Little man, big social life
It’s a big week for young Jasper. His granny Marina (aka Yaya), who has
been on holiday for several months, returned on Monday.
She’s not seen him since just after new year, so you can imagine the excitement over his development since then.
When she left, he was just about crawling. Self-feeding, walking, his obsession with being read aloud to, the large, antique-style glass lamp she loaned to us that Jasper pulled over and destroyed… There’s a lot of catching up for her to do!
Meanwhile, we are having fun playing host to Richard and his daughter Sophie, friends from England. Richard’s got three kids, so nothing surprises or fazes him, and he’s a reliable person to hand JD off to while I’m working. Sophie is very cute around the baby: she’s ten now, but I can still remember when she was Jasper’s age. Time flies.
Talking of flies, both Richard and I are suffering after what seemed like a pleasant enough walk to the British car show on Sunday. Various parts of our anatomies have had chunks bitten out of them by mosquitoes and blackflies; the humid nights are not helped by itchy welts.
So far, the little man doesn’t seem to be pestered by insects the way I am. Hopefully he’s inherited his mother’s knack for missing the worst of the bites, and sitting implacably while I swipe away at clouds of the little ‘buggers’. I guess foreign food makes a change for biting critters the way it does for humans.
Jasper, as usual when we have house guests, seems to regard Richard and Sophie as strange, but perfectly acceptable, members of the family. I’m sure he can tell the difference between his parents and our friends; he doesn’t fuss when Richard leaves the room the way he does if Carolina or I dare to.
Having friends in from England always makes me a little homesick. Richard and I go back more than 15 years: many of my happiest times as an adult were spent in his company. One of the leisure activities he introduced me to was open-air classical music.
British stately homes open their grounds each year to the public and host concerts, starting with a picnic to light jazz, and end hours later with fireworks, usually to the 1812 Overture or a similar crescendo.
Just as well they don’t host them in Canada, or 1812 would be the number of puncture wounds! Sleep well.
