Spring is on the way! Ok, maybe it's still a long way off, but the bulbs have just started appearing in the ground, and in Regents Park at the weekend we saw some beautiful sunny yellow blooms recently emerged from the frozen ground to sing the first notes of the song of spring. And not a day too soon. Winter depresses me every year. Grey, cold, dark, did I mention the coldness, darkness and horrible lack of sunlight?

Miserable. Just miserable.

But scatter around a few bulbs poking their heads up and my heart lifts a little as I sense the change of the seasons.

We had a lovely time wheeling Sophs through the park on her lovely pink tricycle. We showed her the two black swans resident in one of the ponds (and I found the number of people taking their photo and going ape over them quite amusing - but then again they only get white swans over here so I guess it's not too surprising!)

Sophs is having another growth spurt -the jeans that fit her perfectly 3 weeks ago now hover above her ankles! Kids will do that, I guess. She's chattering and singing away more and more each day, and certainly knows her own mind. Can't think where she gets her stubbornness from.

I am a lobster (stay with me on this one!).

On one of the forums I'm on someone posted the (long) excerpt below, which really resonated with where I am in my life at the moment. I finish my 4 days a week at the end of February. I have been asked and have decided to stay on for one day a week as a consultant, in one of the departments which I currently support. I am halfway through my hypnotherapist qualification and thinking about the business I will set up from it later in the year, and have just found a supervisor for my fourth year dissertation for my Psychology degree, which will be on an aspect of how toddlers use imitation to make sense of the world around them (I get to observe 25 toddlers at play, which might be someone else's idea of hell, but I can't wait, it won't feel like work at all!).

So, back to this lobster. There's a lot of change going on. I've not walked this road before, and frankly all this change is sometimes terrifying and overwhelming. Then I read this, and realised it's definitely time for me to shed my shell so I can grow and develop in the directions that are so attractive to me. Feel the fear and do it anyways. Life's too short. Just do it. Yes you can (thanks Obama!).

"I met an oceanographer who asked if I knew how a lobster was able to grow bigger when its shell was so hard. I had to admit that learning how lobsters grow had never been high on my list of priorities. But now that he had mentioned it, how in the world could a lobster grow? The only way, he explained, is for the lobster to shed its shell at regular intervals. When its body begins to feel cramped inside the shell, the lobster instinctively looks for a reasonably safe spot to rest while the hard shell comes off and the pink membrane just inside forms the basis of the next shell. But no matter where a lobster goes for this shedding process, it is very vulnerable. It can get tossed against a coral reef or eaten by a fish. In other words, a lobster has to risk everything in order to grow.

I found myself preoccupied with the lobster story for days after hearing it. I finally realized that it was a symbol. The lobster could teach us that the only way to endure the passage of time and the limits of our mortality is to know that we are growing and changing, that we are becoming more than we have been with each year of our lives.

We all know when our shells have gotten too tight. We feel angry or depressed or frightened because life is no longer exciting or challenging. We are doing the same old things and beginning to feel bored. Or we are doing things we hate to do and are feeling stifled in our shells. Some of us continue to smother in old shells that are no longer useful or productive. That way we can at least feel safe - nothing can happen to us. Others choose differently; even though we know we will be vulnerable - that there are dangers ahead - we realize that we must take risks or suffocate. This year I will shed my shell, despite the dangers, in order to get ready for new and better adventures. "

Nothing like a bit of culture on a Sunday afternoon - we visited Ancient Egpyt, Assyria and Greece at the British Museum today. Sophs was rapt, particularly with the Egyptian section, but wasn't as interested in the Assyrian or Greek artefacts, for reasons completely unknown. She studied the Rosetta stone, exclaimed 'cat' and 'miaow' when she saw the Gayer-Anderson cat, signed 'bird' when she saw a carved stone bird (Horus?), and steamed around fearlessly through the sea of fast moving legs, completely oblivious to the fact that she was far below the eyeline of most people in the room who were looking up at the exhibits, not below their knees for a little doll-carrying explorer. Gone are the days when I study intently the detail of a carving, or have time to read the explanatory notes next to each exhibit - Stu and I did tag-team child chasing. Good thing she's cute, it buys you kindness from the stranger you've just rugby-tackled who has unknowingly been on a collision course with your child.

The Egyptians were an incredible people, and I hope one day to visit the pyramids and see the tomb loot in Cairo and Luxor (and everywhere in between) and cruise the Nile. I bought myself a book on teaching yourself hieroglyphics - something to do in my spare time ;) I'm back at uni 2 nights a week, have my weekend of Hypnotherapist training this weekend, and am still working a 4 day week until the end of February. Sleep is optional.






























Above: Sophia intently studying the Rosetta stone, her Hieroglyphics and Ancient Greek 101 exam is next week!

From an email sent by my darling husband with regard to some cr*p I have been dealing with recently -he knows exactly what to say to make me laugh and feel better :D

Just checking my care factor for the week.

Nope...still don't give a f*ck.

Love this video clip of a German weatherman who had an unexpected feline visitor wander on set during his report: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7819843.stm !

So, it's 2009. Where the last 8 years have gone I don't know!

I was emailed these questions and they made me think, so if I haven't already sent them to you, I hope you get something out of them:

1. 2008....was the year I did what?

2. What is your greatest lesson in 2008?

3. What are you most proud of achieving in 2008?

4. If you could repeat 2008 - what would you do differently?

5. If you could create a theme for 2009 - what would it be?

6. In 40 years time, how do you want to remember 2009 - as the year you did what?

7. What three things can you do to set yourself up to succeed?

8. How would you probably try to sabotage yourself? How will you stop?

9. What would you have to believe about yourself and the world to have a wonderful 2009?
And how are you going to create that belief system?

10. What baby steps can you take in week 1 of 2009 to start the year with a flourish?

We made gingerbread men! Have a look at the pics here. (Click on the pics to make them bigger)

We decided to go the Science Museum. Along with 80% of the under-10 population in London. Now that we have a child ourselves we really do muster up reserves of patience we never knew existed (and often find ourselves thinking as we watch a screaming tantruming child 'there but for the grace of god/bribery with biscuits go I...'!)! There was a queue to get into the kiddie section so we decided to wander about the rest of the museum and came across Apollo 10, the actual real one which orbited the moon (didn't land, just orbited, but still, crikey!). It was really quite small, much smaller than I thought it would have been. And it certainly didn't look like it could have been in space or survived a descent through the earth's atmosphere back to ground! So here's some pics of us standing next to this piece of history. After posing in the first pic Sophs decided that she would pick her nose as Stu took the second photo. How delightful children can be ;).

So that's Christmas, and 2008, over! We had a quiet day, spent the morning at home with Sophs (who decided 6am would be a fab time to wake up), completely underestimated how long it would take to do pressies, eat breakfast, call home, get ready and head over to Stu's sister's for lunch. Still don't know where the morning disappeared to! Sophs had a mountain of presents (bordering on the obscene in quantity, we saved some for the next day) and had a grand time ripping paper off and playing with the packaging ;) Her favourite presents were a mini keyboard from Stu and I and a toy dog in a pink handbag from her Aussie Nan, although she has enjoyed playing with all the presents she received! Stu bought me the most beautiful cookbook called 'Venezia' - recipes from Venice and it is filled with magnificent photography and scrumptious recipes - it's my kind of cookbook, as it uses instructions such as 'some wine' and 'feeds a lot of people' :)

The downside to not doing Christmas lunch at home is there are no leftovers to snack on! Stu did however make his coca cola ham for Boxing Day which was delish. And I made a pumpkin risotto from my new cookbook which was sublime :)

More pics from Christmas day are here.