Leaving on a Jet Plane

There were these photographs, from about a week ago. They were of Olivia lying in her cot and for some reason I'd managed not to get much baby into each shot.

They weren't great, but I was looking over the photos we'd taken and I couldn't help but notice that they looked like photobooth shots, like you can use on a passport, and it also looked as though she'd had trouble spinning the seat up to the right height, so I bunged 'em into Photoshop and put a frame round 'em.

It also looks like she's done a furtive glance each way and then flicked someone the Vs.

Of course, you can tell that they're not really passport photos.

I'm going away tomorrow. I'm going the Marillion Weekend in the Netherlands. I should be as happy as a pig in the proverbial about it. I am happy. Going to see my favourite band play three shows in three days, plus supports and socialising with our friends, c'mon, of course I'm happy. I'm very happy.

There is a 'but'. K___ and Olivia won't be coming. We've known they wouldn't be coming for ages, but it's going to be hard. K___ and I haven't been apart for five days ever, and more importantly, it was at one of the Marillion Weekends that we met. We've only ever spent a day apart since we started living together and to add to how bad I feel, it's her birthday on Sunday. I feel like such a heel.

Making it harder is leaving Olivia behind and knowing that K___ is going to have to deal with things. She's going to be at her mum's in Lincolnshire, so she'll have loads of support, but that won't make it any easier for either of us.

Olivia probably could have come, as in they would have allowed a baby on the site, but the problem is that you need a passport before they can travel abroad. That's right. A newborn baby needs a passport. Babies are known for their tendencies to commit dangerous acts upon planes, aren't they? It's obviously sensible and necessary and definitely not completely fucking absurd and nope, I haven't noticed any freedoms being infringed in the name of terrorism prevention either*...

Even if it didn't take more weeks than she's been alive to process an application for a passport, the photos above wouldn't be any good. She's not smiling, which does meet one stipulation, but they also have to be able to see both ears...

* Hark at my sophisticated satire about "The War on Nouns", eh? Eat your heart out, Rory Bremner.

I've Got a Photograph, I've Got a Picture of You

(Olivia asked if I would let her write this miscellaneous gallery entry herself, so I'm going to correct her spelling but otherwise hand over to her for a bit.)

"This is me doing a yawn while being held by my Daddy. His job is to change my nappy and I did a very brilliant joke on him where I did a poo and then my Daddy cleaned me up and put a new nappy on and then before he could do it up I did another poo and then my Daddy cleaned me up and put a new nappy on and then before he could do it up I did another poo but I only did it three times because more than three violates the cardinal rules of comedy. It was very brilliant.

"I like him.

"This is me about to have my first bath and you can see my cord is shrivelling and black and Debra who is the lady that caught me when I came out says it will fall off soon and this is very brilliant.

"This is me having my first bath and I used to like Debra but now I am not sure and I know I don't like baths - they are not very brilliant at all.

"Debra is checking my heart and my lungs and she says they are very brilliant so now I like her again and she also checked my reflexes and did this thing on my legs where she checked me for clicky hips and my Mummy and my Daddy both went a bit green when she did it but it was okay really.

"This is me and my Great Nana who I am named after and she was very happy to see me and she liked me a very lot indeed and she wasn't even rude about me like she was about my Daddy when he was a baby and this is because I am too cute for words and even people who aren't related to me say that this is the truth so it must be.

"I like her.

"I am sitting with my Mummy, my Nana and my Great Nana and this makes four lots of ladies in a row and my Grandma is taking my photograph and it is very brilliant indeed.

"I am very tiredly now and I think I am going to ask my Mummy to make me some foods and then I am going to have some sleeps in my brain. That would be very brilliant."