On The Bridge (T)

Pen Portraits (T)

When I was a kid I used to avidly read the cricket year books, which would describe each player with a written, 'pen portrait', including statistics. Here's a round up of our troops:


Sebastian: is sitting up unassisted and eating rusks, sometimes at the same time. Age: 7 months. Teeth: 2.5 Weight: 8.4 kilos.

Edmund: turned around the other day, and walked towards me, overwhelmed by his emotions, and said "Dad, Eddie loves you." Pretty nice, huh. He followed up the next night saying to Anita, "Mum, I love TV. I love it".
Age: 28 months. Teeth: lots. Weight: 13 kilos.

Life in Port (T)

A photo of Grandma and Eddie enjoying the puddles that formed at the back of the house after a solid few days of rain - the only rain we've had in the time here. We've also celebrated A Nancy and A Lucy's birthdays, visited the beach, and been visited by Ed.

Birth Order (T)

Seb is such as calm, pleasant and contented little baby, he follows with warm and shining eyes any adult in his vicinity, and to give him attention is to recieve a huge smile of afirmation. It is as if any attention he has is a bonus, as he grows up in the shadow of his older brother. It makes you think about 'number two' child and the differences with 'number one'.


Though my father maintains that according to psychology, only being first born has any predictive power in life outcomes. Nevertheless, at the dinner table, birth order is a recurrent theme, and not solely due to positions taken out of vested interests (number twos are so stable and well adjusted), regardless of who is at dinner, the subject never fails to generate enthusiasm. I'm sometimes struck that there seem to be no special words in English for second or third born; perhaps there are.

Grandma (T)

I think for my mother, the perfect world would be to live in a small, pretty English village with frequent unexplained violent murders, to test her detective skills. Caring for her children and now her grandchildren, though, must be a pretty close second.

Here she's helping fire up the steam engine for Eddie's amusement, and stopping work on her Bayeaux Tapestry to read the boys stories.

Homecoming (T)

Thursday is homecoming day; in Eddie's imagination I get off the plane after being airborne for 3 days.