Time for a few more of baby’s first…
- …trains! Appropriately enough, his first outing was on our local Windrush line as we made our way to Maria’s 70th birthday party (and north of the river!) via Overground. Awkwardly, some unexpected delays on the way back led to the antique Bakerloo line becoming his inaugural Tube journey, which Josh will be gleeful about. He’s also ticked off the Mildmay, Jubilee, District, Central and Southern trains in the course of a very special visit to his great-grandmother and an amazing lunch hosted by Tash & Cormac in Leyton.
- …pub! Allegedly, young people are turning against pubs, so we’ve tried to buck the trend by having dinner in the very family-friendly Perry Hill pub nearby. (I mean, it’s so family-friendly that there were also tables of older children doing some organised pumpkin carving for Halloween.) Together with Randi’s family, we also discovered another lovely pub just off Peckham Rye Park after a long weekend walk.
- …Halloween! Randi got into the festive spirit by buying him two separate pumpkin-themed outfits, which were very cute during their brief outings before he needed changing again. Meanwhile, I discovered that buying Jaffa Cakes is an absolute winning formula for trick-or-treaters. “I really want to take them even though I can’t eat them!”, said one girl. So this is basically a mental note for next year to buy more Jaffa Cakes.
Over the last month we’ve continued to have a stream of visitors, which has been really nice. Our son has now officially met all of his aunts and uncles, plus:
- Randi’s colleague Dan and his family (who came a long way for a short visit!)
- Kira, who empathises with a newborn’s existential questions
- Kirsty and Roger and the enormous picnic of dreams
- The Three As for brunch and a stroll around Mayow Park
- Cat and Brian, who were happily in the country on a work trip and made a flying visit to see us!
We also had our NCT group over at ours one Sunday morning, which was lots of fun (especially when our instructor forced us to line up all the babies on the sofa for a photo) and also a great excuse to start eating the incredible inscribed macaroons which Troy sent us. Thank you!
Otherwise, we’ve also been doing… lots of paperwork. We had to wait a while for Lambeth’s next available slot to get his birth certificate, which was the critical piece of paper needed to unlock all of the others. But props to the lovely woman who registered him in a surprisingly pleasant civic building, who also provided a cute “Born in Lambeth” lamb-themed pun-tastic baby vest (free when you purchase 4 certificates!) and a superb piece of British socialisation:
“Do you need to see our marriage certificate?” I asked, because fathers are only allowed to register a birth solo if they are married to the mother.
“No, it’s OK!”
“Oh… I just wasn’t sure how you’d actually know we were married…?”
“Well, you can’t lie to the government!”
“But I’m pretty sure people do though?”
“Well yes… but that’s a crime!”
It also makes me chuckle that my place of birth is listed as ‘Westminster’ (per my own birth certificate) whereas Randi is simply put down as ‘United States of America’.
In non-baby news, we’ve also resumed our quest to work through the entire Jet Lag back catalogue – just one more season to go now! – and, in possibly one of the sadder moments of our lives, decided we’d watched too many episodes of Location Location Location and so pushed the boat out by trying Location Location Location Australia. (Not quite as good, but still very compelling. And you get to see those famous on-the-street house auctions which Kim told us about!)
Shortly after going back to work our department also had a series of in-person meetings, which meant I finally got to meet our teammate Bala after six years of working together! There was also a delicious evening at Inca London, which I’m mostly writing down so that I remember to return here for Peruvian food with Randi someday. Assuming we can find a babysitter, of course…
