1. Stop over in New Delhi aged 7, 1983
2. Landed back in New Delhi, November 1996 on a round-the-world trip aged 19 for 2 months
3. Back to Goa, Calcutta and up to Darjeeling in 1997
4. Drove from Pakistan to Nepal on the London to Kathmandu 608 tour, 2000
5. Holiday in Kerala, 2005
6. Working for the FCO in Mumbai

…6th trip to India.

Got to catch up with me old mucker Paddy out there and also had the new experience of working whilst crawling around amongst rat shit. It’s all good really.

I love this country. Always have done, always will.

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Amman is located at a height of 2953 feet above sea level. That’s actually quite high up.

Also got down to the Dead Sea which is the lowest point on earth at 1,335 feet below sea level. That’s actually quite low. Obviously I decided to take my memory card out of my camera for that trip.

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Call me a heathen but I’m actually jacking in using Photoshop for the time being in favour of Microsoft Picture Manager. For the same reason I don’t shoot in raw when I know I should, I just cannot find that editing time that Photoshop demands. I just go with the default corrections, a batch resize, rename and hey presto.

So, those notorious Spratt girls.

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The following letter jumps around quite a bit as it’s taken a couple of months for me to get round to putting this together in full, for that I apologise…

2 months. It’s currently the Saturday the 27th of February 2009 (I’ll pre-date this entry just to confuse me). I’m on a flight back from Mumbai to LHR T5. Someone’s just put some garlic prawns down in front of me so I’d better eat them… they were ok. I haven’t seen you since the 10th of Feb so that’s another 17 days, what will be 20 days of my life wasted not enjoying my babies. Being away fromthe three of you isn’t good. But being in India again has been yet another reminder that I need to create an opportunity for us all to move abroad. Not that I needed a reminder, but it has to happen. Living in Bow is good, we love our home there but can’t see ourselves living there forevermore. 2 bedrooms is fine for the time being but we will need something bigger; something with proper outdoor space; something in a warm climate; something in a different country; something in a place where (pardon my snobbishness and I knew this would be the case when we moved in) where we’re not surrounded by rifraf.

Mummah posted a bunch of photos of you recently on Facebook (am going to take an intrepid guess that that will still be around in some form by the time you can actually read this). You’ve fattened up a chunk, started smiling a lot and are looking like an extremely cute little munchkin. Really can’t wait to get hold of you this coming Tuesday. We haven’t seen enough of each other so far by far.

Right now you’re in South Africa, at your grandparents place in Plettenberg Bay. The same place where Frankie was at the same age, 2 years ago. How’s it meeting Granny Caroline and Grandpa? I get the impression from Ma that they’re loving you.

For The Record

• You’re pretty much the perfect baby. You’ll cry only if you’re hungry or your nappy needs changing. Keep that up.
• You’ve still got a cross-shaped fontinel. I hope Frankie’s taking care when she’s around you. Sometimes we have to restrain her from squashing it/you with her foolish displays of affection for you.
• Carry on from you having contorted arms, you’ve taken to flailing them around sporadically. Bit weird.
• You’ve found your feet, literally, when left alone for a short while if you’re not studying your hands, you’ll grab both your feet and play with them instead.

Right, Alex, it is now Wednesday the 21st of April. I have other draft notes to you backed up too. When I first started writing to your sister, I foolishly didn’t quite gather that I wouldn’t have the same amount of hands of my time as I did when I wasn’t a father. So, and maybe this’ll change again but I’m going to have to revise how often I write. I think that after this one, I’m going to combine you and your sister’s letters. There’s just never enough time. Hope you don’t mind, hope if anything it has more of a bonding effect between you two. Not that you’ll need that. Maybe the frequency will change again but I’ll certainly keep taking as many pictures of you as I can, which you’ll then inherit one day. Whoopee-do I hear you cry. Well you’re children will love them even if you don’t.

I’m in Durban now and you’re back home in east Londinium. I’ve more than outstayed my time here. Was ready to come home towards the end of last week when I caught the news that a volcano in Iceland had shut done all UK airspace. Mummy thought I was taking the piss but it’s true. Virgin Atlantic have rescheduled my flight for the 4th May, that’s 2 weeks away. That’s ridiculous. Am getting a tad bored out here and have decided that Durban is not the best place in the world. There’s not a great deal to do but I did fit in some skydiving inland from Durban, near a place called Eston. Had not jumped for over 18 months so needed recurrency training and a check jump but managed to get 7 jumps in one day. Best day’s jumping I’ve ever had. Now I’m just itching to jump out of a plane with Mummy. How much fun is that going to be? Lots. And then as soon as you’re old enough, obviously you’ll be joining us. No? How cool would that be? The 4 of us flying through the air together. Nuts.

Loving and missing you,

Daddy X

I miss you.

You’re now in SA and I’m about to go to India for 10 days. I’m then back for a day then heading south to come join you. We skyped each other this morning before I left the house. Occassionally I catch a screenshot of you in our skype chats:

Handstand demo (Alex looking on)

Right this second I’m sitting on the upper deck of a 747 bound for Mumbai. I’m listening to ’101 Power Ballads’ (Queen: ‘I Want It All’) and outside my window it’s pitch. I tell a lie, I can see city lights down below, let me just look at the map of where we’re over… Iran. 2 and a half hours until we get there. I’ll try to keep the info included herein only up until the 18th January and will pre date the blog entry for neatness sake but it’s actually the 17th February today. As I sit down to think of it, there’s been quite a bit going on since you turned 2. The biggest being yours sister’s arrival, then Nana and Ottoo visiting, Christmas and me working in Jordan.

I take no pleasure in telling you that the tantrums have increased (that’s yours, not mine), in regularity and absurdity. You may wake up, call us to come get you (you’ve only worked out once so far that you can get out of bed and leave your room of your own accord), “I want nice warm ‘bena” I look at you expectantly/encouragingly waiting for you to complete your sentence: “…pease.” “OK”. I go get you a drink which you guzzle down within a couple of minutes. You’ll then say “I want telly.” … “…pease.” … “It’s still night time.” I say, nearly lying (although at 06h30 it is still dark) “Waaaaah” “Please don’t wake your sister, go to your room if you want to cry.” “Waaah”. And the morning’s off to a roaring start, Kate and I giving each other WTF glances. But you do tootle off to your room where you can revel in your own fruitloopiness.

Stamping of the feet, screaming, high-pitched squealing, forced or real tears, which all come on so instantaneously, you work yourself up into such a frenzy. To be honest, it’s fairly fucking nuts. How the where the who the? But when you’re done you want to be our friend again, literally, saying “You my best friend.”, “…in whole world. Ever, ever. I want cuddle you.”

Crunchie Nut from James Spratt on Vimeo.

For the record

• 22.11.09: Your longest sentence to date: “I don’t want to take my finger out of my nose Mummy.”
• You seem unable to pronounce the letter ‘O’. Instead you’ll say ‘oo’. Therefore: pianoo, tomatoo, Dumboo, Uncle Ottoo, ‘cadoo (avo) and pilloo.
• Favourite colour: Green. You still don’t actually know your colours, but you want the green one all the same. That and the middle one too.

You’ve had some nasty skin issues which seemed to arrive when the bad weather did. Chapped lips that took ages to heal; then your sucked thumb lost the nail and the skin turned wrinkly, this does mean though that for the time being you’re no longer sucking it; your eye, the one you play with got quite gunky, but this also means that you’ve all but stopped playing with that; and your skin is not its beautiful baby-smooth self. The winter weather has taken its toll on you.

Quotes of the Day

[desperate, earnest]: “Please help me.”

[complaining]: “Mummy, Daddy’s trying to help me.”

[imperative]: Kate: “No Frankie.”
You: “Erm, I think yes.”

“Oh no. Poor us. What are we going to do?”

Some evening, we stop and listen through the baby monitor to the rot you come out with after you’ve been put to bed. For maybe up to a couple of hours after you’ve been put to bed you normally merrilly chat away to your self, interspersed with the odd gurgle as another drink gets necked. Like some voice in your head is prepping you for the student years to come, you Zulu warrior. You sing a bit of  Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Baa Baa Black Sheep, talk about Mummy or me or I don’t know, wahtever, but it’s incessant nonsense. Keep this up, it’s absolutely beautiful stuff to listen to.

Some time before Christmas we had the decidedly sad thought that you will never love us as much as we love you. Hold on, I’m not trying to be morose here, I’m just stating what I think is fact. That’s not you in particular, but parents and their children in general. And if my parents were to ever read this, I don’t want to take anything away from them, because they’re great an’all. I hope they’d know what I mean. I guess it’s all in the programming, but you have taught me about this unconditional love since you and now Alex were born. I’m guessing within 30 years you’ll be learning about it too. It’s pretty consuming and it feels good. That said, if you did turn out to be the next Hitler, you certainly wouldn’t be getting any Christmas pressies, I can tell you.

Speaking of which, we had our first Christmas as a four. Mummy, Alex, you and me á table. It also snowed around the Christmas period too which made it all the better. We went out into Victoria Park around the new year period and built a snowman. To be fair, it was a travesty of a snowman but you seemed to like it all the same. We had watched ‘The Snowman’ soon before building one so you love the concept of snowmen. At the end of the movie though, when the snowman melted away, you cried. My little sensitive lady, how outrageously sad.

Skype snapshot: Twinkle Twinkle Little Star on the pianoo

It’s now the 26th of Feb and I’m nearly at the end of my Indian trip. You must come to this country at the earliest opportunity. I came here first when I was 19 (unless I count the 24hr stopover in New Delhi on the way to Singapore when I was 7). It’s my favourite country for travelling in. So many reasons why: its vibrancy, its antipodal difference from our country; the friendliness of the people; the excellent weather; the sheer size and therefore domestic geographical difference of the place; the way these guys shake their heads; the rickshaw rides; the food; the soda and lime; the density of the populous; the mythological side to the religions; I could go on, I will go on when we’re on a more level playing field. All I’m saying is: do this place.

I miss you and cannot wait to come and see you and the rest of our gang in Plettenberg Bay. Only 5 days to go. I hope you’ve been looking after your sister and helping Mummy where you can. Looking forward to seeing how your kick-kicking is coming on in the pool.

All the love,

Daddy X

Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday my Frankie,
Happy Birthday to you.

2 brilliant years; 24 delightful months; 104 hilarious weeks; 730 lovely days; 17520 beautiful hours; 1,051,200 perfect minutes; 63,072,000 seconds of joy.

So what’s new? Comparing where you’re at now to where you were at 1, there’s a massive difference. Maybe the biggest single year difference you’ll make? You’ve gone from a squidgy bouncing baby who needs attending to, into a rather splendid little lady who attends to everything. From the moment you’re awake now, to the moment you go to bed you’re a nonstop chatterbox, into everything, getting everywhere. I love it. Your opening gambit is normally “I woke up”, then a continual stream of what could well be described as complete codswallop for most of the next 12 hours. A lot of this diatribe is playing make-believe, playing shopping (normally for strawberries), playing “cookcook”ing, making us drinks “Cuppatea?” (head tilted, encouragingly). You take great interest in what everyone is doing all around you. “Doing?” is the mantra of choice at the mo. Like most of us there’s a need to be at least acknowledged, you want to be involved, you want to be heard. There are the occassional moments when unfortunately it’s not all all about you and we might be busy doing something else and you’ll crescendo “Daddy Mummy, Daddy Mummy, DADDY MUMMY!”.

Kate: Your nose is looking particularly stick-on today Daddy
Frankie: I fix it later.

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Me: (taking some bread off your plate)
Frankie: I want this one
Me: Oh sorry, I thought you’d finished.
Kate: Naughty Daddy
Frankie: Naughty Daddy
Frankie: I hit him?
Kate: No, we don’t hit anyone.
Frankie: I kick him?

For the record

• You love swimming. You swim in the bath. You wear swimming goggles in the bath. But one visit to the swimming baths at Windsor, whilst we were getting changed, I turned around for two seconds. Just enough time to head dive from the bench on to the floor. Incisors first. Blood, tears. Youch. Poor little mite. For roughly the next 4 years you will have a chip in your smile. Nice one.
• 30th September we moved back into the old/new place in Bow. Not that we’re not grateful to Granny and Grandpa for the past year but it is so good to be back in our own domain.
• 3rd October you moved into a grown up bed.
• 5th October, first time you took yourself off to bed for a siesta. Just toddled off and tucked yourself in. So so cute.
• You’ve been counting pretty well up to 20 for a few months now. Learnt from counting the stairs whilst heading up to bed in the year we lived in Maidenhead.
• And I’ve counted roughly 8+ word from you sentences now.

“I like your body Daddy.” Very nice of you to say so!?

You’re as interested as we are about your sister and quite often will give Mummy’s tummy a kiss or a cuddle and talk about her. I can’t wait or her to arrive and see you two together. You’ll be the best big sister.

Am writing this one from the office in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Have been here for over 2 weeks and it’s really time I got home and stayed home for a while now. You should come to this city some day, I think you’d like it.

All love,

DaddyJames X

This is now a month overdue, so in 19 years and less than 3 months we’ll be celebrating your 21st birthday (yes do ask me for help with your maths homework anytime). I wonder what you’ll look like when you’re older. Cute as a motherfucking button I should imagine.

Month 21 phot

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Conversation transcripts Mumma sent me two consecutive mornings:

F:  Mummaah?
K:  Yes bubba?
F:  Daddaa?
K:  Dadda loves you very much.
F:  Nice

F:  Mummaa?
K:  Yes bubba?
F:  Daddaa?
K:  Daddy’s coming home soon.
F:  Dadda home come

And then a morning after an argument between Mummy and I. You hops into bed with us and the first thing you say is “Dadda loves you Mumma”.

Oh bollocks/ how the what!?

This time I’m spending away is playing on me a bit. It’s far from an ideal situation. Yep it’s unlikely that you’ll remember any of this time, I think my first memories may have been from when I was about three, playing with snow and playing with some wooden toys at ‘Jingles’, the nursery I went to. But I don’t want to miss anything about you. And come to that, I don’t want you to miss out on me too. Have left you and Mummy and #2 (still undecided on names between Bow, Cat, Sam or else) again for two and a half weeks, this time for Czech.

I came home from work early the day before I caught my flight, in order to squeeze in some more time together. Decided it was time we went swimming again so headed over to Windsor. You were non-stop around the pool, squealing with excitement, loving it. No float nor armbands, confident enough for me to just hold you in the water with one hand, but stupid enough to try and let go of me a couple of times. Must do more of that soon after I get back.

Stats
H: 83.5cms, W: 12.3kgs, (historical…)

I had previously questioned the need for a routine but you’ve come up with one naturally anyway. Up at 6:30-7ish. TV and cuddles in bed. Either we drop you off at Wendy’s (the childminder, who you’re always excited to see) or she picks you up around 9ish. Breakfast (toast and honey currently your favourite), pick you up around 4 or 5ish, by which time you’ve normally eaten (well), play for an hour and a bit then you normally call ‘bubbles’, i.e. bathtime and up we go, followed by a book and bed around 6:30. Easy.

You love…

• penguins at the moment, probably started by you watching Happy Feet
• bouncing on the trampoline or the bed
• letting us know who your best friends are. We’re ‘bigged up’ when it’s us
• drinking -  you always have and continue to drink like you’ve just discovered an oasis after being stuck for a week in the Sahara
• making us laugh. A couple of month ago your funny thing was this: looking at one of us with your eyes locked to one side whilst your face is looking the opposite way (like the 7th picture above). You hold it for a few seconds until we burst into laughter then you join in, satisfied that you’ve done your entertainment bit for the time being. And then what’s the second rule of show business Frankie? Exactly.

And as you’ve picked up so much language already, along with it, you’ve quickly become a very polite lady: “Frankie, would you like something to eat?” “Ummm, no thank you.” And you’re also slightly on the hypochondriac side “Hurt” – as you profer to me a part of your body that desperately needs kissing better. And sometimes you speak so earnestly, so definite and so considered. I wonder if words may be your thing too, as it is with quite a few in the family.

Glossary

• Nice warm: warm Ribena
• Bikeball: let’s go and play with the bike and the ball.
• Shake-rolls: being talcum-powdered after bathtimes, taken from the english “shake, rattle and roll”
• Cook cook: make believe cooking, also denoted by moving your hands like a DJ
• Bubba: your toy baby. Bloody hideous thing it is, thanks Helene.
• My Bonnay: your cousin Bonnie
• Grannay: Granny
• Funneshd: finished
• Ahhkayy: OK
• A-ix-Abi: your mates from Wendy’s, Alex and Abi

By the time I next write, we’ll be back in London town. Hoo-bloody-ray. We’ve missed our flat in Bow and can’t wait to get there again. Soon afterwards, little sister will be with us. We talk to you about her quite a bit and occassionally you’ll kiss Mummy’s tummy. Despite the absurdity concept that there’s a baby growing inside Mummy, you have cottoned on to the fact that you’re going to have a sister, saying the word “sister”, saying “bubba Mummy’s tummy”. The four of us went to get the one of us scanned a couple of weeks back. We’d briefed you as to what was going on and as soon as your sister’s image came up on screen, you squealed with delight “Babyyyyyyyyy”. Naturally, I was quietly blubbing away and then you have to go and say “Happyyyyyyy”.

You slay me girl. Love, love, love,

Your Daddy x