I have spotted a gap in the market: cow-bells for babies. We could call them babybels ha ha ha. We are going to see my grandmother next week, who can’t see very well, and I’m a bit worried she will fall over Tamsin who now zooms about at about 20 mph 6″ off the floor.

(Good news though: she had an unsettled evening, I had to go up two or three times and was worried about the night ahead. But then she went off peacefully at 10.30, after I gave her some magic snake-oil powder and slept right through until 5!! Amazing. She must have known I was losing the plot a bit. Of course I was still visited by M at 3 am, but still. Hours of sleep.)

Teeth? Habit? Baby contrariness? Who knows, but I have been woken every hour every night* for something like 6 weeks now (ever since she had pox). I’ve been soldiering bravely on – and will continue to do so, of course: there’s no opt-out clause – taking solace in the fact that she at least goes back off again quickly and blaming those pesky teeth that are definitely pushing through. Last night was just awful, though - she got up for 2 hours and wanted to play! I don’t do playing at 3 am (nor do I play the next day if I’ve lost that much sleep). Am extremely grumpy today, although also fairly smug as I’ve cleared out the larder cupboard, cleaned it, put the contents of bursting packets into tupperwares and jars, and thrown out everything out of date, apart from fruit, nuts and seeds which I’ve turned into bird cakes.

And now I am worrying about tonight. Cameron is off down south for a couple of days (lucky lucky man: what would I give for a whole night in a hotel on my own). He’s not been away much lately and last time he went T was a smaller and more amenable baby who could just be fed off to sleep while M read a book quietly in her room. Now T is a cheeky 9-month-old who likes to play and feed and try to escape and chew books and play and feed and shout and finally, grudgingly, go to sleep. Perhaps we’ll just all three lie down together (I bet I’d go off first if we did).

*There was one blessed night on holiday when she went right through uninterrupted to 4 am, and she’s done 4 hour stretches a few times since then.

…and all I got was this lousy orchid*.

*(four fuschias, a house-leek, and three nice hardy perennials. Very restrained. Sara, who I went with, had to buy a trolley to carry her haul.)

And I note once again I forgot to mention we were going.

A night in a really very good indeed service station hotel (Annandale Water: anyone heading north I highly recommend it. A proper-hotel-quality room – with a big bed a medium-sized bed and a small bed to please any 3-year-olds in the party - and glorious views of a sunshine-glazed lake (ducks, geese, herons) to accompany breakfast); 2 nights in Drymen; then across to Fife for a few nights with Cameron’s parents.

Drymen is (apparently) The Gateway to Loch Lomond, where we had fun eating icecream, cruising the Loch, becoming midge-fodder and feeding cygnets. Made M walk a bit and befriended a fellow hippy mum at a playground; giggled sympathetically at the woman who dropped her mobile phone through the jetty; felt like the Pied Piper in the return boat journey as all the small girls on board came to chat up Tamsin; tried hard (but not very hard) to not succumb to stereotypes as all the ageing Glaswegians in the boat party had a pint before lunch. (I had a coffee.)

Pittenweem was hosting its annual art festival, which we enjoyed as usual while Maggie bossed her grandparents about and demanded (and received) the 110% attention that is her due. Tamsin has come back a different baby: when we left, small toys and hot drinks could safely be left on the coffee table – no chance now, she’s up! Up and grabbing at whatever she can get. I’ve told M she has to move her playpeople onto the kitchen table instead.