walk – Sophie kept whinging.
Geography was just so annoying. I just can’t get it.
Harriet: I think I have generally found this week easier (famous last words). Of course neither travelling nor lockdown means that “ordinary” parenting stops and with a new teenage and two pre-teen girls in the house we have many moments. Education has been the top worry this week, along with the near-constant, low-level bickering. I don’t cope with either very well, but am trying to take a long view. I find it very hard, when the children are in a bad mood, to work out whether this is a symptom of a real underlying unhappiness that needs properly to be addressed, or just a momentary grumpiness that will pass long before I’ve managed to get over the mood of gloom it has introduced to the house.
Sophie: I’m missing my friends a lot, and I didn’t like the big steep walk. I don’t like when we fight.
Lucy: We have run out of yellow paint, which makes rock painting more difficult, especially when I want to do an Easter chick for someone.
Ben: My moods have veered between acceptance and some fairly low moments.
I think I’ve not been the best parent or husband I can be this week, which doesn’t fill me with pride.
The trip to the DIY store was stressful in ways I had not expected. I’m not a natural DIY person (more of a YDI person, really), so that didn’t help, but there was 5-person-only in the shop policy, with a large queue outside (politely) awaiting the one-in-one-out. Lots of face masks, no poster or acrylic paint, and a failed credit card transaction which then showed up as paid twice (all ok now), then a trip to a supermarket which doesn’t exist anymore, and I came home lower than (I) expected.
After the realisation that at least two of us couldn’t name the capital of Belgium, didn’t know the difference between a continent and a country, could in no way accurately describe where we had been, and more importantly didn’t appear to care, I had a couple of sleepless nights worrying about our children’s education – past, present and future – before taking some steps to remedy bits of this. They now know the capital of Belgium, which is a step in the right direction.
How are the tadpoles?
Eating each other. Although we had read about this it was quite disturbing to see.
The two groups in the bird bath are much fewer in number than they were – and we actually spotted them mid-munch earlier this week. The outside sink crew are still very numerous so I am wondering if the “right thing” to do is to release some of them into the wild. We can’t take them back to where we found them as it is beyond our permitted area, but we have identified a suitable puddle. Hmm. The responsibility is weighing on us.
No legs yet either.
What did we eat? How much plastic did we use?
Cake. Lots of cake. And burgers and millionaire’s shortbread (condensed milk in France comes in a tube) and marshmallows. Ice cream “sundaes” too.
We had cocktails and champagne as well (if you can’t drink champagne when your eldest child turns 13, when can you?)
Plus the usual round of veggie curries and tagines, croissants and pasta. Oh and cheese.
What’s next?
More of the same, probably.
I like the way you have trained the tadpoles to create a quizzical human face. Do they do other expressions too? But maybe it’s the stress of your hothousing that is causing them to eat each other.
“the stress of your hothousing that is causing them to eat each other.” We’re still talking about the tadpoles, right?