Mistaken identity (2)

The thought occurs – maybe Captain Jack isn’t that Captain Jack after all, and should really be swashbuckling across the high seas with Keira Knightly et al? Although he might be a bit small to wield a cutlass with any efficiency. And he doesn't like wearing bandannas.

You got to pick a pocket or two

Oh dear. I appear to have inadvertently defrauded Tesco. Got home from pottering around the supermarket with M, only to discover that she had lifted a toothbrush (a nice ergonomic one as it happens) and had somehow managed to hide it in the folds of her coat. I obviously need to frisk her at the checkouts...

Mistaken identity

Well, how was I to know that Russell T Davies was going to make M's Captain Jack the star of Torchwood? Here he is practising for yet another stunt on top of a very high building - we're thinking maybe the Get Carter car park in central Gateshead for that gritty, crime-ridden feel.

Although if you want 21st century disruption in the space-time continuum (aka acres of glass/stainless steel etc) he says he'll climb the Sage as well.

Les francais adore...

ooh, all sorts of stuff. But mostly nice wine, good cheese and cepes, if the last week is anything to go by. Me, well, I like nice wine, good cheese and cepes with the best of them and I think French bread is rather spiffing too. They're also not fazed by a small grinning child waving and shouting "bye-bye" at every possible opportunity. Which at the moment wins lots of points in my book.

In fact, France was pretty good. It was sunny, there were opportunities for small people to play in the paddling pool and sandpit with no clothes on (oh, yes, embarrassing photos a go-go), there were lots of interesting places to wander round and new food to try, and there were grandparents to enchant. It was all rather good. Apart from the seven-hour delay at Bergerac airport on the way home. If you've ever been there, you'll know it's just an arrivals shed and a departures shed with a bar in between. Tricky place to amuse a one-year-old for seven hours...

Anyway, now for something completely different. I was going to segueway neatly into a new topic, but it's late, and much as I love writing all this stuff, quite frankly I'm looking forward to getting into a freshly laundered bed. I could go on about the niceness of new sheets, but instead I'll shout "baking", point you at this link to the Guardian (which incidently has a fabulous headline) and then run quickly in the opposite direction. Don't get me started on baking. I've got a banana and hazelnut loaf rapidly diminishing in size on the kitchen worktop, and I'm planning an apple and rye cake at the weekend. I will shortly be the size of a large French cheese. Maybe a camembert, maybe a Roquefort. I haven't decided yet.

Oompa Loompa

Well, not much to report really, aside from cavorting to a mad German oompa band at a 30th birthday down south. As you do. A middle-aged seven-piece oompa band, dressed in fake brown lederhosen and long white knee socks. With one man carrying a giant tuba (and to be fair, blowing into it and producing a fair old racket). It was a slightly surreal experience.

Most amusing was the fact that amidst 80-odd drunk folk standing and swaying along to the music with their beer steins held high, M had a whale of a time. There was much clapping, swaying and stomping about, punctuated only by breaks to climb up and down steps (although the obsession with gravel and twigs continues, stairs have made a comeback). I think gig number two was a success. Although at this rate she's going to have something of an obsession with brass bands, given that gig number one was a combination of New Orleans brass and rap. It's an eclectic mix..