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!

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.

Decisions, Decisions....

Help. Brainache.
I hate making decisions like this at the best of times, but now Miranda is here, my decisions carry more weight than usual, because whatever I decide affects her as well. I want more than anything to do the best I can for her, but sometimes I am not sure what that is.

This isn't really a Miranda-blog post (she is doing great, growing incessantly, eating tons and filling her nappy at inopportune moments and then looking very proud of herself!) This is more about my own insecurities! My issue at the moment is What Happens Post-PhD. I am supposed to go back to it after maternity leave in January, and get it finished by April. But of course, as soon as I finish it, my funding dries up. It's a daft situation that gives no incentive to finish the thesis at all...The end of uni means suddenly losing a very large proportion of our joint income, and Carl cannot support all three of us.

The most logical thing for me to do would be to pursue a career in academia, although at 27 with only a years' experience in a graduate job to my name, I think I am past the point at which I can use the word "career" with any degree of plausibility. I've applied for four academic jobs now, lectureships in Sheffield and York, and the average salary for that sort of job would mean that I could happily support us all, so Carl could give work and spend time with Miri. He would revel in that, I think. It would also have other benefits like moving house and getting out of Darlington finally. However, I did not even get shortlisted for any of those jobs, and one had NINETY TWO applicants. It is utterly hopeless, especially since there are so, so few of them in the first place.

Unless Carl miraculously finds a better job; we can't afford for me not to work. The very last thing I want is to have to find a job that I don't want to do, just to pay the bills, especially when that would also mean a huge chunk of my wages would go towards childcare for Miranda. It is counter-productive and not something I want to consider at all. She's too young!

My coffee van isn't the answer either. I at best make pocket money off it at the moment, just doing the markets. Even if I tried to do more with it, the bigger Miranda gets, the more impractical it would be. I can't entertain her or pay her much attention when I'm serving coffee at the same time and she'd hate sitting in the van all day on her own, it wouldn't be fair on her. And I couldn't inflict winter market stalls in the snow on her either.

So, I did come up with another option, which is, running my own business and finally setting up the cafe I've been on about for years. Unfortunately this has to be in Darlington which I know is not the best place. However, the one thing that I do love about this place is my wonderful collection of completely batty friends. Two of them are coming on board with this project as well. We are planning on sharing the rent on a retail unit, and opening as a cafe and writers' workshop by day and studio for Burlesque classes by night. It's called Afternoon Tease. I am completely in love with the idea, not least because it is an opportunity to do what I love, but also gives me the freedom to take Miranda along with me, thus avoiding having to pay to abandon her with strangers.

But it is not as simple as that. Due to the disinterest of the landlord, we haven't managed to get in to the unit we wanted, which is more than a little frustrating especially since there isn't actually any real reason other than this guy's slowness. Plans for getting round this hurdle have included Body Parts Squashed In New Pannini Machine, and so on. On a more practical level, we looked round another unit today. It would do us very nicely and has a lot of advantages, but it is three times the price and involves signing a terrifyingly long lease agreement.

I am worried about this. I have got some much riding on this, because the cafe idea honestly feels like my only option. But then, is it a good idea to try and bring Miranda up in a coffee shop? Would I end up neglecting her? Shouldn't I be revelling in New Motherhood and not worrying about working again given that she's only three months old? I just don't know. And then there are the financial worries. The long lease means agreeing to pay a very high rent for a very long time, and I lack the confidence to trust in the fact that a coffee shop could make a lot of money relatively quickly. Without Miri, I am sure I wouldn' be worrying about this anything like as mucb. I do still have an income that can buffer the worse of the financial hardship we are likely to encounter, and I won't need to actually make a living off this for quite a while yet. But I don't want to get tied down into something I can't afford for so long.

I don't know what to dooooooooo!!!

Granny, Mummy and Miri outside what could be the Afternoon Tease coffee shop.

Family

Cute Little Things on the Line!

Miranda is 10 weeks old now! Unbelievable. She is now sleeping through the night, (almost!), has full control of her neck, has grown out of all her newborn clothes and best of all, she has started smiling, gurgling and giggling! She is soooo beautiful and I love it when she starts talking to me in Miri-speak. She is also capable of registering her disgust when necessary:

"We are not amused."

I haven't updated this blog for a while because everything has been completely hectic for the past few weeks. We dared to Go Out without her once; it was our eleventh anniversary and we left Miri in the capable hands of Auntie Jo and Uncle Graeme. I armed them with the Miranda Dictionary (see below) and they did a great job - and I resisted the urge to ring them every five minutes to check on her! Mum asked the other day if all my friends are going to be Honorary Aunts and Uncles. I still have Honourary Auntie Cathy - Mum's best friend, so I see no reason why not. Sadly Miranda will have no aunts or uncles on my side of the family, although Mum and one other friend with a good memory have commented on the fact that Miri, on occasion, looks a little bit like Uncle Rohan. Something about the gumpy grin, and her expression sometimes. I don't know if mine are genuine memories of how Rohan looked, or whether my imagination and wishful thinking are filling in the gaps... Despite my sad lack of siblings now though,  I have a lot of wonderful friends who I hope will be around to see her grow up. I've been Auntie Bel to little Ione since she was born so I'll return the favour!

At five weeks old, I had to take Miri to the photographers to get her passport photo done. Yep, even tiny babies are now expected to have their own passports, complete with straight-on-white-background-eyes-open-head-shot-photograph. It's hard enough getting the photo right in the first place, but I pity the customs people who have to tell the difference between month-old babies. Even more stupidly, she'll have this passport until she is five years old. She doesn't look the same a month later, let alone four years later....

Anyway, Miri has to have a passport so we can go to South Africa to show her off to her only real aunt, Carl's sister, and her paternal grandad in Johannesburg. Carl has a neice who also has two children and one more on the way - these are the nearest Miranda has to cousins. So even more reason to appoint friends as adopted family - my friends are people she will actually see regularly! Even so, I am really looking forward to Miri's first adventure abroad, seeing the in-laws again, and meeting my latest great-nephew!

Speaking of cousins though, my second cousin is most definitely Uncle Ol. He has a very very distant blood-relationship to Miri, but no matter how tentative the connection, he seems to absolutely adore her. It's really sweet, and this makes me smile a lot. I love my baby being admired! :) Ol came up last week under guise of helping me out with our Doctor Coffee stall - but really just to see Miranda, obviously. Miri is a fantastic advert for the business; so many people come up to see the cute baby and we waved coffee under their nose appropriately.

"I said I wanted a skinny three-shot caramelatte you fool!"

She is sitting on Granny's knee in that photo. The (grand-)parents came up for a few days last week as well, complaining that they hadn't seen Miranda in over a month! Could well be because they live 200 miles away.... Anyway, it was good to see them and of course they spoiled Miri rotten. It was difficult to prize her away from them; Dad must have taken hundreds of photos, Mum wouldn't let me push the pushchair at all the entire time they were up, and they even moaned when she was asleep! If it wasn't for the fact they couldn't feed her, I don't think we would have got her back at all, she would have been kidnapped and taken to the Welsh wilderness forever more.

Saltburn pier- one of the rare occasions I was allowed to hold my own daughter

 It does concern me that I am morphing in to my Mother, as the above photo demonstrates. Miranda's future will probably be decided pear-shaped! Having my parents around is reassuring in a strange way. Being Their Daughter makes me feel more like Me - I am used to that role. Being Miranda's Mummy is still a very new and unnerving concept. I've got to be All Growed Up, responsible, an Adult. I don't feel like it sometimes. It is all so scary still. I am so careful of Miranda, I just want to protect her from everything and I honestly couldn't bear it if anything hurt her! It's entirely irrational I know, but I just feel completely over-protective of her and at the same time, completely incapable and unprepared.

However, it is comforting that she seems to be such a happy little soul. The grins and the beginnings of little giggles make my heart melt. It is not just me and Carl now, we've gone from being a couple to being a family, and I think we're doing pretty well at it so far!

Our beautiful, happy little girl