Hopscotch

Last night Vera and I went for our usual walk to the school ground and this time we explored a different part of the play ground. We also met our new friend, a black and white cat, and both Vera and the cat are getting braver, less shouting and running away and more stroking. Sweet!

There's a Hopscotch outline on the ground in the playground, so me, re-living my childhood, was happily jumping and trying it out. To Vera's big amusement as there was a big belly laugh from her every time I jumped. I must either be looking very funny, or she's never seen me do it before!

In other news, Vera is going to move to a new room at nursery, to the Roo room, with the bigger children. Apparently most of her friends and contemparies have already transitioned.
After the initial shock that my baby is too big for the baby room, I think it will be really good for her! More outdoor activities, games, reading and learning. The transition will start off by a couple of visits and then joining in more and more. They think it will take around 2-3 weeks, but obviously depends on the individual child.

In clarification to my account of the bed time routine, it's worth saying that all the "let's go to bed Vera" etc , I say in Swedish (as I only speak Swedish to her) and Mark in English and she seems to understand both equally well. The brain is a wonderful thing isn't it!

End of September

The days tick along and we continue with our routine. Babbling, reading books and evening walks. She's much more confident on her feet now, well practice makes perfect!

Last night we walked up to the local Stapleford Primary School (it's literally up our street so not very far), walked around the school ground and up to the local playing fields.

She understands so much now. We say,, "Come on Vera, time for bath" and she goes over to the stairs, wait there until we have opened the stair gate and "crawls" up the stairs.

At bed time, after her bottle, when we say "Vera bed time", she walks over to Mark to give him a good night kiss, then goes up the stairs to the toilet so that we can brush her teeth and then wanders  into her room, where she stands by her cot bed with her arms streched up ready to go to bed! We then make sure she's snuggled up with all her toys, kiss and say good night, close the door and then she sleeps happily to 7:15-7:30 the next morning.

We are very spoilt and lucky to have such little issues (for now!!) with the evening routine and sleeping.

On the food front, we had this yesterday:

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/7189/lemon-cod-with-basil-bean-mash

Highly recommended: quick, healthy and very tasty!

Walking to nursery, Wednesday morning

Exploration

New Boots

A rainy day (illustrated by the snail below). Vera, Mark and I went into town in the morning to John Lewis to buy winter boots for Vera. We had her feet measured to make sure we got the right size. She's just over 20, but we went for size 22 to make sure they last through the winter.

The measuring went well, but Vera was screaming when we tried on the boots. I guess it was a weird feeling at first. Now she loves them and did not want to take them off all  night.

After the shoe purchase we went to Carluccio's for lunch, a very family and child friendly restaurant. Vera had grissini, chicken and rosemary potatoes and some orange juice. We normally dont give her any juice or sweet drinks, so she was knocking it back. I'm not naive, I know there will be a time when she will be more and more exposed to sweet drinks, just trying to prolong it as long as possible. She interestingly refused her ice cream.

When we left it was raining more and the restaurant and Grand Arcade were mobbed. We swiftly made our exit and drove home.

We've had a chilled afternoon and our obligatory walk inbetween the showers. Vera yelling at another cat  ("kaaaa") and checking out the neighbourhood.

Back to reality tomorrow...and only one week until I'm off to Singapore

Ponies and Geese

All is well in the Collins household. Busy week, another night out for me, this time with SWEA. I'm not officially a member anymore, but a few Swedish women and I meet for dinner on a semi-regular basis and it's always great to get a chance to speak Swedish. Also, since quite a few of them have children now, we're facing the same challenges with bi-linguaism, so great to swap experiences and learn from each other.

Vera and I have continued our walks and last night she shouted at some horses at the end of our street as well as a cat. She gets very excited by animals!

She continues to have a great time at nursery and eats well. She loves reading and in the Piglets room they have a little den with sheep skin and lots of books and she crawls in there and sits enjoying all the books.
They have asked us to bring in Swedish books (with hints on pronounciation) and they will read them to her.
She has a favourite book at nursery: "Who are you baby kangaroo", and on Friday she had walked up to each of the staff members, one by one, and got them to read the book to her. When she had worked through them all, she had wandered over to the babies and "read" the book to them!

Today the weather is gorgeous so we walked through the allotments to the playground, went on the swings and watched some of the junior football matches that took place on the green.

After lunch we went for a drive and then to the Gog Magog farm shop where Vera had a great time saying hello to the mini ponies, the geese and the turkeys. This was followed by coffee outside. Gorgeous!
Bought some cream, olives and free range eggs in the shop and now I'm enjoying cooking beef with a celeriac duphnois (rotsellerigratin). Sounds very pretentious, but have always wanted to try celeriac after seeing it on countless cookery shows.

Have a lovely weekend!

Stubbe

Contemplation...

Evening Walks

Busy days here and cool, crisp autumn days. Work is keeping me occupied - doing phone interviews with Singapore and going out there on 30th September for 5 days. Also we're moving offices on Friday afternppn so it's chaos here with removal crates and confused engineers everywhere :-)

I met up with the NCT mums last night in Las Iguanas in Cambridge. It was so great to see everyone and also cool to taste Brazilian fodd, never had that before!

Vera is developing at break neck speed. She chats away all the time and points at various things. Loooves her walks, so every night after dinner we go for an evening stroll. The world is a big and wonderful place to explore!

House work

A quiet weekend, focused on house work. Things to sort out after Mallorca and other bits and pieces as well as a thorough clean (thanks Mark!). I've got into autumn mode and have made spicy butternut squash soup

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/5302/spicy-butternut-squash-soup

It was a tad too spicy with a whole chili, so today we added some creme fraiche. I have also managed to source some fresh yeast (eBay out of all places!) so have been practiced some more baking. To top off the autumn mood, we finished with a Guinness stew:
http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/beef-recipes/beef-ale-stew-1
yummie!

Vera has been on good form all weekend, she loves her books and walking.
Last evening I got the hint when she came carrying her socks and shoes. It was time for an evening walk!
We walked up the street and checked out the local allotments and where we also managed to meet a nice cat, to Vera's sheer delight! There were many pit stops of course and dragging her away from our neighbours gravelled drives.

Another buys day today, but we managed to get out for a bit for a walk around Byron's Pool.
http://www.visitcambridge.org/things-to-do/byrons-pool-local-nature-reserve-p508261
Vera walked all the way and met three dogs en route. We popped into Grantchester Meadows for coffee and a scone afterwards. Very tasty according to our little lady!

New coat

Today we tried on Vera's new autumn coat (thank you mormor and morfar!) and some jeans that now fit her. She was very happy during her walk to nursery as you can see, with maaaany detours to check out gravel, plants, grass & falling over. But that's part of learning, growing up and exploring the world!

Speedy Food

Those of you who know me well, know that I am slightly obsessed about food and cooking. I like nothing better than pottering about in the kitchen at weekends and cook and more recently bake bread.

The challenge I/we have during the week is that we need good food, on the table, ideally in 20-30 minutes after we're through the door. Hence the title of this blog post!

Vera needs food straight away, she is one impatient lady! so we usually have something prepared/quick for her (tonight it's home made fish cakes)

I'm trying to prepare food for the week on Sundays, and at least plan a menu if possible, but it's challenging!
I'll be trialling a few new recipes, cooked ahead and speedy cookin, going forward and may share some of them here.

If any of you have any suggestions, they will be very gratefully received!

Last night Mark and I had a speedy, spicy stir fry.
I used this recipe as inspiration:
http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/764645/spicy-mushroom-and-broccoli-noodles

but basically swapped everything round! :-)
I used chicken instead of mushrooms, one fresh red chili instead of flakes and we had rice with it, but very tasty all the same! 10-15 minutes, can't complain!

Autumn chill - Mallorca memories

There was a bit of an autumn chill in the air this morning, when Vera bravely and stubbornly walked the 150-200 metres from the car park to the nursery and checked out all the plants along the way. They're doing an extension to the nursery, so the normal car park is closed...

In any case, what better reason to think back of the wonderful holiday we've had in Mallorca!

We flew in on Saturday 1st September, via a detour/pit stop in Ibiza for 90 minutes (as you do!). We took a taxi to Nova Santa Ponsa/Port Adriano where we were staying. As we were told that shops were closed on Sundays, the first thing we did once we got there was to speedwalk to the local Spar to stock up on supplies.

Later that evening my mum & dad, Vera's mormor and morfar, arrived and a bit later still, Catrine, Magnus and Vera's cousins Åke and Folke!
Late night for the kiddies but absolutely brilliant to catch up with everyone!
In the days that followed we have enjoyed the beach, the gorgeous pool that was close to the apartment as well as lots of gorgous food and just hanging out together!

On Tuesday the 4th we celebrated morfar Jean turning 70, with cake, tapas in Port Adriano, bubbly and the first of many BBQs!

On Saturday night we got more things to celebrate as Magnus proposed to Catrine! We are so, so happy and delighted for them!

Vera on the beach in Port Adriano
http://www.portadriano.com/en/

The Collins family in Port d'Andratx.

Lunch in Rocamar, Vera tasted mormor and morfar's stunning Paella (best in town according to some wealthy Germans at the table next to us!)

Cousin Folke, watching Pippi - a firm favourite with all the gang!

 Åke

 The Skoglund-Collins cousins

 Mormor, morfar and their barnbarn (grandchildren)

 Vera and her favourite red summer sandals. She is turning into quite the little girl and loved wearing her sandals and walking around!

 in the little garden outside the apartment, Vera wearing her lovely summer dress from Nana Olivia

Back!

We're back in Cambridge since Monday afternoon, after a wonderful holiday with great surprises! I will write a lengthier blog post shortly.
Work has been very busy since we got back, but we quickly got back into our routies.
vera has become even more independent after our holiday and absolutely insists on feeding herself. Here she is last night enjoying Spaghetti Bolognese and youghurt

She's been sleeping well after some very active days, walking everywhere!

Please check out Vera's Facebook page for some holiday snaps before I get a chance to post them here