Littlest: Eight Months

Dear heart,

The time is just racing by and you are getting so large (in a small kind of way!) and so very much yourself. Each day that goes by you seem more entirely you and we are even more besottted. The way you carefully observe before your smile slowly blooms, your great determination, the complete joy and delight you take in your siblings, almost matched by your wariness, the way you're always craning around my shoulder to see more, your great delight in people and play.

Your colouring is very pale and pearly, your large eyes an indeterminate shade of dark blue and grey with flecks of this and that thrown in, your skin pale and opalescent, always gently catching the light, your hair still waiting to make up its mind and blond or darken.

I didn't actually believe it was possible for you to become more beautiful and even more loveable, but each day you seem to grow more endearing. The way you curl your toes, the way you reach up to be held, the way you say 'mummmm' and 'dadddd' and that amazing deep gurgle giggle. The way when I pick you up, you immediately cuddle into my neck, content, leaving behind all crying instantly.

As usual, this post is a little late. You turned eight months the day we left the United Kingdom for the continent, almost two weeks ago now. (A bad move, to be honest, although in my opinion leaving Scotland was a Bad Move, so the further Southerly trend was just bad on bad, although I could be biased due to illness. Although in theory, and my over active imagination, seeing more cities since we were over there, was a Good Idea, when it came to leave Scotland I was in tears - so many people we hadn't managed to see, so many places we hadn't managed to go. Leaving the continent I was also in tears - but of sheer relief to be going home!)

As usual, you travelled brilliantly - the only one of us that did! While you rebel against being put in your car seat (me, kept captive, again? I think not! seems to be your general thought) you adore planes - mainly because of the scope of people to smile at. While you are still very much in your "I-need-my-mummy" phase, you do love smiling at strangers from the safety of my arms. You believe air stewards are put there purely for you to grin at and you could always be settled by showing you all the people on the plane. If you can believe it, some philistines did not smile back. (They could have been a bit weary from the antics of your brother and sister…)

You have seen snow. You have seen snow fall (briefly!) While from here on you're going to be a daughter of the tropics, you have seen snow fall.

You learnt to crawl in Scotland, my darling. As your Grandpa says, that means you're practically entitled to represent Scotland in the Olympics. (Let's hope you get your daddy's sporting ability!)
And… you had your first Christmas. Not a white one - but it was chilly, and it was in Scotland and we did rug you up warm and you did see a castle! It was lovely seeing five little stockings lined up, our little family complete.

You suddenly went from not many toys to a superabundance! (Many with a Scottish theme, Edinburgh Counting Board Book anyone… One Castle etc... (And that's not going into things picked up later in other places… but the travel is boring and you're suddenly at the stage where you like toys!)

We did not get to see as many of our Scottish relatives as I had hoped - the mastitis I traveled over with, on top of all the illness before that, knocked me around a lot, and we were slow getting our phones organised - alright, we never actually got them organised - they routed back through Australia. But you did see your Great Great Aunty, and while she didn't have a clue who any of us were, she did love holding you and playing with you. This was the first time I've been over since your Great Granny and Pappy died, and it was very hard being there without them, although even last visit your Granny's dementia meant she hadn't recognised me, but she'd loved holding your brother, a little one year old then.

I've been carrying you in your new winter carrier, my little-bundle-of-close-held-warmth, and while you don't like getting it on, you do have a tendency to fall asleep as soon as it is on, and it keeps us both snugly warm. And I love having you so close. I love feeling your breathing, resting my cheek against the softness of your hair, holding your hand or little feet (your shoes just refused to stay on, even putting hair bands on them - thank goodness for tights and layers! And they were such gorgeous little shoes!) Dressing you in cold-weather gear has been a constant delight - finally getting to play dress-ups with all the soft-as-soft hats, faux fur vests, velvet dresses, mini-coats and merino bodysuits was so much fun. I'm already looking forward to going back down to Victoria in the winter and hoping as least some still fit!

Your brother came over to me yesterday as I was feeding you and said "I'm glad we have Littlest. Now I have two sisters." Frown. "It's a lot of responsibility." (You have a habit of grabbing his hair, or crawling up to sink your two little teeth into his foot to get his attention, then grinning, so he knows we need to teach you to be a well behaved baby who strokes, not pulls, kisses not bites.)
And it is a lot of responsibility, but we love you so!

Moments of Magic…

Loch Lomond was a revelation of wonder.  Driving (slowly and with terror) around the narrow, twisty-turny road alongside the silvered water, the slopes beside us covered in velvet green moss, bracken vividly green and brown, rounded stones and fallen tree trunks easing by, forests of ancient trees and falls of darks striated stone and the mountains lost in cloud opposite, I was caught in awe. Ideas for stories rushed and changed and reformed.

The last time I came this way I believe I was eighteen and hung over from going out to my first ever Grow Ups nightclub the night before. My memories are of a dreamlike tiredness and restful green.

Family history tells me that after coming to Europe to train during the first World War my Great Grandfather looked up distant relatives in Scotland, took one look at young Constance Keil and decided she was The One.

"Will you come to Loch Lomond with me?" are supposed to have been his first words. We have photos of her, laughing and entrancing, holding the oars in a small wooden boat on the Loch.

We drove further, searching out snow, and beside Loch Tay the sign for the crannog had me yelping. "We have to stop! We have to stop!" Months earlier I'd looked it up and saw it closed for the winter… but I lived in hope. The sight of it, mist surrounding, sitting so still and at home upon the Loch brought deep happiness. The mist surrounding, the hills beyond.

I could see my characters crossing the wooden bridge from land, see them ducking their head as they came out into the open. I see four white swans wheel down through the grey mist to land on the grey waters around. For three hundred years I have characters of mine live in a crannog in Ireland (they were of the old and magical sort) and it was deeply stirring to see a real one.

When, shortly later, passing an unnamed Loch containing an unnamed islet of firs, its banks frosted and iced, white swans gliding sedately, I squealed. The car was stopped, we loaded out, and as I exclaimed over the swans, large flakes of snow began to fall around us.

Happy, happy happy dance.


(It is New Years Day now, London. I write in the pre-dawn darkness, the sky dark and pinkish. The children and Beloved still asleep in the dark room. A new year starts and I consider the moments of wonder, the moments of magic…)

52/52

My little ones in Edinburgh. Sprocket with his Pictish warrior paint (in texta, luckily washable), Littlest (AKA Hoggles) with the 'Hairy Coo' (or Highland Cow) hat and Poppet with her 'magic amulet' (just out of view).

We're in London now, just about to bring in the New Year. My Beloved and Littlest and I have spent the day wandering around the British Museum and Bloomsbury while the older two are at the Zoo with The Grands.

So Happy New Year everyone! May 2015 bring you all love, joy, health and happiness!

Joining with Jodi for the very last portraits of my wee ones for 2014.

Here's to all the promise and possibility and those amazing moments of magic for 2015...

Winter Wonderland

 We drove in and out of weeks and all through the long day, one eye on the thermostat another on the frosted hills. The temperature sank to two below and we were so keen, so tautly eager for snow. We passed deeply, vividly green moss and fog hung low over silvered lochs and finally, just as the sun set we reached the Cairngorms and slopes of snow.

And it was magical.

Stone, Sea, Sky (and a lot of memories)

My grandfather's grandfather was born in 1830 in Kennthmont, Aberdeenshire, and my grandfather and grandmother returned to Aberdeen for seven years when I was little. When I was seven we lived with them for a year in Old Aberdeen, where the streets were cobblestone, and St Machar's cathedral was only a few houses away.

The feel of ancient stone surrounding, the weight of history, is something I'll never forget, although at the time I claimed Aberdeen was too grey, too cold and too full of daffodils. It takes a child of the antipodes awhile to become accustomed to the light (or lack thereof) of Scotland.

My grandfather was a professor of church history, as well as a minister, so on the weekends when we ventured out on our expeditions to cathedrals and churches he always made it feel so immediate and so alive. I vividly remember him taking my brother and I on the train down from Aberdeen to St Andrews to see the cathedral and castle.

As we explore the hewn stones I see my seven year old self running along side my children, hear my grandfather's gentle voice explaining, the landscape, the history. I remembered where the tunnel under the castle is, where the bottle dungeon is. Thirty years on, my weight thrown by baby and camera I am not so keen to venture into the mine and countermine beneath the castle wall, but I love the kids excitement

Later, my brother went to St Andrews for a year exchange and I see us talking, catching up  as we walk along, just on the cusp of our twenties and so excited and joy filled to be there. My brother started a group called 'the once a week' group and they went swimming every single week of the year. Just looking at the frigid sea makes me smile, remembering him as he was then, and as he is now, the content family man.

Scents, textures, slants of light, softness of light and depth of colour. Richness of sea smoothed rock, of thick moss, of stone that has protected people from elements for centuries. Silvered sea, muted golden sea. We are here for so short a time I want to remember it all… 

Small Moments (from Edinburgh)

Small moments from Edinburgh as we approach Christmas. I haven't been able to take many photos (for me!) - Littlest in her carrier and holding Poppet's hand and the bag on my back all decrease my camera mobility - but reinforcements have arrived so I'm hoping to capture some of the amazing street-scapes, cathedrals and castles soon.

We are all slowly on the mend so will also start journeying further afield. Yesterday my girls and I ventured to the Georgian house while Sprocket slept off the cold and jet lag. De-touring to an op-shop for some Christmas ornaments we arrived to find… it closed for the season! The shop was open in the basement however so my feet trod the same big paving stones as the servant girls and I entered the way they would have when running their messages. Which is, truthfully, the way I suspect I would have entered if I'd been alive back in the far away!

For lunch the girls and I again ventured out and walked up to my favourite cafe - Henderson's under St John's Cathedral at the foot of the castle (and I was all gusty sighs as I remembered walking past it every day on the way to work back in the day.) We met my darling God-mama and it was so lovely catching up after such a long time. The oceans in between do make things very difficult!

(I am now a few days behind here… and I apologise for the mass of photos… but Edinburgh…! I walk around with my head constantly craning around looking up down and around again!)