Siege, sunburn and signing...

What a dramatic weekend! And I expected it to be quite dull...there's another life lesson for me!
The original plan was to man the charity car park in Whitstable with my visitor information centre petition, and the RSPCA who are the Kentish Gazette's charity for the year.
And it started very well, and was lots of fun meeting visitors and talking to them about Whitstable and why they came.
But then we started hearing sirens. Then more sirens. Then people started talking about a road block at the harbour.
So I'm afraid my campaigning persona was replaced by reporter Liz, who was off to investigate! There were plenty of rumours but after four hours of hanging around, in the burning sun with nowhere to get shade, the 23-year-old in the flat came out and it was all over. It was actually a bit dull and the police response - dozens of armed officers, a sniper trained on the flat, dog units, more than 15 police cars plus meat wagon, seemed a bit extreme but of course that's not what they say.
You can read all about it here....
http://www.kentishgazette.co.uk/news/default.asp?article_id=44000
and of course there will be a full report in this week's fantastic Whitstable Gazette. And I can assure you the words "hanging around" won't feature at all!
His family turned up at the scene but weren't keen to talk to me. I can understand their feelings, especially at a stressful time, but if I had been given the chance to have a meaningful conversation with them I would have liked to have pointed out that by speaking to me they could have made sure their son/brother/nephew was portrayed as the person they knew, instead of the person the police believe him to be. And besides, we're just doing our job so respect works both ways...
Tash was safely at home with Mark through all this drama, and apparently being a bit of a pickle. Although he's a real star at doing his bit, and his shifts make it a lot easier than for most men, he rarely has to deal with her alone for more than a few hours so part of me was sneakily pleased she was playing him up.
I was less pleased when she continued to play up when I got in and we had another one of 'Those' bedtimes where I had to stay upstairs for half an hour till she was safely in the land of nod.
Today was a busy one but no work, apart from this evening when I was writing up all sorts of bits and pieces - not the siege, as in this multimedia age I had to get something done for the website asap.
We managed to buy another truck-load of toys from the Church Street boot fair and then went to Wildwood this afternoon for an NCT party which included sing and sign with our regular and lovely teacher.
The inlaws were down for the weekend after spending a week in Devon with Mark's younger brother and the famous Jake, who is just a day younger than Tasha.
My feelings towards him (as an entity, not a baby - he's a lovely little chap) are confusing - when Jane and I were pregnant together I thought we would end up bonding and getting very close. It didn't exactly happen like that, partly because although we were both expecting we had different experiences and expectations and are different people. Which should not be a surprise.
I would have liked us to spend more time together after they were both born but again it hasn't really worked out. And instead there are an awful lot of comparisions between the two of them.
Again, it's completely understandable, and sometimes I'm curious as to what Jake does, or how much he weights, or what he eats, but sometimes I would like to be able to say something without the inevitable comment about Jake that follows. I'm sure Jane gets the same, but maybe she is a more confident parent than I am....
I think the thing that bothers me most is that there seems to be a perception that Jake is a difficult child and always has been, while Tash is perceived as easy. I'm not in a position to comment on whether that's true or not, but the message I get through all of this is that if Jane is struggling it's understandable, but there's no reason for me to. It's fine now and I can deal with the assumptions but when I really was struggling it made it that much harder to say so.
Anyway, long-suffering husband is starting to huff and puff so I think blogging time is over. More confused family ranting is bound to follow soon...
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