Dearest Family and Friends57 Cumberland Street, San Francisco CA 94110
Phone Number: +1 415 738 2112
January Highlights
10:10
What is 10:10?Everybody : individuals, businesses, institutions, could contribute to tackling climate change by cutting their carbon emissions by 10% this year.
It is easy to feel powerless in the face of the gloom and doom, the despair brought by the parlous state we’re in. UK grassroots organisation 10:10 aims to empower us with achievable goals and effective actions to bring about lasting change.
Their website has suggestions such as how to effectively insulate your home, a guide to replacing lightbulbs, and exhorts us to buy good quality products which last, and sign up to Freecycle.
Other environmental movements of course have their own approaches: Do the Green Thing call theirs ‘Creativity vs Climate Change’.They advocate a seven point programme:
- Walk the Walk - Use less machine power and more of your own steam power. If you Walk The Walk, or pedal the pedal, you'll see the world around you and burn plenty of fat but no fossil fuel which means you'll go from A to B without making any C.
- Stay Grounded - Stop jetting around and travel in a slower way - but in a better state of mind.
- All-Consuming - Everything we buy has an environmental impact, and chucking it out before using it up makes the impact bigger than it needs to be. So use that pencil to the very end and make vegetable stock from the onion ends and potato peelings collected over the week.
- Easy on the Meat – Meat may be delicious but livestock and poultry rearing uses lots of fossil fuels and creates lots of CO2 - more than the car industry. Even chopping out several portions a week would make a decent difference.
- Human Heat - Heating uses more energy and creates more CO2 than anything else we do indoors so if you're cold, leave the radiators off and wrap up in a jumper - or better still, with another person.
- Plug Out - Tune into the waste and turn off chargers, lights, speakers, computers on standby.- Stick With What You Got - surplus consumption leads to surplus production and CO2 so far better if you can be happy without resorting to shopping therapy and buying into the hype about the latest gadget or trend.
I also saw the thought-provoking film No Impact Man, which chronicles one family’s attempt to live a carbon neutral lifestyle for a year in Manhattan.
For a year they travelled by bicycle, ate only local food, lived without electricity or loo paper, and made their own cleaning products. They came out of it healthier, happier and stronger as a family, and started a very interesting debate.And the best thing about these ideas is that you make your own lifestyle choices. If there is an indulgence one simply has to have, it can be so. As long as overall you are shifting to sustainability.
This is a small planet. Let’s keep it alive, and restore its beauty.What We’re Doing
We as a family have made these commitments for 2010:
• To Become Localvores• Waste not want not – especially with regards to food – see below
• To not fly intercontinentally (ie Europe) in 2010
• Declare war on plastic and seek out alternatives wherever possible
• Be supervigilant about lights, heating, electronics on standby
• 2nd hand everything wherever possible
• Reduce our zipcar usage (we don’t run a car anyway)
• Use public transport rather than taxis
• Give up eating lamb along with beef (Colman is exempt from this one)
• Eat less meat and fish: any meat consumed to be 'happy meat'; fish sustainably caught
• Be creative about energy saving – use the stairs rather than lifts, take 5 minute showers
• Go virtual – download music rather than buy CDs, keep images online
And the February blog will explore how we’re doing as localvores, 2 months in. Food is our biggest expenditure after the rent.
Shockingly
40% of America’s food is junked on the journey from farm to factory to food outlet to fridge.
This waste is appalling as this excellent editorial underlines, and I feel this is morally wrong.Our post-industrial society is so far removed from truth and reality here. We need to value our food, to consider its real worth. Revering foodstuffs will also reduce methane emissions from landfill, it will save money, reduce land degradation and thus protect biodiversity, and bring greater joy to our lives.
Let’s not take it for granted, but celebrate the wonder and glory of food!
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London
FamilyMy mother met us at Heathrow after our splendid week in Barcelona, valiantly collecting us despite suffering from a shocking cold.
Unfortunately, the cold prevented her taking Esme out and about as had been planned.
This satellite image shows Britain under a shroud. It was a remarkable January across the country, we were lucky to catch some of the severest winter since 1987.It was beautiful in an urban grimey sort of fashion.
And it was amusing to witness the whole country somewhat inevitably grind to a halt.
My father carried on painting as the storm winds blew; we are now the proud owners of two more Mellor originals.
My aunt, Gillian, came over for a delightful and relaxed lunch one day, the day of the stunning blizzards over London. My parents’ apartment has double-height ceilings on the 3rd floor of a huge Edwardian building with views stretching far to the east, south and west. 
And to be in this eyrie while snow whirled around was remarkable. The light turned the colour of cement, visibility shrank, and the snow kept falling.Snow, snow beautiful snow, you slip on a lump and over you go!
The wintry weather meant we were generally housebound. Unfortunately some plans to meet up with friends and colleagues were cancelled due to adverse conditions.
That night, the snow ceased, leaving treacherous icy pavements underfoot and a glittering sky above. We had arranged to meet a group of friends but in the end only four made it out through the frozen wastes to the local Indian – a very jolly evening which ended in the Faltering Fullback – old times!Godmother Zoe came over to see Esme beforehand, and her heart must have sank hearing Esme in a full-blown-no-holds-barred-extreme-all-systems-go worst ever tantrum as she approached our door.
It was caused by turning off the TV after 2 hours of watching, but in truth a culmination of being housebound for 3 days, having had an over-stimulated time in Barcelona, with no-one to hang out with as I spent the days trying to work and Mum was under the weather. Either way, it was genuinely scary as my darling angel morphed into a spitting, biting, scratching, screaming banshee. 
Zoe valiantly tried to help but there was little either of us could do. Until at last the storm blew itself out and she went to sleep with beatific smiles after we both described how much we loved each other.Unfortunately, Esme is not quite at the age to enjoy snow. She marvelled at the sight for a while (the day after the snowdump was pretty), but didn’t like the cold.
As evidenced on our one and only daytime outing of the whole week to Hampstead Heath to meet a glowing Emma. 
Esme loved the train there and back, but after five minutes on the heath in the bitter temperatures (despite an exquisitely sunny day) she was distinctly unhappy and no amount of ducks and geese on the frozen ponds or the surrounding quintessential Georgian/early Victorian architecture managed to mollify her.
I had foolishly come out without her gloves, nor with her beloved crutch, the ‘bai’ (pacifier) and muslin.
So Emma and I had a snatched catch up conversation by the pond while Esme huddled inside my coat and grizzled.
Friends
A more successful encounter was visiting Lucy and Rory. Esme is most taken by Finn and Callum and still talks about them.
Esme and I arrived during the afternoon to see Marisa and meet baby Rosie for the first time. 
Colman is now the proud godfather of baby Oisin who had literally doubled in size since the summer.
The Michaels also came over and were both on splendid form.As were Eugene and Marianne, the latter impressing Esme enormously with her spot-on Donald Duck impersonations.
Thanks everyone for a really lovely evening.Angie and Graeme hosted a tremendous dinner designed to show off their new kitchen – well new for us out-of-towners.
Fellow diners were Pete and Glenda, Gayani and Rob.
Conversation, food and alcohol flowed freely; laughter and love shared with friends.
Colman was very emotional in the taxi home, waxing lyrical about his deep affection for London.
Our last night was spent at dinner with my parents to celebrate Mum’s birthday.
Thanks, aged parents, for looking after us so well during our all too brief sojourn in London!
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Birthdays
Celebrations
Birthdays are a marvellous idea. Everybody gets to have a Special Me day every year, and it affords a great social opportunity to get together with people you don’t see as often as you would like.We are blessed with friends with birthdays in January, both in SF and in London, and these celebratory occasions provided some light relief during an otherwise quite difficult month.
Armani
We joined Geoff, Ethan and Paula in marking Armani’s birthday at dinner in a French restaurant in the Lower Haight, and very enjoyable it was too.
Marred only by me striding to the restroom at the end of the night, and slipping very suddenly on kitchen grease, smacking down on my coccyx. Boy that was painful.And I hobbled around the place for the next 48 hours, recovering enough to go out to 80’s Night at the Cat Club for Armani’s official celebrations.
As it had been several decades since I last cavorted on the dance floor, I was enthusiastically shaking my booty, and decided to show off my (somewhat rusty) moves by opening my account with the splits. AGONY as I’d forgotten about the coccyx completely. But it doesn’t do to get up clutching my back now in spasms and retire hurt at such an early stage from the proceedings, in undignified old age pensioner mode, so I gritted my teeth, carried on wriggling, and danced through the pain for the rest of the night.
JeccaThe following weekend we went to Jecca’s 40th birthday party in Burlingame.
We were all requested to wear a hat and many of the guests proved most inventive with their choice of headgear. From hard hats to shower caps, serious lids were worn.
Esme spent much of the party watching Up with Billy and Luca, but at times it was too scary for her, so she would sometimes wander into the party looking for us. Eventually Colman took her upstairs to bed and ended up falling asleep in the bed with her while I carried on.
Jecca organised some party games including pass the balloon up and under in teams, followed by pass the parcel. Every time the music stopped, we had to swap hats. 
Silly, but very good fun.And the last dozen of us even managed to get some dancing in.
Again, relishing the notion of throwing some shapes, I proceeded to cut a rug in style. Doh! I’d forgotten my newly healed coccyx! In excruciation after some high kicks and low sexy squats,
again I couldn’t shuffle off muttering ‘ooh me lumbago’ so worked the floor in a reduced fashion, forced to pogo rather than properly grind to Groove Armada’s dance floor fave, ‘Superstylin’.Great to catch up with the Lawsons properly at breakfast the next day, terrific party!
Bellais a former school mate of Esme’s from Puddle Jumpers.
And her parents, Chris and Darcy, had a party in a playground in the heights of Noe Valley – phew, long way up the hills – for her 3rd birthday, shared with her brother who just turned 1. 
Many of the families at Puddle Jumpers came along: Theo with parents Anne-lise and Bobby; 
Sophie Lee with Asher and Georgianne; Stella with Phu and Tara.
Bella commandeered the largest balloon of virulent blue icing for her cake bowl, most impressively she even managed to eat most of it!
We strolled back down to the depths of Mission Dolores, marvellous views en route, hoping Esme would snooze in the stroller as we had a quick turnaround before heading into town for the next event.Adam’s Birthday Flash Mob Surprise in Union Square!
Alas, she didn’t sleep, and took great umbrage at the idea we were to turn around and head out again.
As we had to be at Union Square before 5pm, I headed off while Colman stayed at home with Esme; we traded places later.
This was my first Flash Mob! About 40 of us gathered in the centre of the square.While waiting for Jen to bring Adam to the Square, a group celebrating another birthday in style hove into view. Which proved to be very serendipitous as this birthday girl had had her friends dress up as a marching band and wander around San Francisco.
Josh and I got them to wait until Adam arrived. Adam was duly very surprised, no more so when their tuba player led us all in Happy Birthday followed by You’ve got a Friend.
Splendid stuff!
Wine Afternoon
And not strictly a birthday, but definitely a celebration, we went to Patrick and Catherine's charming new home in San Anselmo.
Caroline showed Esme a really great time, and they giggled hysterically together all afternoon.
Thanks for donating your playhut to Esme, she loves it!
It was a full complement of Winers reunited for the first Wine Group Gathering of the year.
Morgan and Dave were on terrific form.
Maria and Randall brought beautiful Zella, now 6 weeks old, for us all to coo at.
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She’s Two
Esme
made a swift recovery from jetlag (here she is with Junior and Hans who came to dinner on a flying visit) and our first few days back were straightforward. She's increasingly articulate and is expressing herself very clearly, and is so affectionate, throwing her arms around me, kissing and hugging, so heart-warming. She had been dropping her nap since early December, and so sometimes is crotchety early evening, and is definitely getting more argumentative and bossier in general – all good age and stage stuff!But then we had a tough month.
It began a week after our return on a Saturday night. She woke at 1am for no reason we could fathom, getting hysterical, and refusing to stay lying down if we weren’t in the room. Colman eventually gave in at 3am and brought her into our bed for the first time in her life. Fatal.
The following night, we expected her to sleep through. We’d had a busy day and no nap.
But a major fire, which gutted an apartment in our street at 11pm, put paid to that. The fire engines, flashing lights, and excitable parents talking loudly about fire and smoke, meant she was wide awake and refused to go to sleep unless Colman was in the room with her. So she slept on the sofa (and fell off it) while he slept on the floor beside her.January Brings the Rain
Monday night she did sleep through until a very loud clap of thunder woke us all up at 5am. San Francisco has had barely any rain since we moved here, January saw the welcome deluge as the drought broke. Inches and inches of rain fell during the month. Thunderstorms are rare here, and Esme was most startled by the noise. When she was changed, we were totally unprepared for the manic hysteria that accompanied the disposal of poo. Naked she stood beside the toilet screaming, “I want my poo! I want my poo!”
That night she woke again at 3am, Colman went into her room, got out the mattress and slept on the floor again with her on the sofa.
Around the same time she started to talk about a crocodile, which is in our hallway. Sometimes it lives in the street outside the apartment. A game during the day seemingly, night waking is often attributed to a bad dream about the crocodile trying to eat her up. The crocodile or alligator has become her metaphor for anything scary. Wednesday night, after a fun day playing with
Soren, she suddenly vomited at 6pm, and proceeded to do so all night at regular intervals. A stomach bug had been going round. Poor little mite, she was very calm and sensible throughout; Colman again stayed in her room with her on the floor.
The following evening she made a recovery. But now it was impossible for us to leave the room after we put her down as we always had done: she demanded that we be there until she fell asleep, and again if she woke in the night. It took Colman two hours to get her to sleep that night; Morgan went home in despair! And we were all woken again by an incessant car alarm.Marvellous.
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JennWe were all pretty exhausted by week end.
We had a playdate with Alex and Liz, Fin and Nicole on the Friday day, Esme was subdued until
bed bouncing with Alex was on the menu.
Friday night I took her to Jenn’s 30th Birthday being held in a funky suite in a Japanese anime-styled hotel in Japantown. We were the first to arrive, and made the most of the suite’s facilities. Jenn had gone all out, and looked fantastic!
The suite had big squishy leather bean-bags and a HUGE flatscreen plus lots of grown up games.
Esme and I LOVED playing The Beatles: Rock Band game, it was totally awesome! We were on drums and only after 2 songs did I realised I’d been banging the drum to the guitar track – doh!
It was one of those magical times when one’s child is sweet and engaged with the grown up world. It felt almost sisterly! We banged our drums, sang our hearts out to Day Tripper, Eight Days a Week, and I Saw Her Standing There, and chatted all the way back in the taxi, me explaining that The Beatles were the best band in the world.
Her bonny nature continued all the way into bed. And then as soon as she was in her cot, she refused to lie down and sleep, alternately hysterical and whining. I felt so betrayed! Our wonderful evening ruined!Eventually Colman took over as I started to lose my temper big time, and she finally went to sleep.
January Brings the Pain
At 4am, I started throwing up, having got her bug. Great, just great.
It was pretty severe and I was poleaxed for the whole of the next day, retching green bile into a bucket.
Game over for my weekend much to my chagrin. I lay in bed frustrated at my lack of achievement in any direction and it was Week Three of the new decade! The grass was growing under my feet! Life Opportunities were passing me by!
The following week highlighted that while Esme may genuinely be having nightmares, or finding it difficult to sleep unaided (requests for more sofa, more Colman in the room during the night), there was no excuse for her peeing on the floor at every turn.What had been the odd accident in Week Two became a flood in Weeks Three and Four. I caught her peeing on the carpet beside the potty! The other parents at Puddle Jumpers found it difficult to cope, and for a couple of weeks we faced the prospect of her reverting to daytime diapers for the first time in nearly a year. Once she peed on the floor at school, and then had the cheek to blame Stella for it!
Colman and I started to get very cross with her deliberate wilfulness and naughtiness.
Nanny Lelli was in the baby lounge boasting about how Esme had been potty-trained so young, and how she never had to bring cumbersome diaper bags with her, when one of the other nannies prodded her on the arm. “I think she’s pooing on the floor!”
Still, she remains our angel - here she is playing her new piano, a Christmas present from Colman. And my darling (“I’m not a darling, I’m a Esme!”), immaculately behaved when taken to the dentist for the first time, who when pronouncing a clean bill of dental health, proclaimed her the cutest best-behaved child she’d ever met. Top
Bird of the Month
While watching the blizzards from the relative warmth of my mother’s apartment, I noticed largeish birds flying up and around the gardens in the next street below. Clearly social, they were making their presence very known to all in the vicinity, displaying and flocking.With greyish wings and rump, whiteish underparts and speckled breasts (as observed by squinting through my father’s binos through the falling snow) I identified them as Fieldfares (Turdus pilaris) – last seen by me at least a decade ago.
These are large members of the thrush family who overwinter in the UK, breeding in Scandinavia and Northern Europe, and usually frequent the countryside. On this occasion the Big Freeze had driven them into the city to forage for food. And they were staking out their territory.I gazed at them for ages, mesmerised by their vigorous behaviour in the snow. A great example of how one can enjoy birding, anywhere and anytime that you least expect it.
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Mural of the Month
Stencil of the Month
Bumper Sticker of the Month
Honk! If You Have Poor Impulse Control
