Making an Impact

Today we are in Paris, or rather, Parys.

Parys is a small town within the Vredefort Dome. Not, as I thought, a huge stadium, but the valley of the biggest impact crater in the world. Carl studied the Vredefort impact crater for his undergrad thesis, meticulously mapping the whole area and making 3D models. Carl is supposed to have had his name immortalised in the Vredefort museum as he had donated some stuff to it, but sadly the museum project appeared to have run out of funding and hadn't actually opened yet. So Miranda couldn't see her Daddy's claim to fame unfortunately!

It is difficult to tell that we were standing in an inverted 'dome' though. The area is so huge, you can barely see the edges of the impact structure. The small hills in the distance are the first ring, with others behind it forming geological ripples rolling out from the crater. We did find the tiny Parys museum, run by a very enterprising woman who knew very little about the area's geology but wanted to learn and took down as much info as she could from Carl. The museum had everything from Voortrekker costumes and potjiekos pots, to a very early contraption that made stockings, to bits of shattercone rocks from the impact. Who knows, if we come back, there may be Carl's maps on display next time!
The rest of Parys was a friendly little town, with for some reason, more than it's fair share of antique shops! I found a good coffee shop which did a 'Jozi Blend' of African coffees, and Miranda got foam off my cappuccino all round her mouth. I also finally got to try 'bunny chow' which I have been searching for since we got here. It is a spicy lamb stew with veg, but bizarrely, served up inside a hollowed out loaf of bread! Guess what? Miri liked that too - the bread at least.
By a stroke of luck, we found an absolutely brilliant place to stay. We had a bit of trouble because a place we'd looked up on what passes for mobile internet here couldn't take reservations over the phone and we had to email. We then couldn't find it, and asked in the Parys tourist office, who advised us not to stay there anyway but wouldn't say why! Instead, we took a chance and rocked up at a place called Rietpoort cottage. It was perfect! Beautifully decorated and we got the whole cottage to ourselves, but it could sleep up to seven. It was on a working farm, and in the morning we were greeted by a herd of friendly cows and the four farm dogs that accompanied us everywhere - Miranda was completely fascinated!
The weather has been gorgeous, so sunny that Miri woke up at 5.30am and refused to admit it wasn't morning since the sun was streaming into her room. We went for a hike around the rest of the farm grounds that afternoon and it was wonderful just seeing the view and appreciating the sheer amount of space there. I got my feet eaten alive by huge red ants, and I bravely carried Miri around in the sling, covered in kiddy factor 50 suncream and with her daft sun hat falling over her eyes every few minutes. She started whining every time we stopped for a rest: "keep going mum! Come on! Faster!", but by the time we got back to the cottage, she'd nodded off!
That evening, Carl did an excellent braai outside the cottage, watched by the dogs hoping for bits of wors (sausage). Miranda eventually fell asleep again watching the fire after demanding some of the potato salad. The perfect end to an amazing trip!

Johannesburg

Methinks South African grandad is rather fond of Miranda. We are back in Johannesburg staying with Les and Alana for a few days, and they are both doting on her -according to Alana she is the "best baby in Joburg" and Les is taking photos of her every few minutes on his phone. Even the dogs seem to like her! She has had an exciting few days as well. We were so hot and tired when we arrived from Nelspruit that we went for a swim in Alana's pool. Again, this was far too cold for the poor scrap and she yelled, and could only be appeased with the promise of a hot bath later on. Miranda REALLY likes baths. She sploshes about and even swims if it's deep enough, it is indescribably cute! I think she is enjoying this trip, there is so much for her to take in that I worry she is going to be bored when we get home and back to what passes as our routine!
We took her down to Hartebeespoort dam yesterday because there are loads of craft stalls down there and a touristy market. We needed to find a giant wooden giraffe for the Other Grandparents, obviously. Miri was utterly in awe of the craft market - so many colours and strange sights and sounds, and icecream to try and people admiring her. We bought her a mobile made out of banana leaves and Alana treated her to a little pink babygrow with a lovely cute zebra on it.

She has also been eating more strange things. It was Les's birthday on Friday and we took him out for a meal at The Meat Company (what a surprise!). Miri loved it, lots of bright lights, and she tried creamed spinach, mashed potato, the creamy garlic sauce off my (delicious) steak, and a naughty bit of my amarula coffee. You can only wash enormous steaks down with one thing in this country - very good pinotage wine. Miranda's eyes were fixed on everything we ate and drank, she even drooled at Carl's 500g T-bone. She saw Alana's wine glass, and that was it, she WANTED it. Fortunately she hasn't yet got the coordination to actually drink from it, but she did chew the edge of the glass, dribbling happily. It's kind of sad in a way; I love the way she copies us, but she gets frustrated when her hands don't do what she wants them too, and I feel so sorry for her! Alana came to the rescue and took her for a walk around the mall, in a thinly disguised attempt to show her off to some friends she met on route. By the time she came back, Miranda had crashed out asleep on her shoulder.
Les and Alana are thinking of moving back to the UK, specifically Alana's native Newcastle (yep, small world!). Whereas that would be lovely to have them so much closer, I think they might be in for a bit of a shock. One of the most striking things about Joburg is the vast differences between rich and poor here (a division on racial lines as well as economic!). Alana does not like this photo:

this is the view that greets you driving into Joburg from Nelspruit. It is infact the Alexandra township, not an area average Joburgers really want to show off as typical of their city. There are far worse areas too. We went over to see Lindsay, Gerhard and the kids again, and got lost, even with the Satnav. When we saw the turn off to Tembisa, another township, we realised we'd gone too far. Lets just say it was fairly obvious Lindsay didn't live out there.

In stark contrast, we met up with Clive, another old school friend of Carl's, and his new husband Frank at a veryveryvery posh shopping mall to have "brunch". Brunch involved a lot of guacamole for Miranda, quesedillas for us (which they insist on pronouncing "kwes-ed-dill-ers", not "kessed-eeyas") and lots of promises to keep in touch with her new Gay Uncles. It was lovely to see them, but I was half hoping Miri would do another Pootrastophe to help lower the tone in that place! Very posh, very exclusive, expensive and crying out for a good nappy filling session.
Unfortunately, but not unsurprisingly, the crime rate in Johannesburg is shockingly high, and so to maintain shopping centres like this place, or Alana's beautiful and large house, you need a ridiculous amount of security measures. Alana's house has automatic sliding gates with spikes on them, and an "armed response" burglar alarm. Even Lindsay's house had a similar sliding gate topped with razor wire. Their neighbour has a huge rottweiler and a sign on the gate saying "trespassers will be eaten". The whole effect is to make it feel as if they are all living in their own self-made prisons! I find it quite depressing actually, although I can understand why it is necessary - Les and Alana survived a horrific armed robbery recently. If they do come back to Britain, at least they won't have that to deal with. But then again, if they come back, they are not going to be 'rich' anymore, even in Newcastle. I have caught myself thinking it would be lovely fo Miranda to grow up out here; if not Joburg, then maybe somewhere like Nelspruit or Hazyview. It is lovely, if it weren't for the crime rate. Or the snakes.

Full of beans!

I found coffee!! Or rather, a lovely lady called Veronica found me coffee. Carl went to school with Veronica about twenty years ago, and through the wondrous medium that is Facebook, they were able to get back in touch. Veronica is now married and has a son called Joshua and an adopted daughter called Thembi. They live about an hour away from Karen and co in Hazyview, so we toddled off up there to introduce Miranda. I get the impression Carl quite likes showing off his beautiful little daughter!

Veronica had got in touch previously about Sabie Valley Coffee Farm - obviously one look at my Facebook page told her that I am a coffee geek. So far I have been starved of good coffee since I've been here! I had a few at a chain coffee shop called Mug and Bean, which were fairly decent (though on quantity not necessarily quality, I got a "bottomless" cup and drank three while I had the chance!). Karen is convinced it is bad for you and won't drink it, but that could be because she only buys "Frisco" - instant soluable "coffee" with chicory in it. I have braved it on occasion this week just because I am feeling caffeine deficient, but I really wish I hadn't. Yuk. Vile creation.
So, I was really surprised to hear about Sabie Valley, I had no idea South Africa produced any coffee at all! Turns out, they produce a whopping 50 tons a year, if they are lucky. The owner, Tim, didn't say if his was the only coffee farm in the country, but did say that many had given up farming the stuff during the early 90s price crash. Sabie Valley only survived by starting to roast the coffee and open the farm as a tourist attraction. Tim told the same story that I've heard all over the world: that there is no money in growing coffee, all the profit is in roasting and import/export.

The 8 hectares of Sabie coffee are all arabica, and harvesting here takes place between March and May, so of course we missed it, but I did get to show Miranda some baby coffee trees and she tried the strangely sweet fruit. I did try and explain my waste project, and found that, interestingly, they do not use the fruit as fertilizer, as they've found it just attracts too many pests. In all the excitement, I forgot to ask what happened to the water used for washing the coffee. The Sabie river runs through the bottom of the farm, and Veronica had packed us a picnic to have by the river bank. We had all gone swimming in the river too, and Miranda taught us a new word: "gur-yarhur", meaning "It's cooooold!" Poor baby! The water was clean and clear, and I couldn't see any obvious signs of coffee farm run-off, but Veronica warned us not to swallow the water for fear of 'belhalzier' disease. I neither know what that is nor how you spell it but it does not sound fun!

We had gone swimming because it was stinkingly hot, over 30 degrees. Although the roasting room smelled amazing, it proved too hot for poor Miri and Veronica took her outside to play with Thembi. Tim does his own "bushveld" roast, somewhere between medium and dark roast. Of course I had to try it all, and it was good, very earthy and nutty like most of the African coffees I've tried. Carl's favourite. I think I preferred the dark roast though, it had more flavour. I was talking so much as ever, that I never got round to trying the espresso. Doh. Nevertheless, we washed it down with huge slabs of chocolate cake, which Miranda enjoyed a great deal.
I came away having met a new friend in Veronica,  another coffee-geek, 4 bags of beans, slight sunburn, and a very sleepy daughterling. A brilliant day. We even saw a barn owl when we got back to Karen's too!

New Experiences

Yesterday we saw hippos! Shaun took us down to the river ('Crocodile River') that runs through the farm, and there were 17 hippos in a big family group, splopping about in the water and occasionally surfacing to bask in the sun. Magnificently ugly beasts. They definitely knew we were there, and kept eyeballing us from a respectful distance, but were otherwise unbothered. Miranda glowered at them for a while and then decided she wanted feeding. Milk is still far more interesting! This is why I am taking thousands of photos and writing these blog posts - sadly Miri won't remember any of these experiences. It may well be a good thing; the other morning we nearly ran over a huge black mumba snake lying in the road and it reared up at the car!! Freaked me out totally but fortunately Miri remained completely oblivious.

One new experience she is getting to try though is solid food, specifically, South African solid(ish) food. Karen seems to think, at four months, I shouldn't be breastfeeding as much as I do and we should be weaning her. I have noticed that Miranda takes an interest in what we are eating and everything she grabs goes straight in her mouth anyway. And she needs to cut this first tooth that is growing on something, I guess. I think my milk maybe tasting slightly different too: the South African diet is basically meat, meat, more meat, a bit more meat for extras and a portion of meat on the side. All red meat, too though Shaun graciously allowed some chicken (well marinated, of course) on the most recent braai. We are not giving Miranda any meat besides braai-flavoured milk, but we are giving her little bits of our food to try. She liked bits of potato and mayonnaise from potato salad, tiny pieces of tomato, baked beans, banana and yellow rice from when I tried babotie (a Cape Malay dish of a sort of spiced meatloaf with raisins in, topped with an egg custard and served with yellow rice and plaintain - odd but delish!). Of course I know these things aren't good for her, but we gave her such tiny amounts it couldn't do any harm. She seemed VERY keen though!

In the cause of being sensible and healthy, we bought her some 'Purity' first baby foods, as recommended by Lindsay, a vegetable one and a fruit one, and bravely tried to feed her with her favourite green rubber spoon. At first, she was more interested in the spoon and tried to chew it, meaning the orange goo just went straight down her front. But little by little, the vegetable one disappeared over three feeds. The fruit one was not a success, but she still ate a bit of fresh banana too.
Karen took us to the nut factory, where they process all the locally grown nuts and some fruits. The factory shop sells huge bags of the things very cheaply, so we stocked up. I got a big bag of dried fruit - apricots, apple slices, peach halves etc to try Miranda with. A few pieces of apple disappeared and then she got very very attached to a slice of peach, just sucking on it and producing copious amounts of orange drool. We wandered round this little place with lots of craft shops and a winery, and I bought her a handmade cuddly warthog. We sat down to have some lunch and the floodgates suddenly opened. Too much dried fruit and vegetable goo on a little stomach adapted to a milk-only diet does not produce pretty results!! Two explosive, brown lumpy nappies in quick succession... Ew ew ewww. Worse, the apple appeared to have gone straight through her, whole and undigested. Sign enough, we think, that maybe poor baby isn't quite ready for solid foods. However, the look of pride and satisfaction on her face after filling those nappies was priceless!

Billingualism

Miranda was born in Darlington, Co. Durham, to parents born in Sheffield and Wakefield. This makes her a genuine northerner. I am very proud of this. However, I really hope she doesn't end up with a Darlo accent!
I can't decide if i'd prefer that to her having a South African accent though, not that that is really likely. I just cannot get used to it. Carl's dad has this strange combination of Yorkshire with a strong Afrikaans twang. Alana, originally from Blythe in Newcastle sounds completely South African now, to the point of constantly referring to Carl's dad as 'Liz' not Les!! Karen is British born as Carl was, and her husband Shaun is from a German family, but you would never know it now. We were greeted with cries of "howzit boet?!" before being offered braai with 'brud' rolls and "lettuss", and before long even Carl had flattened his vowels and was talking about the British favourite of "fsh un chups".
Lindsay's eldest daughter, Olivia started jabbering away to us in Afrikaans until Lindsay firmly told her to speak English. Gerhard is Afrikaans born and bred, and he speaks it to the children at home, so it is easy for them to pick up. Over here too, kids have to learn both English and Afrikaans at school, so most stand a fairly good chance of growing up billingual. Olivia is being home schooled in both languages as she is not yet school aged (They very sensibly don't start school til they are 6 here). I can't teach Miri Afrikaans, although Carl can try, but I can speak to her in Spanish as best I can, and I hope she picks it up. Supposedly if she learns more than one language now, her brain is 'set' to be able to learn more in the future, and she won't find it as hard in later life to pick up other languages.

The 17th October was Olivia's 5th birthday, and we got her a kid's mini laptop with some little games with it. She absolutely loved it! Gerhard was a bit worried that she would turn into a computer addict and urged her to play outside instead, - a view I can agree with if he hadn't then started playing games on his mobile! But the laptop games are at least vaguely educational. One is a translator with silly games that should teach her a bit of Spanish. I hope to hear her speak a few words when we next see her! (which will probably be when she's 8 or 9, sadly!)
Miranda seemed to love seeing her cousins though; (technically they are her first-cousins-one-removed, I think.) Olivia is such a sweet little girl and really tried to play wth Miri, dancing her cuddly Pirate in front of her and so on. Abi wasn't quite sure what to make of her, I think, and they both stared in wonder at each other for quite a while. I got a few cuddles with Gabriel too but he is too small to take much notice of Miranda. The vast majority of the time he was asleep, feeding or being burped anyway. When I did hold him though, it felt so strange - I know Miranda must have felt like that a few short months ago, but he felt so tiny! It is amazing how quickly they grow and change.
I have really enjoyed being around so many small people and it is lovely to see Carl playing with them all so well. Maybe there will be more tiny cheeses in the future... The distant future, that is.

Nelspruit/Mbombela

Today involved a mightily long journey from Johannesburg to Nelspruit to the farm where Shaun and Karen live. Shaun maintains all the machinary on a massive orange, avocado and macadamia nut farm, and they live on site. The place is absolutely amazing from our point of view, so lush and green. The perfect place for a kid to grow up, too. At the moment, Carl's neice, Lindsay is here as well. Lindsay is technically Miranda's only first cousin, but there is an age gap between them of 23 years! Lindsay is now married to Gerhard, and has three kids, Olivia (nearly 5) Abigail (15 months) and Gabriel (5 weeks!). So poor Karen has a houseful of babies!

Our journey should have taken us four hours, and would have done if it weren't for South African roads. These parallel Peruvian roads in their ridiculousness. The main free way out of Joburg has four lanes in either direction, and seemingly no speed limit. Worse, no one has any sense of lane control either, and we were frequently overtaken on both sides at once, which was more than a little unnerving. Outside Johannesburg, it got worse: two lanes in either direction, again with no lane control but also, no central reservation, so if you wavered over the painted line just a fraction, you could end up hitting a truck coming head on at 120kmph!
Of course, this sort of system invites accidents, and about 20 miles outside Nelspruit, we got stuck. We never found out exactly what happened, but whatever it was involved the police, ambulance and a massive tow-truck to remove the cars involved. And then they closed the road. Everyone still on the road (ie, us!) just had to sit there and wait for it to clear. We moved about 100 yards in 45 minutes!!! Aaargh. Poor Miranda had been asleep while the car was moving but woke up as soon as we stopped in the traffic jam. She was bored and hungry and had filled her nappy, and was highly pissed off. Her pissed off cry is deafening, but there was very little we could do about it at that point!We eventually got through the accident zone, and then promptly got lost. There is a new road, built for the World Cup stadium over the summer, which completely bypasses Nelspruit, and once you are on it, you can't get off. And there are no sign posts at all because they are trying to change the name from Nelspruit to Mbombela, and all the signs say Mbombela and we didn't realise it was the same place. And of course, my phone was rapidly running out of batteries, so we couldn't call Karen for directions for longer than a few minutes. And it was getting dark. And Miri was yelling her head off....

Once Carl had realised we were on the new road, he exercised his right as an almost-local to Insane Driving, and did a U-turn on the dual carriage way (sometimes the lack central barrier is a useful thing!). We randomly found a drive-thru KFC and parked there, tried to pacify Miri, and got Shaun and Gerhard to come and rescue us! Turns out we were incredibly, frustratingly close to where we needed to be, and that this new road actually cuts through part of the farm!! Never mind. We were welcomed with beer and yet more braai (exceptionally good boerewors!), and all three kiddies. Last time I saw them, Olivia was only 18 months old, and the other two hadn't even been thought of. Olivia is now a beautiful, sweet little girl and very much her own person, Abi has the most expressive face I've ever seen on a toddler and lovely spikey strawberry-blonde hair, and little Gabriel looks so tiny and sleepy in comparison with Miranda who is only 3 months older than him. Surreal. Miri seems fascinated with her new cousins though and got over the trauma of the long car journey very quickly when she had been fed, changed and became the centre of attention again! I think she will enjoy her stay here.

The Voyage to South Africa

Miranda's fourth (month) birthday was spent travelling to South Africa! We are on holiday, YAY! More precisely, we flew into Johannesburg in order to show off Miri to her South African Grandad, Auntie Karen and Uncle Shaun, and her cousins, Lindsay and Gerhard, Olivia, Abi and Gabriel. It was an incredibly long flight because we had a stopover in Dubai, which is more than a little bit out of the way. However, there was a logic behind the trip, mainly because that route is with Emirates Airline.
Not only do Emirates fly from Newcastle (which saved us a lot of money, time and sanity compared with going down to London!), they also really, really look after you. Miranda's ticket cost £60, and for that, we got priority boarding, and they set up a little bassinet cot for her clipped onto the central partition on the plane which also meant extra leg room for us! She was also offered a baby meal which we declined, was given a little baby bag full of useful things including an Emirates brand bib, and when she started yelling as we took off, they came round with a toy tiger for her to play with. When they realised it wa her first ever flight, they took her picture on a polaroid camera for us as a souvenir!
From our point of view, the extra leg room made the whole thing much more comfy, and we also got as much beer as we wanted (though I pretended to be responsible and only had one!)and one of the best meals I've ever had on a plane - coconut chicken curry. I honestly can't recommend Emirates highly enough.
Miranda was absolutely fascinated by everything, all those people to stare at, everyone admiring her, interesting things like apple juice to suck, and even Toy Story 3 on the little TVs. Her fascination extended to all the bright lights and strange noises and free Emirates pushchairs at Dubai airport. We landed about 11pm UK time, long past Miri's bedtime, but she insisted on staying up, absorbing everything, not wanting to miss a thing. She eventually crashed out about 2.30am UK time, just as we were boarding the next flight, so she slept for the entire seven and a half hour flight to Johannesburg with no problems at all. Sadly, I didn't manage to sleep at all!
Carl's dad, Les, met us at the airport, and immediately took half a dozen photos of Miranda. Getting out of the airport, finding the hire car and driving across Joburg was pretty difficult as ever, but we finally made it to Les's house and met his partner, Alana, and Miranda got licked appreciatively by Jessie (a very fat pug) and Lucy (a very pampered pomeranian). The men did Man Things and barbecued - sorry, braaied - a ridiculous amount of meat washed down with beers. I actually wanted to go to bed before Miri did; she lasted until about 9.30 and I followed shortly after.Miranda was so well behaved the entire journey, I am so proud of her! I was worried she was going to hate flying or get bored and yell, but she was fine. And she has her first stamp in her passport! YAY! I hope she's started as she means to go on.

Baby Yoga

Miranda has started baby yoga classes!

I didn't have my camera on me, sorry!

These are run by Surestart, Yay for Surestart! I took her down to a local community centre, actually in a church, and a great deal further to walk to than I'd imagined! It started off with massage and the woman went to great efforts to show us her badge, as you have to be specially trained to be an infant masseuse. To be honest I was quite glad it was just massage because I was already tired from walking to the far side of South Park with 6.5kg of Miranda round my neck in the sling.

I got to cover her in olive oil! Quite bizarre, but apparently it is the best thing to put on new baby's skin (as opposed to synthetic oils, I suppose). And it doesn't smell too bad either. We got to do each leg, then each foot, then her prehensile toes and finally her tiny little ankles. She really enjoyed it! Lots of giggling and gurgling. It was extremely difficult to keep hold of a greasy little leg, particularly when the owner of the leg thinks it's hilarious to try and kick the trainee-masseuse or chew her own toes...

Miri was also fascinated by the other babies; there were three others there, all boys. Alfie, Ethan and Daniel. Alfie was only 11 weeks old, but absolutely huge, with a massive head. Good looking little boy but my deepest sympathies go out to his Mum! Daniel had blonde hair but nearly as spikey as Miri's! Miranda has seen plenty of other babies before, but only at Rhymetime where everyone is bouncing about and being noisy. This was far more calm and quiet (although the masseuse insisted on playing Enya!) and she got to really study them. She even grinned at Daniel.

After leg massage, we moved on to tummy massage. This apparently really helps to calm and relax babies and helps relieve colic. Well, DUH! I could have predicted the results really... Gently massaging small, oiled, excited babies in a downwards direction can only lead to one thing. Faaaaaaart! Very, very funny, four little babies all tooting in unison.

We only did a tiny bit of yoga, which involved bending her knees back towards her stomach. I do this to sort out trapped wind anyway, but of course this only exacerbated the group parping session. I'd love to take her back, but of course we will miss the next three weeks due to being in South Africa. Supposedly, if Miranda does a lot of this now, she should retain her baby flexibility. She loves chewing her feet at the moment, and I remember being able to do that when I was younger too. I can't do it comfortably any more though, and I feel I ought to!

Beautiful Bendy Baby!

Primark and The Daily Mail

Miranda has a few new words in Miri-Speak:
Eeh-Goo - "Ooh shiny thing!"
Uuneng! - "I've got farts!"
Ehgaah - "Yum" or possibly "I'm full!" after feeding....
Iyurl - "I'm bored."

She seems to be using the last one rather a lot at the moment. She is so alert nowadays and the downside of her sleeping through the night is that she is VERY awake, all day. This means I have to devote more attention to her (even writing this is extremely difficult) and I'm constantly trying to find new ways to amuse her. Granny found her a bouncer - as in, a swing on a spring that you clip on to the door frame, not a security guard - she is not to sure about it yet, but it amuses me no end!

With the aim of Entertaining Miranda, I head into town every day with no real purpose other than getting out of the house. Fortunately Miri is still interested in most of the shops in Darlington, so we traipse round for hours window shopping. The other day, however, we had a specific aim: Primark. I know you may grooooooan at this, dear reader, but I am aware that most of their clothes are chavvy and very probably made by Asian kids not much bigger than Miri... (though pretty much every high street clothes shop is guilty of that!) - but it is cheap. Since Miranda grows so quickly and needs new ones every other week, I can't afford to spend more than a few quid on Tiny Jeans.
Plus, Auntie Jo informed me of this:


Primark tells breastfeeding woman to use changing room or leave store

Ridiculous!!! 
Of course, I had to test our local branch but unfortunately for this groundbreaking research, Miranda was, miraculously, not hungry. According to Beryl from Coventry (see the comments on that article), getting your breasts out in public to feed is just attention seeking, anyway. This reinforces my already pretty negative view of Daily Mail readers, as you may imagine. Which actually attracts more attention? a) someone breastfeeding a baby, b) a hungry baby yelling it's head off, or even c) women wandering round with huge boobs popping out of Primark's cheap vest tops? Answers on a postcard....
Anyway, I left with a pair of very tiny grey jeans for Miranda for £4, and promptly disposed of the hideous pink belt that came with them. Babies do not need belts and my baby does not need pink! Actually, this is something else the Daily  Mail, or at least, it's bloggers, disapprove of: babies wearing jeans. Apparently I am making Miranda into a mini-adult by dressing her in jeans. On the other hand, they are warm, practical and generally Not Pastel....

I don't do all my shopping in Primark, by the way. Most of my clothes, and now Miranda's too, come from all over the place. She was so exhausted here, I couldn't get her out of the sling!

Miranda wears jeans by Primark, "My Mum Rocks" t-shirt from Pandemonium in Whitby, Poncho from Some Efnic Stall Outside Sheffield Student Union, and sling by Infantino for Boots. Socks, model's own. Styling by Mum at Caffe Nero.