– 8:06 pm

Your mother is at the other end of the house talking to her parents. She has you in her arms. You were yelling a few minutes ago. She’s not letting you blow off steam as we agreed. But I’m also not contesting.

I had a blocked ear for days. Until yesterday. It’s been ongoing for some time now, on and off. But since having them cleaned, everything (and I really do mean everything) has been way too loud for me. I couldn’t believe how much of a racket your car seat made in the back when I got into the car to drive home from the clinic. All the loose bits rustling around annoyingly. I can now hear every mutter. And it’s giving me a headache. I currently have AirPods on but can hear the running kitchen tap as if I was standing next to it. What a gift and curse.

We were late for our 11:45 am appointment at the Westminster Registration Office this morning. I imagined a long and gruelling interrogation, filling in piles of docs and answering ridiculously tiresome questions. But the entire thing took about fifteen minutes. In hindsight, it could easily have been five. Liza described Neil, the registrar, as way too “theatrical” about every detail, very thorough but unnecessarily extended. I agree. He was a bit dramatic and thespian. There was a joke or sidebar with every request. A touch over the top.

At the same time, I couldn’t imagine a more perfect person for the role given how much he knew and eagerly talked about names, Cyrillic, countries etc. He pronounced ‘Jelizaveta‘ perfectly at the first attempt. When we showed pleasant astonishment, he joked about it being a perfectly normal name. Which it is but let’s face it, it’s a tongue twister.

Also, (and I mean this in the nicest way possible), Neil’s job doesn’t need to exist. It should be digitised and automated. At least the form-filling part. We had to tell him what to type, cross-checking his screen as he went along – as in, he would rotate his monitor and go “like so?” for us to confirm. And in the end, we had to proofread a printout for errors. Could it be as simple as just letting us fill in the form ourselves? I wonder… I mean… Yes, I’m talking from a pigeonhole view of the entire process but so far it sounds inefficient and a waste of brain power to make that someone’s job.

And. And. Why make us come all this way? Why not let us do it locally? Surely the same system can be accessed by an equivalent within Surrey? Strangely enough, we didn’t have to present any form of ID or legal documentation. But hey, it’s all done now. You have a birth certificate (and at least two passports to follow).

We then took an Uber to Japan House where we had “I can’t believe I didn’t know about this place” type of food. It was… that good. I’ll be back for sure, with or without your mother. Liza and I wondered if it was sponsored by the Japanese government or something. Downstairs looked more like a gallery. They had petit soup bowls on sale for £680 and an extensive range of Japanese whiskey I would love to someday try. It was more bits and pieces of random items, a carefully curated ad placement for Japanese culture. It didn’t look like it made any money at all, or planned to for that matter. But the service was faultless. We were very happy customers. I thought about it on the walk back to the car and ever since. It was good shit.