I don’t know if you’re aware of Freecycle, but I can recommend it as a cool source of stuff. The idea is that it’s a yahoo! group where people advertise things they don’t want anymore, but can’t be bothered to sell on ebay.

Sometimes people also post ads for things they want, like WANTED: brand new washing machine; but personally I think want ads should be used only for obscure things, like an out of print book; or genuine needs like old musical instruments for children’s lessons, or that sort of thing. I placed a want ad recently for a spider plant (Chlorophytum comosum), because we don’t have any plants in the house, and I know these are easy to look after, and they apparently absorb formaldehyde and other nasties from the atmosphere, and because I just like them. They’re so common that it seemed a bit daft to buy one from a garden centre, and sure enough I had several offers from kind local people whose plants were covered in babies.

I arranged to collect my spider plant from someone who was at work in the local council offices, and on Friday afternoon Bernard and I braved the drizzle, and called in to the smart reception. I remember remarking to him as I went in that it was a jolly nice building, and that our council tax paid for it all. He snored loudly in response.

I told the receptionist that I wished to see Katy Jones in Legal Services, and to please tell her that I was here to collect a plant.

The receptionist gave me a rude, uncomprehending look, and said, a plat?

A plant, I repeated.

A plat? she said again, with another rude look.

A plant, I said, and for clarification, a houseplant.

A houseplat?

I spelled it out: P.L.A.N.T.

Ohhh, she said, with a curl of her nostril; a plarnt.

Fuck you, you soft southern jessie, said I, with a glare.

This morning while I was getting Bernard washed and dressed, he pulled himself on to hands and knees, and crawled for the first time. Just a few steps, towards the nappy bin, which has been his holy grail for some time now.

Pete was called to observe, and we gave Bernard a little cheer. He gave us one of his well-practised supercilious looks, and retired to the safety of his bottom. Pete has spent the rest of the day successfully encouraging him to venture further across the floor. I think we can safely announce that Bernard is mobile.

I’m really glad that he did this first thing this morning, because I frequently say to Pete, have you noticed that he’s doing such-and-such? only for Pete to say, yeah, I saw him do that on Thursday.

Named for its proportions, and featuring the ubiquitous smoked sausage. Sweet melty soft slices of aubergine, peppers, tomato and celery, with plenty of garlic and oregano. Bernard has the whizzed-up version for his lunch today; let’s hope he agrees to eat it.

I have neglected the dinnerblog entries, mainly because food hasn’t been my favourite subject lately. Actually, looking back, it hasn’t been all bad.

Thursday Cheese & lentil pudding, rice and peas. This recipe is out of Grub on a Grant, which was the book I learned to cook from, and for one or two staples, I still use it. I saved some of the pud for Bernard, who quite likes lentils sometimes, especially cheesy ones.

Friday Another Waitrose curry. Keep meaning to try something different, but sufficient motivational energy hasn’t materialised yet.

Saturday I didn’t plan anything for Saturday, because we were at Wagamama for lunch and I thought we wouldn’t be hungry. However, we turned out to be hungry after all, so Pete made some sort of stir-fry pork with noodles and ginger, which was a tasty, soggy mess. Possibly not quite what Ken Hom intended, but then, the recipe that came with the wok was absolute nonsense.

Sunday We tried the new local pizza delivery place, Herbie’s Pizza. The pizza took over an hour to arrive, and turned up without so much as an apology. First time unlucky; obviously we won’t be ordering from them again.

Monday The organic veg box came yesterday and contained delicious potatoes, which I immediately made into chips. Dinner was late last night, because Bernard took an age to settle (the change of hour has messed up his clock somewhat), and then Pete’s mum called and went on and on and on for hours. Eventually, we had the very nice chips with some very nice mince and vegetable pie (not home-made) and organic broccoli.

Bernard has continued to eat intermittently during the day, and feed for most of the night. On Sunday we were in Pizza Express at lunchtime (yes, two pizzas in one day, Pete was in heaven & anyway, it was our anniversary so shuddup) with Alice, Stan and Stan’s Dad and Stan’s Dad’s friend, and Pete’s Dad. Stan was having a jar of mozarella and tomato pasta for lunch, and Bernard helped him with that. We note that he eats jarfood with more enthusiasm than lovingly home-cooked food, and have made a policy decision to feed him jarfood for a few days.

So I am giving him finger food for a starter, to make me feel like I’m still a slightly virtuous organic middle-class mum, followed by jarfood, followed by stewed fruit or pieces of kiwi, or whatever for pudding. He ate well yesterday, and slept from 8pm until 1am in his own room, so that counts as a result. Of course, it has to be replicated two nights in a row before we can consider the new policy to be a success. We’ll see.