It’s pink. It has tassles on the handlebars. It has a seat for a toy and beads on the wheels. It has a bag on the front. I think I kept my side of the bargain.

A  fit for a

Some bright colours to cheer me up. No other reason.

The wind is whistling (kept M awake last night) and hurling the rain against our windows, and radio 4 reckons we are for it, with snow forecast for North Wales (which we can see even if we don’t live there) and severe wind and rain for the north-west. But my daffs think it is spring and next-door’s cherry tree is pink.

Mummy’s girl – she likes a nice coffee shop.

I’m enjoying being a celebrity again: taking a toddler out and about doesn’t elicit quite the same smiles and coos of welcome. I had assumed, with Maggie, that we got so much attention because she was a western baby so fairly unusual – I have now reached the conclusion that it is merely because I have such very cute babies: we were quite the centre of OAP attention in Chester today. (What do you mean they coo over all babies? Don’t be silly.)

Tamsin’s first facing-out ride in her sling: she doesn’t look anything like her sister, does she (link is playing up a bit: scroll down to June 22nd)? Old ladies in Britain have fingers that are just as pointy as their Japanese counterparts, yet all seem to think she is a boy. Not sure why, given that she was wearing a pink T-shirt.

Poor baby was not well yesterday: the perils of having an older sibling. High temperature and bunged-up nose, ergo couldn’t really breathe, ergo couldn’t really feed, ergo didn’t sleep. (Though I don’t feel I can really complain as it was the first bad night we’ve had with her in 3 months.)

 

And no longer a newborn blob but a fully fledged baby who can swipe at toys and everything*. She even watched the rugby with Daddy at the weekend while Maggie and I went to the allotment, which was absolutely glorious: cold, crisp blue skies, birds singing, completely peaceful. Until M realised that if she shouted “hooray” really really loudly she got a great echo from the walls. Sorry, all the rest of the plot-holders who were having a silent Sunday afternoon.

*Everything = eat, sleep, stare about and fill nappies. Not much else.

  

allotment_150107

Today was our first functional visit to the new allotment. We popped up last year to drop off the compost bins and lay carpet (to suppress the weeds, not from some sort of wacko Hyacinth Bucket need to make it tidy) then abandoned it to rain and childbirth. Now, with a new year, we are ready to go!

After picking M up from nursery we had a wander up there, just to see what sort of state it was in: had the carpet worked (yes, rather nicely) and was the mud ludicrous, today being only the second dry day in living memory (not too bad). Chatted to the old boy on the next plot – I can see the chatting is going to be an issue – then came home, packed up some tools and wellies, and went back for an hour’s digging. I managed about a square metre (it is very heavy clay) so it is going to be a long job, but the girls were great. Tamsin slept in her car seat in the middle of the carpet (then woke up and cried so we came home). Maggie dug a medium-sized hole, put on her gardening gloves to try to pull up some weeds, lay about on the carpet under a blanket with her wellies and socks off, then ate cake – I am good at packing for afternoons out – until it was hometime.

Now I ache. That’s the first real physical exertion I’ve made since…well, since labour! And people allowed me weeks to recover from that. Am pleasantly sleepy from all the fresh air (and Cameron has gone to London so if I want to go to bed at 9, I can*).

*Not that I am suggesting he would prevent me if he was here – but I’d feel a bit mean and unsociable.