Now three weeks into our six week stay in Jersey, I am writing this as much by way of an update for Dylan as it is for everyone else. It’s not that we’ve been so overwhelmingly busy in the past couple of weeks that I haven’t had time to speak to Dylan. The main issue is that Jasper has been suffering from homesickness and that hearing Dylan’s voice, seeing Dylan’s face and recognising our Mumbai apartment in the background of a video call sends Jasper straight to the front door declaring tearfully ‘I want to go Japper-home. I want Baba.’
In many ways I am relieved that it is only homesickness he has gone down with. I don't want to jinx it, but a three week stretch of no cough, no sniffles and no fever is like a dream come true. I am not sure how he has stayed so healthy, he’s licked more communal toys than I’d like to count at the playgroups we’ve been going to, but perhaps somewhere between the fresh air and the volume of fruit smoothies he’s consuming, his immune system is enjoying a boost. I was wondering, before we left Mumbai, which way things would go - would the change of climate and the exposure to new viruses take him out on a weekly basis, or would he be fine. And so far, it seems, healthwise, he is absolutely fine.
Devilment-wise, however, his antics tell a very different story. After lulling me into a false sense of pride at having such a wonderfully adaptable and easily exhaustible baby with a week and a half of deep and restful slumber, he has now decided to stop sleeping. Well, not quite ‘stop’ sleeping. I suppose a better description is that he is on strike from sleeping, demanding better sleeping conditions which in his words are ‘mama sleep there’, with a jab of a finger towards the floor beside his cot. Gone are the days of me sauntering out of his room after a single story, kicking off a hearty rendition of ‘Old MacJasper has a farm’ as I close the door and leaving him to belt out the rest of a verse or two before he passes out mid-moo. All old MacJasper has on his farm currently is a very angry, very bossy toddler screaming his head off. The other animals seem to have moved out, which is understandable.
The secondary issue I have, therefore, in my attempts to speak to Dylan, is that for the brief and erratic moments when Jasper is sleeping and not getting upset at his father being in India, I am desperately trying to squeeze in some work. I had such an efficient routine going for the first few days - working before he woke up in the morning, while he was napping and a little after he went down for the night. And these six-or-so hours of work a day gave me the rest of the day to enjoy some guilt-free, very present parenting.
And I really do mean enjoying - Jasper and I have not taken our foot off the pedal as far as our ‘a new day, a new bay’ approach to the Jersey coastline. We have spent many happy hours throwing rocks into the sea at Bouley Bay, swinging on the seaside swings at Gorey Beach, running as far as we can run at St Brelade’s Bay (at low tide), tucking into Thai food at Havre-Des-Pas, inspecting the lighthouse at Sorel Point, failing to pick the winning horse at the spectacular Les Landes racecourse against the backdrop of at least 3 other Channel Islands, picking out purple pebbles at St Catherine’s and yacht-spotting at Portelet Bay. Despite my assurances otherwise, Jasper is convinced that he might spot a tiger while we are out walking in the overgrown bushes around the north coast, but that doesn’t dent his enthusiasm for hide-and-seek. And when we aren’t teetering on the edge of a cliff or digging our toes into the sand, we are making the most of the lush, green countryside, puddle-stomping our way through St Catherine’s woods, feeding the chickens and imagining life in a 16th century farmhouse at Hamptonne, winding our way round the local lanes on the lookout for livestock, and attending my newly-encountered and undoubtedly all-time favourite playgroup: The Sheep Shed.
I think the two hours we spend at the Sheep Shed are my favourite two hours of the entire week. The only part of it I don’t like is that it is hidden away in the depths of St Lawrence (one of Jersey’s 12 parishes) and that the satnav seems to take sadistic pleasure in sending me down the narrowest of lanes to reach the farm. These lanes are so narrow that the car goes into overdrive beeping at every overgrown grass and every overconfident dandelion which tickles its sides as we make our way gingerly along. I drive as though I am playing a motorised version of musical chairs; every time I pass a layby or field entrance or someone’s driveway, I slow down in the hope that the music will stop and an oncoming car will pass at that exact moment to save me having to reverse back there when I come nose to nose with someone a few hundred yards up the road.
We arrive fired up with adrenalin - me because I have managed to avoid grazing my mother’s car against a granite wall, and Jasper because he knows what awaits him inside the barn. We park the car and head through the outdoor play area where there is a pirate ship, a sand pit, and some slides. On our first visit, it took me almost half an hour to convince Jasper that there was more to see. We continue towards the barn door, passing some rabbits in a hut, although Jasper is far more interested in whether he can steal the rabbits’ ball than watching them play with it. Just outside the barn itself is a coffee truck which also sells Jasper’s new favourite snack: Pom-Bears. And then we enter the barn: to the right there is a small, fenced area with trucks, diggers, tractors, buses and a bucket-load of farmyard animals. Jasper spends about 90% of his time here. Further in is a colouring station, a cake-decorating table, a dressing up room, a play kitchen, a play doctor’s surgery and a saloon bar with around 6 hobby-horses and as many cowboy hats. Towards the back of the barn is a full sized tractor and often, a bouncy castle. There are cans to knock over with bean bags, there are tractor magazines to enjoy curled up in a cosy, fireside armchair. But beyond all the incredible imagination-stretching activities for the kids, the biggest selling point for me is that the entire indoor-outdoor space is entirely safe for the little people to run around without the bigger people needing to worry. I am happy to sip my coffee and chat with the other mums without eyes on Jasper, which is a very, very rare treat. Of course, I could put good money on the fact that he’d be in the truck/ farmyard area, but even if he had ventured outside, it’s all gated, so he’s safe there too.
An hour or so into the session, the hosts invite everyone out into one of the fields to help with some planting or watering or other tending to food and flowers in the vegetable patch. Or to visit the sheep in their meadow and see the lambs. Or simply to take a spin on the ride-on farm vehicles.
The scenery around the barn is particularly lush and unruly because of all the rain that we’ve been having. I wouldn’t be British if I didn’t comment at least once on ‘what a lot of weather we’ve been having’, now, would I? Apart from some intermittent sunny periods during which I take most of my photos, it has been various shades of miserable since we arrived (and beforehand too, by all accounts), and so Jasper is now the proud owner of some waterproof trousers, some very jazzy wellies and a rain jacket. Kitted out as he is, he couldn't care less about the weather. Come rain or more rain, he is happy to squelch about exploring his surroundings. He thinks 11 degrees is more than warm enough to merit an ice cream.
Jasper is very much living his best life, which makes it all the more frustrating that when he’s not asleep (which is too often), or enjoying the activities I’ve lined up for him (which is not often enough), he invests all his effort into testing my limits. From the moment he wakes up (or rather, from the moment I give up on trying to keep him asleep) he is on me. He wants everything and nothing for breakfast, he wants me to play with him but won’t let me play, he’s under my feet, he’s attached to my leg, he won’t walk, he will only walk, he wants to go in his buggy until he doesn’t want to be in his buggy, he wants his songs on the car sound system but not whichever song happens to be playing, cries when he sees my face, cries when he doesn’t see my face, doesn’t want to do something when it needs doing and can’t think of anything else he’d rather do once the time for that task is over. He won’t put on his jumper and then he won’t take it off, and I would hate to calculate just how many hours I spend chasing him round the house trying to get a single sock on a single foot. Everything is a game to him - but he seems to be the only one who knows the rules. If he had his way, he’d probably leave the house every day wearing nothing but his wellies and a heavy, wet nappy. Or he wouldn’t leave the house. But then things would get broken. Everything we do takes twice as long and twice the effort to achieve, and on half the sleep, I am not enjoying it as much as I was to start with.
But still, I stand by my decision to bring Jasper to Jersey because what he gains in life experience far outweighs what I lose in sleep. He is, after all, only two and a half, and perhaps this is all part of him working out how the world works.
Even so, a couple of messages to you, as readers. Dylan - please move up your flight and get here sooner to lend a hand. Everyone else - steer clear of Jersey for a few weeks. There’s a Jasper on the loose and at times, he is infinitely more wild than a tiger.
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