The French Mama is coming to stay tomorrow with husband and baby. I will be too deeply consumed with envy peering at her latest purchases to concentrate on blogging. Also, I will have to stop the Princess roughing up her tiny baby and stealing her cuddly toys. There was a major scene in the supermarket this morning when I attempted to remove from her steely grasp a rubber toy she had found in the “toys for pets” section of the supermarket (I was trying to choose the right freezer bag on the adjoining display and I was distracted – does this strike you as an odd juxtaposition? Do Belgians lure their pets into the kitchen with squeezy toys and then freeze them in 1 litre bags?).
The French Mama leaves on Saturday afternoon with her entourage and Sunday sees us going to the Brussels Childbirth Trust Funday where I will be in charge of a stall. Clearly, I didn’t want to do this but a woman rang me and asked me to do it and my complete inability to say no did not desert me. As you can imagine, my loving spouse is even more delighted than I am at the prospect of taking his daughter on shetland pony rides while I dole out strawberries and champagne to the great unwashed.
On Monday, the Princess and I will embark on a nine hour train journey to the west of France where my parents will be awaiting our arrival with bated breath. I am dreading the journey as not only will it be a little hard to keep herself entertained for nine hours on the train but I have to change trains and will be bringing Princess, our gear, buggy and car seat. I hope to rely on the kindness of strangers but this can sometimes go amiss. Anyway, we’ll be gone for the week and Mr. Waffle will be left alone and palely loitering and working, obviously. You know, sometimes, being a kept woman is not so very bad.
