Gazing out

I'm sat on the sofa under a blanket looking up and out the window, all I can see is grey. The windows are open a little and I can feel the breeze. Liam's off playing with Queenie and this is the closest to still I've felt for a good month. 

I spend a lot of time gazing out of our window these days. While I wash up of clean my teeth I look over the hills. Two ponies play in a field behind our street. We can't get to them from our road so we watch them from the window in our bedroom (I imagine they gallop along together because they are deeply in love), this is where I also stand with a teething baby at 5am. We watch the sun rise before pottering downstairs to make apple porridge. In the late afternoon, the sun pours into our living room and we lay on the carpet together and read books or play with toys. Out the window the ice cream van sings its way down the street, calling children out for '99 after their dinners. 

My favourite thing about these windows is the light. Our new home is naturally lit all through the day No matter how much I loved the garden flat, it was dark so during the winter my moods were quite effected.

So although this house is like a box, no quirks like our flat, it already feels like home. Little by little we are making it feel more like ours. Each weekend when he gets home, Liam is presented with a list of to do's*.

The village we live in now is really sweet too. I've done a little exploring with Queenie and I'm falling in love. The neighbours are friendly, and the old buildings are so beautiful. I've found some lovely little spots with wonderful views and a little plant shop at the side of the road!

*= His training is almost over. He's done seven of the nine weeks. We can't wait to have him home for good (obviously)

18/52

"A portrait of Queenie Valentine, once a week, every week in 2013."

Just woken and seriously kissable

What a beautiful sunny week we had. Queenie played in the garden, she loves feeling the grass between her toes and picking daisies and dandelions. When bath time comes round, her legs are stained with mud and grass. While she plays with her new boat, I wash the dirt out of her sunbleached hair, amazed at how rapidly time is passing.

Joining in with Jodi's 52 project. These photographs of Lola, Pearl and Stella are stunning. What lovely girls.

17/52

I'm slowly catching up..

"A portrait of Queenie Valentine, once a week, every week in 2013."

My sisters bought her this dress when she was born. I couldn't imagine her being that big, yet here she is, walking around our living room (with a little help from her daddy).

Queenie adores walking. She grins profusely whilst pushing around her little cart of bricks, frustratedly calling out each time it comes to a halt against furniture or a wall. So I turn her around and off she goes again. This week sleep went down hill again and she woke numerous times through the night, crying for her 'dada, dada'. I am a poor substitute for her beloved father. She's surprised me and suddenly dropped her feeds. Most days she only wants to breastfeed once during the night. I've noticed since this she's eating much more food, and I realised my milk was providing so much for her. Her favourite food of all are kidney beans. mm, mmm.

Joining in with Jodi's 52 project. 

16/52

"A portrait of Queenie Valentine, once a week, every week in 2013."

Basking in her birthday afternoon sun.

I cherished this week with her, her last days before turning one. Sisters popped in and out, Scarlett stayed for a couple of nights and Queenie loved having her company. The sun shined most days and each evening we lay here in the warm sun, making puppets with the shadows, putting off bed time as long as we could. We grew up a lot this week, preparing herself for her birthday. Liam was away on the day, so we had pancakes for breakfast, then delayed any other celebrations for saturday. A few friends and a handful of doting aunties came round and we ate cake. I made a sponge with cream and fruit which she devoured. She went to bed a very happy girl with a full tummy, utterly exhausted and a year older. Wow.

Joining in with Jodi's 52 project. 

15/52

"A portrait of Queenie Valentine, once a week, every week in 2013."

Our last night in the flat, she was brimming with excitement.

The week was manic, we packed up our life in a week. My sisters were wonderful, playing with Queenie, taking her out for a few hours. One afternoon she enjoyed skating up and down the flat with Scarlett on Liams longboard, collaping in fits of giggles everytime they veered off and crashed into empty boxes. It was such a blessing for her to be occupied. When it was just her and I at home, she'd follow me around unpacking everything I'd just put into boxes! On Saturday, when we moved, she played with her mate, Vinnie on the carpet, while all around them the men carried car loads of our things into the house, and I tried to seek out a teapot. After everyone left, we sat in the quiet house, in the very quiet road and sighed. Queenie picked up her kitty and explored the rooms, chattering away to herself, unaware this was now her home.

Joining in with Jodi's 52 project. 

14/52

"A portrait of Queenie Valentine, once a week, every week in 2013."

Smiling in bed with her sweet little suitcase. She was so happy during the time we stayed with Liam's family.

On Tuesday morning we drove up to Woking and stayed for the week, while Liam was away training. We had such a wonderful time catching up with family and friends. Queenie met lots of new faces and would have bouts of incredible shyness, holding me tight and tucking her face into my body, and other times she surprised me how confident she was with strangers. The family felt it was the first time she really recognised them. Kate pulled out some boxes of Liam old toys including an exquisite old circus train with sweet faded animals. She sat for hours -on her own, or with her grandparents or auntie- playing so happily with duplo and the train set. I've never seen her as excited as when she saw Liam again at the end of the week. I love seeing their relationship, she really loves him and misses his company during the week. 

Joining in with Jodi's 52 project. 

13/52

Apologies for the delays, we've been unwell, went away, then moved house and have no internet yet.

"A portrait of Queenie Valentine, once a week, every week in 2013."

We catch her rifling through my Mama's saucepan cupboard. She's into everything now.

What a whirlwind week. We'd just about recovered from earaches, to find Queenie's began teething again. A new one broke through on Friday. She slept a bit better this week and we were both happier for it. Liam was only away for two nights this week because of the bank holiday. We welcomed beautiful sunshine on Thursday and dashed up the allotment to weed. While I dug up our patch, Liam wandered through the empty plots introducing Queenie to the chickens, before joining me and sitting on the large piece of carpet, laid out to suppress persistant weeds (any organic suggestions on removing couch grass would be more than welcome). Queenie watched me, tucking into some apricot cake and playing in the soil. She shuddered with disgust as she licked stones and collected abandoned snail shells, popping them into her mouth each time we turned away. We spent Easter weekend with my family eating and eating. Instead of indulging her sweet tooth with chocolate she enjoyed her Papa's hot cross buns, warm from the oven. I loved sitting all together and looking down the table to see her, so sociable and at ease playing with everyone.

Joining in with Jodi's 52 project. 

Still here

Sorry all, we are still here. Just very busy.
We have two more nights of living in the Garden Flat. I have mixed feelings. It's exciting to be moving into a bigger space, but I'm sad to be leaving such a beautiful little flat. The place where we made wonderful memories. This is the home where Queenie was conceived and then brought home as a soft, small bundle, fragile in our clumsy arms. We became a family, my heart grew big and proud. Those first few weeks, we lay in bed together and battled through the start of breastfeeding, the proudest thing I've ever accomplished, encouraging me to train as a breastfeeding peer supporter last autumn. We've hosted parties in our lovely kitchen, welcomed friends and family around for food, films and games. We grew modest plants on the windowsill, herbs and flowers. I fell in love with painting, and Liam played his banjo, and borrowed a guitar for a while. I love hearing him play while I cooked dinner. Too much time was spent watching murder mysteries, snuggled up together on our lumpy green sofa. We have had so much fun here. It hurts to think that Queenie wont remember this home, the place her life began.

We decided to move because felt we were growing out of this home, Queenie needs her own space, and we're tired of all the noise coming up from our neighbours upstairs. After months of house visits, we think we may have found somewhere. It's not perfect, but there's something about it I quite took to. It's a house, with a garden, a little more space and most importantly, a bath. It's grown up though, and I'm a bit spooked. Life is speeding up very quickly and I can't process it.
I'm hoping things will be a little clearer when I'm not knee-deep in cardboard boxes and when Liam is home from all this bleedin' training. I miss him so much.

I will be catching up with the 52 posts as soon as I can. Just thought I'd pop in to let you all know I've not deserted this little space.

12/52

"A portrait of Queenie Valentine, once a week, every week in 2013."

We walk back from the beach where Queenie had her first dip in the sea. And only her toes, as it was freezing. She found herself a souvenir, which she held high the whole journey home. 

Queenie was quite unsettled this week, Liam was away from Monday to Friday and we were very glad of his return this weekend. While he was away I kept myself busy painting and cooking new recipes. Queenie loved it and ate more than ever. She was a real trooper, and despite an ear infection she's still been cheerful and extra cuddly. She'd sit on the floor with a big sketchbook and a box of pencils, which she meticulously emptied, stuffing as many into her hands as she could before scattering them about the kitchen. She enjoyed flicking through a sweet number book we borrowed from the library, pointing at the pictures, ushering noises to represent each image. She's learnt to blow kisses, and it melts my heart.

This post is part of the 52 project. This week my favourites were this adorable photograph of Lily, and Rebecca's portrait of her son, Sylas and his scribbles.

blur

to obscure by making confused in form or outline; make indistinct.
to dim the perception or susceptibility of; make dull or insensible.

"The blow on the head blurred his senses."

I've noticed that so often I make a decision to keep a blurred image and dispose of the focused version. I've got tendencies toward blur. I like the way the image becomes less a portrayal of a thing or a person, but of shapes and in some cases just a smear of colour. Looking back they seem to evoke a feeling. A hazy memory and I'm surprised to find that I recognise the green splodge and can remember what it was and where it was captured. Those that are much more apparent, the blur is only gentle, its evident what it is, I like because they make the reality a little foggy. There is still no definition which leaves the photograph quite vague, expressions are softened and again has a memory quality to it.

I like the quote the dictionary spat at me explaining 'blur'. I feel my senses have been blurred recently. I'm living in a bit of a sleep-deprived haze, wondering aimlessly around from one thing to the next. Liam has got a new job as a Police Community Support Officer, which is brilliant, except the training. It's nine weeks and during that time he is only home for weekends. This has been the first week and it's been hard. Really hard. I've been quite unwell for a few weeks and I think that I've dreaded Liam leaving, which has made me worse. So I have been recovering but doing so with broken sleep is difficult. Queenie has been so unsettled this week. I put it down to the rhythm of life being shuffled around a bit without Liam but then high temperatures led me to visit the doctor, where we were told we both have ear infections. Poor Queens, I feel rotten for not picking up on it before.
Liam is home now for the weekend and we will spend it staying in bed late, making pancakes, drinking tea, generally enjoying each others company and taking things slow. I've got piles of clean clothes to sort and tidy away then a few meals to cook and freeze for the next week. I'm feeling inspired by all this colour and would like to sneak away and have a little time to paint, but who knows. How about you, what are your plans for the weekend?

Photographs 8 and 9 are taken from India's birthday dinner in february. I love the glistening candles and blue vibes.