Beach-ready

Ooh it has been a busy couple of days of readying ourselves for our holiday, reading up on all the terrifying things that can befall a little girl in hot places, being lent all manner of fabulous holiday gadgets, lift-sharing down to the city (I'd like to tell you this was an idealogical statement, but really our car just wasn't ready in time; surprise surprise...) and then charging about today picking up all those utterly essential last minute holiday bits, like chemical free sunscreen and organic baby food (two questions here: 1) what was I thinking introducing solids and all the new pumping, sterilizing and packing this entails a few days before embarking for a hotel room in a barefoot island paradise; and 2) how is it possible that I spent more $$ in one day in Manhattan than I had in the previous two months upstate?)

Anyway, I think we're ready now. The cases are packed, the 73 bottles are sterilized, my bikini line is spick and span and Dot is test-driving the rather snazzy Samsonite travel cot we've been lent (so far a big hit; let's see if she repeats the last few nights' performance of waking up every five minutes).

As we raced round the city today, we couldn't help but notice how FILTHY it is - with that melty black snow gunk that is just everywhere (what IS all that?). The traffic was obnoxious, the subway just grizzly and Canal Street REALLY depressed us (if you ever want to be reminded of how much useless plastic crap we produce, head to Canal Street. Wind-up plastic swimming scuba divers and bad fake hello kitty watches, anyone? A salutory lesson). Am sure the hubby found it fairly miserable, dealing with it as he was from behind a veil of serious hangover. That'll teach him.

It was also interesting to see that old habits die hard; I was halfway out of the door of Duane Reade before I noticed I'd accepted a plastic bag (since I had the No More Plastic Bags bag in the other hand I guess you could say I was sending mixed messages), I said yes to a 50ml bottle of water - my most hated water bottle form - at Bliss before going to get me bits blitzed (but I was about to die of thirst), I bought a sandwich in a plastic wrapper for lunch and scoffed loads of yummy asian food from Rice with the girls for dinner, thus generating god knows how much unrecyclable (is that a word?) packaging.

It's going to be really tough to keep on the straight and narrow once we move back here next week. But I suppose it's time for a new challenge.

Time to take littlegreendot to NYC.

But not till after we've taken her to Harbour Island.

PS I don't know how much we'll post next week because I dont know what the tech set-up is on the island. Will keep you posted if I can

PPS Wanted to tell you about this great book I've been reading - Julie & Julia, written by a blogger who decided to cook the whole of Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking in a year then got a six-figure book deal off the back of it. It's brilliant, smart, funny etc. By this stage in the game, she had CBS and The NY Times beating a path to her door. Where are me and Dot going wrong? We want to be famous too. Only in the interests of saving the planet, you understand...