Meet the Wildes

Amber Wilde August 21, 2019

Rhubarb from the Garden

Earlier this month, we said goodbye to our rented house in South-East London and moved to the seaside town of Folkestone, to a home of our own. There is a home tour on my YouTube if you’d like to see our house in its raw state, before we get started on decorating it. Our vendors are the loveliest people, and as well as messaging advice about the care and keeping of the houseplants that we were fortunate to inherit, they also let me know that a) the sprawling plant in the garden was rhubarb and b) it makes a delicious pie. I couldn’t stop thinking of this pie, and I thought it would be a lovely experience for our children – to harvest rhubarb from our garden and turn it into something edible. So we did that – and was, indeed, the loveliest experience! Kirsty and I kept asking each…

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Amber Wilde August 20, 2019

Dreaming of Centaurs

When the weather breaks, I dream of the horses. In my dreams I am ageless; the horses are a dream of my past and of the future. Petrichor fills the air and when I run my hand down her withers she is reassuringly solid beneath my touch. I know that my mind is healing because when I ride in my dreams, my balance, my communication with the horse is no longer fractured; my body flows into her body as though we have been melded, as though we are one. Mornings these days begin at an hour that Kirsty and I used to consider bedtime; the world is bathed in blue light and the birds are optimistic. When the children tumble down the stairs, the baby is still sleeping beside me. She stirs as I pull her back into my arms, her mouth opens like a baby bird. My breastfeeding relationship with…

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Amber Wilde July 30, 2019

Three Nights at Haven Seashore in Great Yarmouth [AD]

[This post contains advertorial content. We were invited to spend a weekend at Haven Seashore in Great Yarmouth in order to review their recently-developed facilities and compensated for our time and promotion. Nonetheless, I have tried to provide an honest and unbiased account of our experience.] We were so excited to be invited to review Haven Seashore in Great Yarmouth. If you’ve been following this blog for a while you’ll know that we are no strangers to caravan holidays; they are so convenient with small children. We love that caravans are virtually indestructible and having some living space and a kitchen is provides much more convenience and freedom than staying in a hotel. We were especially pleased to review the Haven Seashore caravan park because it has recently undergone a huge renovation to upgrade its facilities, including the creation of new outdoor playgrounds and an indoor soft play and a…

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Amber Wilde July 17, 2019

On Meeting my Children’s Half-Sister

The child is an acrobat. She is quiet and fierce, and by the time that she allows my sons to push her on the swing, they are completely in her thrall. We watch them play, her mother and I; they are absorbed in their climbing and sliding, their chalk and their ice cream and we…? We are absorbed in them. Without looking at her, I know that she is looking at my children too; she is searching their faces for her daughter. Standing beside her mother, it occurs to me that I have no word for the woman who mothers my children’s half-sister. I tell them to call her ‘Auntie’ and she does feel a bit like a sister, especially when she pulls from her bag everything that I have forgotten. She teaches my children how to paint rainbows on their skin and I buy us all ice cream and…

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Amber Wilde July 1, 2019

Vita at Six Months

[Images are by Maxine Small and whilst I didn’t pay for these photos, I absolutely plan to commission her again based on her considerable talent. Would highly recommend!] Vita Marina Calliope Wilde is six months old! Already the baby that she was, dark-eyed and with hair like a moorhen chick, has faded into something between dream and memory; already when I think back to those days it’s with a sense of disbelief that it ever really happened, that there was ever a time where Baby V was new, because surely we never knew a time when there was no Baby V and yet we felt complete. I think back on those somnolent days, where day and night were blended into one, and it feels implausible and magical and oh so special – for me, Vita’s early days where spent curled around my baby, broken and bleeding and stunned, filled with love and gratitude…

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