Another suitcase in another hall

It's Thursday so it must be time to pack up and move on to our next destination. Alice is currenly napping, preparing for another journey on another plane, which will take her halfway through her epic adventure to the bright lights of Sherfield on Loddon. Is she ready for Aunty Beth? Is anyone ever?!

She's very much enjoyed being oop north and has learnt lots of new things here (how to sit up/ that she likes to sing along to Abba at the top of her voice (thank goodness I didn't take her to see Mamma Mia) and that, in other households, baby clothes get ironed.

On Sunday, we will stop being a one-parent family when we meet Stu in Washington DC. We have three nights there and then set off to our final destination, San Diego, to meet Alice's new chums, Caroline and James.

We'll be back on 2nd September to report on those exploits, so until then, some photos of Alice learning to sit.

Propped up on her hands

Look at me

Tim...ber...

And she's back in the room


Byeee for now...

Lunch with Aunty Deborah and Uncle Andrew

Alice enjoyed her first posh lunch yesterday and sat gossiping with the ladettes and mucisians of Nantwich while the rest of us tucked in. She and her Grandad explored the restaurant, lest Alice's shouts of excitement should encroach on the relaxed atmosphere of the Residence hotel (not featured in High Life magazine).


Alice received gifts in abundance and was particularly captivated by a finger puppet*

She did show interest in the menu, the cutlery, anything else within her reach on the table and my tempura prawns, but it was a bottle for her, as well as a few minutes in the posh highchair - it's obviously plastic highchairs which are not to her taste. Very green, my Alice.

Here she is with all the family (plus cousin in tummy) - as ever, she behaved impeccably (as did said cousin).

*Photos reproduced with kind assumed permission from Aunty Deborah

There's no show without Punch

As our holiday continues apace, Alice and I are starting to look forward in earnest to some sunshine. As Alice's Grandad and I set off for Tesco yesterday morning in a chilly 15 degrees, Alice napped in a sleeping bag, under blankets and with the central heating on. As her Granny remarked, "It could be worse, you could live here", which is a valid point. Note to self to stop complaining about the weather or will live up to Whinging Pom reputation even while surrounded by other Poms.

Alice has been frantically meeting all her father's relations this week - I am not sure of the collective noun for Boltonians (a barm perhaps?) but a veritable plethora of them have been through the doors, so that the doting grandparents may have Alice to themselves for the rest of the week. Indeed it seems that there is a battle of gladiatorial ferocity between them and they are finding ever more innovative hidey holes to secrete their granddaughter away to, so that they do not have to share her even with one another. Granny's bedroom in the dark beats Grandad's seat in front of the telly by way of a secret hidey hole, but through all this, Alice smiles and chuckles adorably and it is usually her giggling which reveals her location. I'm sure I heard them playing in the airing cupboard the other day...

I'm missing some developmental notes in these sparse posts, but really I'm having such a lovely time sitting about and reading magazines while Alice is playing in evermore farflung places of the house, that I have not been blogging as much as I should. Some things that she has started doing on this trip include,
1. We're up to 3 meals a day and she really will eat anything, which is very handy.
2. She is about an hour's practice away from sitting up all by herself. If she were ever on the floor rather than on laps I think we'd be there by now!
3. Having her feet in her mouth is a favourite pastime.
4. She is now happy in the big bath, swimming about on front or back (although repeatedly tries to drink the water which, flavoured with just a soupcon of Johnson's baby bathtime stuff, doesn't taste the best.
5. Still not a huge fan of any highchair, apart from Madison's space age contraption.
6. Drinking slightly warm water from a sippy cup quite cheerfully.

However, it's lovely to have her in her father's childhood home and I am beginning to see where some of his more unusual expressions have come from. "Now then", "Billy Blinkers", "Going bo-bos" are all heard from the various corners where Alice is happily held captive and we have been on walks between rain showers to see the old golf course and have driven past some childhood haunts. Of course, there's no reminiscing about locations of drunken teenage antics for Golden Boy, such as we enjoyed in Leigh for me, but Alice is very happy here. Now, if I can just seek her out - after all, as they seem to say around here, "There's no show without Punch".


Emerging from the shadows to jumperoo in the sunshine


Sharing a joke with Granny Aly

Diggin' the Dancing Queen

Alice has had to put up with me singing Abba songs for a few weeks now. It was my intention to take her along to see Mamma Mia at the cinema, so my aim was to familiarise her with the music (a belated attempt to rectify playing her only the West Wing theme tune and no classical music while she was in the womb as Little Keith).

In the end, I left her at home with a willing clan of babysitters (one would have sufficed, but since he seems to keep forgetting she is there and kindly but absent-mindedly offers lifts to the station while alone in the house with her, there had to be an Aunty or two on standby). Aunty Michelle and I loved the movie and the people watching that the Southend Starbucks afforded us beforehand. The rest of the day was spent tea drinking and then dining at the local establishment's venue of choice, where the people watching of Essex's finest tans afforded us new levels of delight.

So Alice missed out on her film and was up most of the night by way of payback. It is a truth universally acknowledged that if babies don't eat in the day then they will want to do so at night and it seems that she hadn't quite taken to her sweet potato and courgette mush or her bottle while I was out. I managed to get a whole bowl of carrot down her by way of tea, but she refused her last bottle. Always a recipe for nighttime disaster.

She can still be grumpy while eating, but I think it is more a reflection on the minute pauses between mouthfuls, as opposed to the steady stream of milk that she is used to. However, for whatever reason, Alice has been out of sorts since missing out on Pierce Brosnan's dreadful vocals and Colin Firth's reprisal of that Mr Darcy scene and so Aunty Rosie has been bringing on the dancing girls and entertaining Alice while she sits and grumbles in her highchair. The Dancing Queen herself declined to be photographed in action, but here is Alice chortling and quaking with mirth at the after dinner entertainment. It's a shame her mother didn't clean her face properly before whipping out the camera.

Alice sets off to seek her fortune

A city baby to the core, Alice pressed me for some time in the big smoke to see if the streets were indeed paved with gold. We set off to see if the streets were paved with gold in the city where not Dick Whittington, but a man whom people voted for "for a laugh" is mayor. Alice has amused herself in the suburbs by eating grass (here, she looks slightly sheepish after she was caught in the act)...



...but it was time to see what the capital had to offer. Phasing ourselves in gently, we started off in the outskirts of Arkly, where Alice was able to catch up with her fellow bloggers Madison and Lucy. The girls had a lovely time sleeping, feeding, grumbling and bashing each other.

Here, Alice offers Lucy some comfort after that vigourous pat on the head.

Although I think she secretly thought it was funny, as she and Madison later exchanged high fives.


Madison's Mum and Dad looked after us really well and Alice slept beautifully in another strange bedroom and enjoyed herself bouncing in Madison's non-bouncey walker.

The next day we wandered into Haute Barnay for a coffee before setting off for the big smoke. There, Alice was kissed by a would-be politician (aka her Uncle Pops), saw where Mummy and Daddy had their first date (and Daddy was an hour late) and then had a lovely day picnicking and mooching about with Auntie Becca.

We even popped into Hamley's, which will be a veritable treasure trove of nagging in future years, but Alice was content to look at the bubble blowing man and have a feed for the time being.

We're now back home with the adoring Aunties and the Great British Summer has arrived. Brrrr.