Morning notes

• I have to make these baked spicy aubergines this week.
  
• This is the cutest "mom" post I've read in a long time.
  
• It's a little embarassing to admit this, because I've always taken pride in my independence, but I get a little lonely when M's not around. I get excited when I hear the door unlock and he's returning home after work; I look forward to the weekend not just because it's two days off work but because it's two days off work with him. I enjoy spending time on my own but life is always better sharing it with my best friend.
• I've caved in. I've put the heating on. It's so cold!
• Both M and I are quite alert in the mornings - even before we have our first coffees of the day. On weekends, a lie in for me means staying in bed until 8am instead of 6.30am. I wake up and start nudging into M and he wakes up gradually too. He never complains so I figure he's fine waking up too and we can begin our weekend. However, today I couldn't sleep beyond 7 so I got out of bed, put the kettle on and fired up the laptop. It's 9am now and M is still fast alseep. I'm feeling guilty now thinking that perhaps it's more natural for him to lie in much later than me on weekends. Poor M, me waking him up earlier than he wants - and he's never complained before.
• Some of the Indian blogs I read are discussing the fair skin / dark skin issues that so mess up a woman's sense of self esteem in India. When I lived in India, my aunts (not, curiously, my uncles) were shocked at the increasing darkness of my skin due to the Himalayan sun - I tan easily - and kept thrusting Fair & Lovely skin bleaching cream on me, which I never used. My colleagues in the school I taught at could never understand why I thought the Keralan secretary with skin like dark chocolate, the biggest black eyes and full lips was the most beautiful woman I'd seen in a long time. When I returned to England, all my friends were envious at how dark I'd become. Go figure! Growing up in whiter-than-white Kent gave me a complex about my skin colour for sure, but luckily I always really liked the colour of my skin and today I'm always showing off my tan lines!