Jody has just slept through two nights in a row for the first time since we left New York. I'm not getting excited about this as I expect all will go to hell the next few nights, but still ... quite happy.

Turned 31 last Friday, received many cards (thankyou) and some well-chosen gifts and went out with Jody and Roj to Giraffe in the evening which was admirably child-friendly and served nice food to boot. Might become our Vynl substitute.

Went for some runs at the weekend. Seven reps of Primrose Hill on Saturday and four on Sunday. High hopes of doing a 2-hour run this weekend in preparation for this mountain marathon thing. If my legs have recovered by then!

Also did lots of OxBridge river stuff in commemoration of the 150th Boat Race. Met up with lots of nice people who we haven't seen since this time last year, along with a handful of new people, and plenty of other babies. Amazing how things change over the years. Altogether very enjoyable and even the 40 minute commute each way that we made on both Saturday and Sunday was put into perspective by comparison with our previous year's - from New York.

Last night while Roj was at the rowers' dinner, I heated myself up a nice Waitrose chicken, ham and mushroom pie, which Jody then proceeded to eat nearly all of, along with her yoghurt, potatoes, avocado and shreddies. Her tastes are certainly maturing all the time and its really only green vegetables now that you have to be clever with.

Great toddler group this morning with quite a handful of new people, one of whom I might well go to swimming classes with in the next fortnight or so. The biggest nightmare with the group is that Jody misses her morning nap, gets hyper for the rest of the day and usually starts whingeing from about 12:30. Luckily she's just dozed off in front of the TV (the best calmer in the world, sad to say), so I'm hoping I won't hear from her again for a couple of hours at least. No idea why toddler groups all seem to be at around 10am, because that's when the majority of babies need naps, as far as I can tell.

Going to visit a local nursery tomorrow. Not sure why because the waiting list can be up to two years, and it looks like Roj and I are aiming to be out of London in that time, but at least it'll give me a frame of reference for the tour I'm doing on Thursday. Also looking forward to a visit from Sam on Thursday afternoon. Otherwise determined to keep up the running, but haven't you all heard that before!!

Very many happy returns today to Charlotte and tomorrow to Camilla.

Jody's 'new' schedule (in effect since the weekend) means a wakeup call for me at 12:30/1ish and then 5ish. Not sure whether this is better or worse than the single 2:30am one. Worse because it means getting up twice in the night, better because 12:30 and 5 are both infinitely better times to be wandering around than 2:30 and because I can feasibly believe that if the 12:30 gets earlier by an hour and the 5 o'clock gets later by the same, Jody will effectively be 'sleeping through the night'. Or that's the theory anyway (easily believed by zombies like me).

Had a lovely afternoon yesterday with Camilla who came over after a local conference and vainly tried to avoid getting too many sticky fingers over her suit. I think all was made worthwhile for her though when Jody kissed her ... a rare event indeed.

The day before Kate came over with 1-year-old Jack. The last time I saw Kate I didn't even know she was together with Ben (who we both used to work with). Since then they got married and had Jack, and I had Jody. Things change quickly. It's amazing how different Jack is from Jody. Only 3 months ahead but already not looking or sounding so much like a baby and interested in completely different things. I can hardly believe Jody will get to be like that so quickly.

I've been looking a bit more at nurseries recently. There's an expensive one up in Regent's Park which is probably the most likely since it's waiting list is (only) up to three months. And there's a nursery closer that is a lot cheaper that I'm going to visit on Tuesday, but it doesn't take bairns until 18 months and its waiting list is up to two years. Did you hear that? If the anticipated work pulls off in the meantime (which is looking likely), I will be investigating a temporary part-time nanny or childcare for the interim. Scary thought but it was going to happen sooner or later. I have already signed up to a nearby babysitting agency with the thought of going out next week for a trial run. It will be the first time I leave Jody with someone other than family and I am anticipating not being overly relaxed but again, it has to happen sooner or later.

Roj has started investigating UK adventure races and contacting a ream of people who might be interested where we need a third/fourth, or where I won't be able to participate. Our first feasible one is a 5-hour in mid-May run by Peel Adventures on Cannock Chase, so it looks like we'll be doing some begging for babysitting on that day. Actually I'm quite excited to do it, particularly since it takes my mind off training for the mountain marathon in June, which is looming more quickly than my legs would like. It'll certainly nice to feel the thrill of the race again, and get back on the beloved mtb. Very exciting.

This weekend is the Boat Race and the tenth anniversary of the first year that Roj rowed in the winning crew, so we're headed off to the river to partake of much celebration with the rest of the crew on Saturday, and then with practically the whole rowing world on Sunday prior to the actual race which the BBC in their wisdom this year, has moved to Sunday at 6pm. Had a lovely time last year catching up with everybody so it should be a laugh, but taking Jody down there might be a challenge unless we can find some decent crawl-space. Still, there will be other people in my situation (it was a regular little creche last year) so I'm sure something can be done.

Well lots has happened, unsurprisingly, in the mammoth period since I found time to write.

I've just come back from a lovely long weekend in Shropshire. Roj had work in Manchester on Friday so we drove up to his dad's on Thursday night. His dad and Jill weren't around much on Friday, but both seemed on good form when we did see them, despite being in the country for the unsavoury task of watching their good friend live out his last few days. Unfortunately the disruption of finding herself in an entirely different place when we arrived at midnight on Thursday night caused Jody to barely sleep until 2:30 and then only fitfully until around 7. Hence I was in rather zombie-ish state on Friday and managed nearly nothing (including intended run) except cobbling together a mothers day poem for my ma.

Saturday, after another very disrupted night, we spent the day at Roj's mum's and went for a run in the mid-morning in gale-force conditions. Unsurprisingly I was feeling pretty crappy but I suppose it was good to get out and have fresh country air blasted into my lungs. Also nice to leave the bairn with family and take advantage for an hour or so. We then went off to a pub for late lunch (or early, since it was to celebrate Mother's Day) with Zoe and Olly and had a wonderful couple of hours with good food and Jody being a little angel. Fab.

We spent the last 24 hours at my parents house and took advantage again on Sunday morning by leaving Jody with them and going out for a mountain bike around the Long Mynd. It was a bit chilly and ridiculously windy but absolutely fantastic to be out on the magic bike again. Running's been the only sport I've even attempted in the last year or so (and then only infrequently), so I was pleasantly surprised at how much you can enjoy something you actually like doing. And mountain biking is my favourite sport, and particularly when I have the perfect bike. So I was on an absolute high all Sunday afternoon until the sheer exhaustion of three awful sleepless nights hit me. Which was at about the same time as Jody woke up in the car on the way home ... with just over 2.5 hours to go, and not very happy about it. Fortunately she made up for it last night by sleeping through the night again (until 5:20 anyway, which is near enough) for which I am eternally grateful.

Other things that've happened since my last posting? Jody has a seventh tooth (have I mentioned that already?), I have swapped my trainers for new ones after discovering that one of the bubbles was flat (the cause of my dodgy knee, hopefully), and I spent a very enjoyable 3 hours with Camilla last Saturday while leaving the bairn with Roj. I took Jody to another excellent toddler group on Monday (been there again today) where she was energetic and sociable as usual, and went to visit ex-colleague Sophie on Thursday with her little 4-week-old Florence. Also spent at least a day shopping for the next size up in baby clothes for Jody since she has grown out of pretty much everything.

So that's about it. This week is ridiculously busy, it's still only Monday and the house is already in a tip. Tomorrow Kate (another ex-colleague) is coming over with 1-year-old son Jack; Wednesday Camilla is dropping by for the afternoon; Thursday I'm likely to be paying several visits to different nurseries around the area, and Friday ... we'll see about Friday.

And lastly. Never leave an unattended 9-month-old in a room with a glass. Even when you are just around the corner making a sandwich and the glass is in the 'unreachable' area of the coffee table. To run around the corner to the sound of shattering glass and find your little baby with a large piece of broken shard in her hand is rather harrowing. Luckily it all ended with just a few tears, no blood, and about half an hour of vacuum-cleaning, but the shivers I get down my spine from thinking what might have happened are enough to remind me to be more vigilant. I suppose things like this are bound to happen - babies fall off chairs and sofas and beds and down stairs, and pick up knives and poke fingers in electric sockets and whatever else - damage limitation is the name of the game, but it doesn't make you feel very good about your parenting skills I can tell you.

Lovely evening yesterday with the gals. Skived any kind of cooking pressure by buying up Waitrose's supply of pizzas. It is nice having a Waitrose 5 minutes away! Really enjoyed seeing them all (minus Madeleine, who is still in Brazil with her intended), and hope to see more of them now we're in London and I am, as Roj put it yesterday "a lady who lunches."

Also managed to update my photos yesterday. Nope, I'm not going to abandon the Photo of the Day concept until I find I've gone a month without taking any photos. Obviously photo of the day has become a rather loose concept, but it's always lurking in the back of my mind somewhere, and may even undergo a revival when I get other things sorted out. Unfortunately I updated the photos at the expense of some of my work, which I really have to do later today. So easy to pick and choose when the to-do list is so long.

Haven't been running yet. Strangely it was my left knee, rather than my right, that began hurting yesterday so I thought I'd better leave it another 24 hours before I braved Primrose Hill. Hopefully I'll have a chance this afternoon although that rather depends on when the carpet people are coming round. Also need to take pillows to the dry cleaners (they've spent too long in a damp environment) and revisit the Conran Shop (any excuse!)

Am looking forward to see Camilla on Saturday for some casual Marylebone shopping and a catch up, and Sophie and her new little daughter next Wednesday. Not finding nearly enough time to catch up with everyone - thank goodness I haven't got a full time job or anything inconvenient like that!

Health visitor coming tomorrow morning. Hopefully Jody's going to be less whingy than she has been the last couple of days (due to poor sleep). Don't know what's going to be covered, but I'm looking forward to my 'official' introduction to parenting in the UK.

In rare music news, Gerard has kindly booked a couple of tickets for Camilla and I to go and see Lloyd Cole, who is once again teaming up with the Commotions for a tour in October to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the release of their first album Rattlesnakes. I used to be a very avid fan of Mr Cole and his Commotions. Admittedly this was when I was doing my GCSEs, but the old stuff is pretty good, and it should be a laugh if only for nostalgia value (Roj gracefully declined to come with me once he'd sat through half of Rattlesnakes, so it was lucky that I remembered at the last minute that Camilla used to be a bit of a fan too, and roped her in!)

Right. Time for a nap I think, before the bairn awakes (chance would be a fine thing).

It's not a good day. I've just sat on my glasses - which I've had for a week - and bent them out of all recognition. Also my knee is in about the same state as my glasses. Way back in December/January when I was running up the Long Mynd in my trail-runners I got this niggling little sharp pain in the back of my right knee. I blamed it on the unspringiness of my trail-runners and thought nothing more of it - especially since I had two pain-free runs in NZ. However since I've been running up Primrose Hill, the pain has reappeared and yesterday evening I could barely walk on it. Looks like a trip to a physio might be in order (after one more test run tomorrow). Sigh.

Jody stood up unaided for the first time on Saturday. Or, I should say, the support with which she managed to stand up (Roj's head) was removed when she was standing, and she remained there for a few seconds, wobbling. Walking is definitely not far away.

Our weekend of organisation had mixed success. We've booked a carpet quote on Wednesday and we've accumulated a million bathroom fittings catalogues but that's about it. This is a long, slow, painful process.

This week is another busy one. Apart from two runs (hopefully), I have a bunch of Uni pals coming round tomorrow night (to admire the chaos this house is still in), the carpet quote on Wednesday, a visit from the local health visitor on Thursday to officially introduce me to the joys of life with a baby in the UK, and plenty of work to do in the meantime. Hardly jam-packed by anyone's standards, but add to that care of a little manic energy-pot and it all becomes rather borderline. Lets hope I can fit some sleep in there somewhere.

Happy Birthday to my big bro. I'm sure he'll be spending his birthday much as usual - cycling and running manically in an attempt to exhaust himself completely. Those of you who think I (used to) do a lot of exercise clearly haven't met him yet.

Roj and I will be spending Sven's birthday looking at bathroom fittings. Joy.

Nearly a whole week again, but it's getting better.

I completely forgot to mention two Jody developments in my last posting. Firstly, Jody's 5th tooth came through last Thursday (6th imminent), on the left next to the top two. Secondly, after hearing from Jennifer that Ethan is adept at climbing stairs, I put Jody to task to see what she'd make of ours and she zoomed up with no hesitation. Down was rather less impressive as she obeyed her natural instinct to descend head first. Obviously Roj and I were both on hand (giggling) to preserve her from the inevitable.

In the meantime Jody has also eaten vegetables - twice! Yesterday she consumed nearly a whole jar of carrot and sweetcorn, and the day before she ate at least 6 or 7 peas! Sneakily I knew she wouldn't be able to resist some new funky colourful finger food, so hopefully she's well on the way to ingesting more vitamins.

She's getting into a right old routine actually nowadays. Not that it's exactly the routine hoped-for, but at least it displays an eagerness for some kind of regularity. She wakes at around 9am, eats breakfast and plays then nurses at around 12, 12:30 and sleeps for 1 to 2 hours before waking for lunch, nursing again mid-afternoon before napping for another 1 to 1.5 hours, waking again around 6:30, 7:00, eating dinner at around 8:00 and then finally nursing to sleep at around 10:30/11:00. My intention in the next couple of weeks is to sneakily move the whole routine back bit by bit until she's waking at 7 and going to sleep at 9, at which point I will be more than happy. It's the intention, I said!

Amusingly, Dave met Jody Wednesday night when he popped over to hand over some documents. Lovely to see Dave, but the amusement factor came specifically from the moment Jody woke to meet him, at which point she spontaneously burst into tears. Couldn't help laughing - I must admit it's happened maybe two or three times when she's been overwhelmed or overtired, and Wednesday night I did pull her abruptly from her cot when she'd only just woken up, but parallels had to be drawn with the first time she met Mike several months ago, when exactly the same thing happened. Luckily Jody calmed down enough for Dave to see her in her true happy energetic state before he left, or he may have been put off babies for life!

It seems that I may have a little work in the pipeline if all goes well in the next few weeks. At first I thought I wasn't going to be able to do it, since I've discovered that the waiting lists for nurseries around here is around 2 to 3 months, but if I'm lucky the work will come in at about the same time that Jody gets to the front of that list, which would be fab as the project looks like a nice one, if a little mammoth, to get my IA teeth into. In the meantime I'm discovering that while Jody is awake, there is nothing I can do whatsoever other than to keep a good eye on her. We have a playpen set up in the sitting room and occasionally she'll be happy there for 20 minutes or so, but otherwise she wants to be in whatever room I'm in, able to explore all corners, shelves, tables, chairs, boxes etc. Which makes for a bit of a challenge, particularly when her sought target is anything small enough to fit in her mouth - fluff, bits of wood, scraps of paper ... you name it. Filling her mouth with cheerios seems to be the only option!

Well, work beckons. Lots to catch up on with ongoing projects. And plenty of box-unpacking, ironing and general house-admin to do in case I get bored with that. And this is my last week of inactivity. Next week the running buggy will be putting in an appearance. June 12 is only 3 months away, after all.