The Peregrination of Nancy Jessop

Still we wait for the big off. It's like being stuck in a perpetual guiness advert - tick follows tock follows tick follows tock. She topples forward and side ways with a nervous energy that would make a neurasthenic proud, she is in short utterly desperate to crawl and if it were not for her preternaturally chubby calves which act as a natural brake to her desires she would, as I type, be hurtling around the flat causing untold damage to all things. Her shuffle is developing though and whilst she has not yet developed a wanderlust - when she sees something she must have then woe betide anything that stands in her way. An episode of Waybaloo (which promotes an oddly ascetic, mystical approach to life with crystals abounding as if created by the editor of the South West Connection which seems a world away from the children's tv of my youth which dealt with the struggles of rural postmen, the wyebird stop and welsh pyromaniacs which made you aware of the struggles of life) drives her to scale your legs, fling herself off all things and shuffle with alacrity until nothing is between her and the screen. Oh Beano.

After 11 months of listening to her parents sing nonsense and talk in particularly cyrptic Jesso-carey nonsense language, a limited vocabulary is emerging from the morass. Whilst previously she express her dissent by stoutly moving her head from side to side and clamping her lips shut - normally when her father is trying to feed some unctuous cack - is now accompanied by polite "Nu". In fact more often it turns into a mantra Nu. Nu. Nu. Nu. It's rather lovely even if she is steadfastly refusing to bend to your will. Maddy feels that this should be claimed as her first word which I am resisting as although she is using it to illustrate her will it seems unlikely that Nancy knew it was the 13th letter of the Greek alphabet - and aside from that it is used to denote awful music (i.e. Nu Skool Rave Anthems Vol. 5: House Bangers) or by right wing commenters on CiF to make hilarious usernames such as NuLabZANUPF_STOLEMYCASH or NuLabNuDanger making it an easy way to identify morons and cretins. None of which seem fitting for a bean so fine as Bertrando D'mour. And also I'm rather hoping her first word will be something more iconoclastic like "bugger" or "crumbs." Or ideally Parimaribo.

She has also had a brief encounter with the Atlantic - its icy waters washing over her ankles and reducing her to a sobbing jelly. Although she was soon coaxed out of such silliness it appears to have forever put the kybosh on paddling. An attempt in the Channel days later was rendered impossible as she refused to put her legs down anywhere near the water despite its relative warmth. Similarly, at the paddling pool in Clissold Park and similar display of devotion to the anti-paddle was evident, leaving me to wade around with my trousers turned up to the knee before some urchin decided to drench me with some particularly splash happy running.

And most terrifying of all. Nancy is 27 days away from being one years old which can be best summed up using some contemporary parlance: Oh my God.

Mummita

English Rose.

Doublevision.

Timber