This is another one of those fairly quiet little smiles, more evident in Jon’s eyes than anywhere else (click to get the larger version).
Jon was 26 months on that day and had just been submitted to his second proper haircut. At this point he was quietly enjoying watching two of his little friends playing on the big slide. (Every time he sees this photo he says “‘lide!”. 
)
This is the latest instalment in the ongoing quest for excellent coffee. Last time I left you with the hope that I might one day become good at latte art. I can now report that there’s been progress on this front.
The first major influence was our trip to Australia earlier this year. I’d already been introduced to flat white an excellent coffee shop near my work, named in honour of an Australian and Kiwi style of preparing coffee. But I hadn’t quite clocked the antipodean connection, so it was a very pleasant surprise to discover that really good coffee is pretty much expected in Aus and New Zealand. Even at Café Splash, my brother’s café in the quiet residential area of Toormina, where a non-Australian might expect a mediocre brew, the coffee is way better than anything I’d had on the high street in London.
And if Aussie/Kiwi baristas set the bar for good coffee, they do so particularly in the area of latte art. So I learned to seek out these baristas and watch them. I also started casing youtube for videos of people pouring latte art. Another win was the discovery of taylor st, another excellent Australian coffee shop in London.
But even with all this observation, the best I seemed to be able to do was a slight swirly pattern, which you get by pouring the milk into the cup off-centre, and this causes a whirlpool effect as the cup fills. Clearly I had an equipment problem, and the first suspicion fell on the glass jug I’d been using for some time to froth the milk. All the web articles I could find advised a proper stainless steel steaming jug, and all the baristas I came across were equipped with such. I wistfully mentioned as much and come father’s day this year, I received my very own stainless steel jug. Hallelujah, and well listened Jonathan!
This really was a coup and for the first time I found myself blending a silky smooth micro-foam into the milk to give a delicious velvety feel in the mouth. What was the difference? I’ve no idea, perhaps the fine texture on the brushed stainless steel finish inside the jug, perhaps the narrowing of the jug towards the top, maybe something else entirely.
The other major equipment factor is the cup. I’d been using plain old straight up and down coffee mugs. But I noticed one day that the baristas spend a lot of the pour with the milk near the top of the cup, and thus the surface near the jug’s spout. How to increase the amount of time spent with the surface near the top without overflowing? Simple, use a tapered cup! I rushed out with a somewhat reluctant Julie in tow and found a suitable looking tapered rocks glass.
And I soon learnt that getting the milk and the cup right is half the battle. Once it is right (or approximating right), getting at least something like art is not too great a stretch. My first great success, which you see on the left, photographed for posterity, leaves a lot to be desired. There are very few leaves in the pattern, the dark areas are quite pale and the milk is decidedly bubbly. Nonetheless, a pattern!
I’d like to say it all took off from there, but over the next several weeks I didn’t achieve much better, and very little worth photographing. Here’s one of the few noteworthy efforts, this time with two cups and a much better consistency to the milk, and more leaves, but somehow an underwhelming geometry:
And then it all changed. I’d heard for some time about our new barista at work (who makes coffee for the clients), and how he’s so passionate about coffee, he’s teaching anyone who’ll listen to do latte art. So one afternoon I wandered over and asked for some tips. This is what I came away with:
The next morning, armed with this treasure trove of knowledge, I did this:
We’re back to bubbles, but never mind that, I have had the milk right before. Now, for the first time, though, the geometry is right. I’ve successfully managed to shoot the milk across the surface as I poured to get stretching and swirling I’ve never managed before!
And I’m getting better. Here is the best one so far. Better contrast, much more fine-grained structure and great micro-foam:
And a last picture, from this very evening. Taking the cocoa advice, I’ve also started doing hot-chocolate night-time drinks to keep my hand in. I quite like this one:
So, all in all, not quite ready to make a youtube video yet, but getting there.
The result of several months of low-key exposure to the English sun in his little Aussie sandals (and his Daddy’s lovely complexion).
We were really blessed by having in Jon such a laid-back and unfussy infant. In his general approach to life, he was every newbie parent’s perfect baby.
One of the things that he definitely wasn’t though, was affectionate. (This probably goes hand-in-hand with useful qualities like enjoying his own company. 
)
We noticed other babies who even at a very young age, somehow cuddled up to people and enjoyed being held close, but after much experimentation, we concluded that our lovely Jon just wasn’t one of them.
Picking Jonathan up for a cuddle, unless he was sick, or half asleep, would just lead to squirming, fidgeting and wanting to get down. Even when he was tiny, he’d resist the idea.
We were wondering if this would vary as Jon matured, and noticed as he was approaching two, that little things were starting to change in his general approach to affection.
One very noticeable milestone on the road to affection was in Australia where Jon (somehow) figured out how to kiss while we were in Sydney.
And not just any old kiss. When Jonathan decided he wanted to give you a kiss, he would take your face in both hands and firmly pull you towards him — in the very best romantic hero style!
What you got at the end wasn’t so much a kiss as bumping faces (he still hasn’t quite mastered the puckered lips), but the delivery more than made up for that. Cuteness overload!
After that, Jon could often be persuaded to kiss on demand — and that got you an approximate bumping of lips (no hands). See above.
It was probably a bit before this time, that Jon started showing affection to soft toys. We took particular notice of this tendency though, when he snagged himself a super-cuddly koala off a shelf of toys at an Australian airport, and proceeded to hug it like a long-lost friend.
It was also during our time in Australia (probably Jon’s most concentrated exposure to people aside from Mum and Dad), that he developed his limpet habit (which most parents would be well familiar with), of clinging tightly to a safe person’s thigh when the situation became a little too challenging.
At some point, the leg-hugging developed into the administering of more general hugs, especially if Jon was pleased to see you. We now frequently spot him hugging his friends, and other completely random toddlers, at playgroups.
For us, the best bit is when you ask Jon for a hug and crouch down, at which point - if he’s in the mood – he will happily throw himself into your outstretched arms. (Including lifting his feet off the floor which can make balancing into an interesting exercise!)
It’s taken a long time, but I think our lovely Jon has finally worked out for himself all the benefits of affection — and it gladdens the parental hearts no end.
This is probably something that isn’t particularly relevant to anyone else, but it seems a big deal to us, and it’s a uniquely UK phenomenon so I thought I’d pop in a note about it.
(Note: that the descriptions below cover my slightly flawed understanding of how it all works and, let’s just say, it’s not how Tom would have written it. )
For the people who don’t live in the UK, the freeholder of a property is the person(s) who, in theory, owns the building. In practice, they control the external maintenance of the building and its insurance.
When a house has been sub-divided (like ours), the owners can get themselves a share-of-freehold (which is what we’ve just done); and while we still pay into the building maintenance and insurance funds, we do at least have a say in what gets done and when. [South Africans might see this as a bit like a mini body corporate.]
For completeness, it’s necessary to mention that if you don’t buy your property as a “share-of-freehold” (we didn’t back in 2003), you become a leaseholder instead. And it’s usually a bit cheaper. In this case, you get issued with a lease (usually a long one) on the property, and — this is the scary bit — if it runs down to nothing, your flat goes back to the freeholder!
As a rule, people inevitably either extend their leases or buy the freehold before this happens. And these days, the law tries to be fair to both sides, so the freeholder can’t refuse to sell or extend, but only if you come up with a price churned out by some-or-other special formula.
This formula is made up of number of factors and is quite tricky to calculate. (Tom’s been figuring it out based on various things he’s found on the internet.) One of the BIG factors though, is how much the property is worth, which is why we’ve been pushing to get it done now while property values are still quite low.
Something that stung us quite badly though, was the fact that we’d left it a few years too long. In the interim, our lease had dropped below 80 years, which basically made our flat unsellable because no bank would give anyone a mortgage to buy it. 
Coincidentally, the formula also nails you at this point by tacking on a big chunk of cash to compensate for the fact that the property isn’t worth very much without the freehold or a lease extension (funnily enough, the costs involved are not dissimilar!).
It was one of those “if only” moments, but we had to just shrug and move on.
Over the last six months we had a whole lot of to-ing and fro-ing with the other flat owner, and the previous freeholder (who owns the third flat), and our solicitor and his solicitor, just in order to reach the point where we could conclude the deal — it took far longer than it should have! But I can now report that the last, and most underwhelming step, in our flat purchase (of 2003) is finally complete — we are freeholders at last. 
