Hello to the start of a new week!
How can a TV show help name your baby? It was this day in 1985 that the first episode of the TV soap 'Eastenders' aired. Little did we know that this programme would influence the name that we gave our daughter when I fell pregnant at the end of that year. We didn't know if we were having a boy or a girl so struggled to find two names that we both liked. For a girl we narrowed it down to two, Michelle or Rachel. But as Eastenders became increasingly popular, the character of Michelle Fowler became so well known and we realised that our baby would quite possibly be referred to as 'Shell' or 'Meesh'. Said in a cockney accent! Which is why she was named Rachel instead. Of course that became 'Raych' as she got older, why do people always have to shorten names?
It's half term this week so our routines are altered. We'll have Leo and Rosie all day on Tuesday but won't have Olive or Max as their aunty from Brooklyn, New York is over for a week and they'll be spending time with her.
We had a momentous event at the end of last week. We went to Cambridge and when we got to the 'Park and Ride', Paul was able to use his bus pass for the first time! What a novelty. It was a lovely sunny day in Cambridge, while Paul was browsing book shops and artists suppliers I happily browsed the shops and managed to find a couple of things for him to give me for my birthday. Then lunch at our favourite Aromi Sicilian restaurant. A nice way to spend a Friday.
It's all about the Italian restaurants this week as we met up with my sister and cousin at a 'new to us' Italian in a village midway between where we all live. It was so delicious and rightly deserves all the great reviews it gets from people who live in that area. So I ended the week with food, and I'm starting this one with food. I'm meeting up with a friend I met at my first job back in 1976 - my waistline needs me to stop organising social events which involve eating and drinking!
I am with you on the shortening of names & please don't get me started on nicknames assigned by school friends ... I'll say no more.
ReplyDeleteIF we were going out for dinner, it would be an Italian restaurant as my first choice. How nice is that, that Paul is excited with his bus pass, I know some get all maudlin about that option. :)
I know what you mean about namees. When we named our first baby "Sandra", it was going to be just that. Well, pretty much as soon as we brought her home, she became "Sandy" and that was it!! Your "babies" are growing up fast! You are so lucky to still be getting them regularly--even if it's exhaustng!
ReplyDeleteYour social outings sound wonderful - and delicious! I have to agree that shortened names are frustrating. We tried so hard to find "just the perfect" names for our children...including names that could not/would not be shortened. As adults, neither of them have technically shortened their names...they just use other names! Sigh. And I have to admit, I am missing the significance of Paul using his bus pass (??) but glad he was excited:)
ReplyDeleteTwo things: 1) if you have a short name, people take liberties with it and lengthen it! and 2) I love that you buy your own birthday gifts for P to give you - that happens here as well, but usually at Christmas!
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