Rule Britannia, marmalade and jam

A very happy contented wee postie from a bit south of the Scottish border: we here at the Insomnia Diaries are on day three of our Cumbrian holiday, and enjoying it very much. Baby and babydaddy are in Hawaii for the week, doubtless cavorting with nubile Polynesian maidens with flowers in their hair at a luau (baby could probably pass for a nubile Polynesian maiden at this point, or at the very least a barbecued piglet, based on body mass index, propensity for nudity, and delicious caramel colour, but I'm betting her appeal as an appetizer might be limited by her favoured beachwear look of sand glued on with SPF 50). My grand plan for week without baby (having had her to myself all last week) was to (a) work and (b) get my garden sorted, but my parents very generously offered to sponsor me for a week in sunny (not) Cumbria with the sheep, so woohoo! here we are.
I do have to take a minute to sing in praise of travel without toddlers: I crossed the Atlantic with just one small backpack (and half the contents of that were things my mother had asked me to bring for her). On the airplane, I didn't get out of my seat ONCE: no walking up and down the aisles jiggling and singing inane songs while avoiding eye contact with fellow passengers, no trips to cupboard-sized toilets to change a pissed off writhing hyena-baby on the fold-down changing table thing whilst simultaneously trying not to drop a fully loaded nappy on my foot, no endless apologizing to the people next to/in front of/behind me/across from me. Instead, I took a sleeping tablet, had a glass of wine, watched half of a terrible movie, and then whee! I was in Manchester. Beyond fantastic. (I also have to sing the praises of Manchester airport: I am never going to Heathrow again. Ever.)
Since being here, my main projects have been to get over jetlag (more or less check!), climb Barton Fell (check!), and build a super fancy paddling pool in the stream (check!). The last was something I have been fantasizing about for an embarrassingly long time: I had visions of a mini beach for the baby to play on next to the stream at the bottom of the garden, and then I realized anything resembling a beach would wash away the next time it rained (i.e. thirty seconds from now). So my dad helped me construct instead a set of stone steps, complete with surrounding mini wall and diving platform (hee!) on either side of the newly widened stream, and we dammed it at the bottom end so there's a tiny pool and it's just the most spiffy professionally constructed little swimming grotto you ever did see. (The construction involved use of a pick-axe, as well, so you just know we meant business.)
Tonight we are going to the grand maisang down the road to have dinner with neighbours, then tomorrow there are plans for outdoor cinema in Greystoke, which seems unwise given the weather forecast, but I think will be fun anyway. It's funny how oblivious I become to shitty weather as soon as I arrive in Cumbria; I get incredibly sniffy about even venturing outside when it's overcast in Berkeley, whereas here the only weather that might potentially stop us going out for a big long stride over the fells would be chunks of hail greater than an inch in diameter, and even then it would feel a bit pathetic to stay indoors just for THAT.
Things I don't like about food in the UK: how crap the produce is compared to California.
Things I love about food in the UK: Jamaica ginger cake and sausages (not together).

A new culinary low

In no particular order, the least appetizing things I have ever put in my mouth are probably

1) a sad collection of flaccid chicken "tenders" from Burger King, more out of need for a bathroom plus hurricane refuge than actual nutritional requirement

2) fish eyeballs in Japan (social pressure. I was surrounded by Asians and wanted to prove I could casually eat fish eyeballs too. As it turns out, no one except me did.)

3) clumps of peanut butter and stale breadcrumbs wadded together in a ball (the last food from a camping trip in Patagonia that accidentally went on two days longer than menu planning had allowed for). 

To that sorry catalog, I can now add tonight's dinner, as an example of how motherhood has broken me. Baby and I went to the Google office in San Francisco today for lunch (we have an insider contact, and Larry & Sergei periodically treat us), which was as usual excellent: delicious, healthy, and varied. Baby was therefore (duh) totally uninterested in it, and decided, after dropping as much as she could down her jersey and smearing the remainder into her hair, that the crumbs of stale oatcake in the bottom of my handbag were way more appealing. I scraped as much of the Google lunch as I could off her jersey/hair, stuck it in a baggie, and thought, well, it'll still TASTE good, and I can give it to her for dinner tonight. Come dinnertime, I pull it out of the fridge, warm it up a bit on the stove, and stick it front of her with a cup of prune juice (we have issues at the moment), and announce "MMM! Lovely dinner! Eat up!!" in chirpy mummy voice. My usually voracious miniature packwolf is uninterested; she condescends to eat maybe one and a half noodles and half a green bean, and then sets about the enthusiastic creation of three dimensional abstract art with the rest (including the prune juice) on her high chair tray. 

I wash her off, stick in her pyjamas, read "Party Time" and "Goodnight Gorilla" for the 3021st time (each), put in her bed, and come out, hungry for my own dinner now. I had been planning to grill some chicken and have it with leftover brussel sprouts, but that seems like a lot of work. I also have to clean up the high chair and the floor under the high chair. I have no pride. I went to get a fork.