Christmas 2008

We drove up to Radcliffe to my Mum & Dad's on Christmas Day morning, and stayed until Sunday lunchtime. Lara enjoyed herself a lot, being fussed over by Grandma & Grandad, and enjoyed all her new presents, she has her own pushchair with a doll now to push around, and her teletubby Po always makes her laugh.
Lara continued her good sleeping pattern even in unusual surroundings, which meant that Olga and I were able to go out for an evening in Bury for a few drinks on the Saturday. Mishka wasn't ignored - quite the opposite in fact, as he got hours and hours of attention from us while we hand-stripped his coat; he looks much better now, although he was a cute furball before, he looks like the elegant Airedale that he's supposed to be now - if only he acted like it!
We called in at our friends place on the way back - Rob & Lizz, who now have a beautiful brother, James, for Juliet. It's amazing how light little babies are when you pick them up!

Here are some photos from Radcliffe:



And a couple of funny videos - my Dad needs a frame to help him walk at the moment, but Lara thought it was fun to borrow it from time to time:



But she did bring it back...

Our Little Teenager

Lara has skipped ages 1 through to 14 and is showing some traits of your average teenager now - sleeping a lot and eating us out of house and home (oh, and going to the pub quite a bit recently!). Luckily that's all, there are no real temper tantrums, or staying out all night or suchlike.
Since just before Christmas Lara has taken to falling asleep without much help from us, around 7.30, and not waking till 7.30 in the morning. In fact there have been days where we've had to go and wake her up for nursery! She still stirs in the night, especially as she still has a cough (like the rest of us!), but we haven't had to to into her room at night for nearly two weeks now. Long may it continue!
And now she has started eating like a horse, too. We noticed it when we were up at my Mum & Dad's for Christmas, that she ate everything we offered her, at least everything that was on a spoon. She did really like helping herself to turkey, carrots, and sausages, but potatoes and sprouts were tried then chucked away. This has continued since we got home, I think she's eating at least 50% more each day than she was eating two or three weeks ago. It's a growth spurt, we assume. It's still mostly jar food (Heinz Globe Totters Chicken Paella is a favourite this week) with vegetable nibbles, quiches and bananas, although on top of the turkey at Christmas she tried salmon, and turkey will be back on the menu for New Year's Day.

Whilst we wouldn't say that she has started talking, there are hints that she is starting to understand more. She knows that the noise Mishka makes is "ooooouu-ooooouu", and when asked - in Russian, no less - at Mum & Dad's house, what does Mishka say, she did consciously reply "ooooouu-ooooouu". After spending the whole day with her in our office at work yesterday, I have also worked out that "Edda!" means give me that thing I'm pointing to (it was usually food!)

You think our currency is in trouble?

Just as a complete aside, remember the Zimbabwean economy, and its crazy inflation? A colleague at work has friends out there, and they dropped him a note detailing, amongst other things, their bill for one month's broadband connection to their home in Harare. This is for December, quoted in old (pre-August 2008's "redenomination" of the currency by a factor of 10,000,000,000!) Zimbabwe Dollars:

$1,512,484,799,972,590,080.00 !!

I reckon you might want that in words:
1 quintrillion
512 quadrillion
484 trillion
799 billion
972 million
590 thousand and
80 dollars (zero cents).

Can you imagine writing a cheque for that amount?!
For reference, the most that you can take out of a bank today is $500,000, about enough for a loaf of bread. In terms of the old rate of the above monthly bill, $500,000 current dollars is $500,000 * 10,000,000,000 = $5,000,000,000,000,000 or 5 quadrillion dollars.

I think I worked out what his monthly bill was using an online currency exchange site.. if you fancy having a go, put your guess in a comment on this post, I'll post my estimate later.

Unclean!

Yep, we're all ill here with this flu thingy that's "the worst outbreak for 10 years". Even Javier Mascherano has it, but you need to be a fan of Liverpool FC to worry about his health.
All four of us were on the sofa watching TV yesterday afternoon, Mishka has sympathetic flu, or perhaps something he ate upset him.
I like to be positive about everything, so it's a good thing we've had it for the past few days, so with any luck we'll all be over it by the time we head up to Radcliffe to Grandma & Grandad's on Thursday :-)
Lara's dealing very well with it, perhaps because she's had it for weeks, but also considering she's got her top front teeth coming through now too. Hopefully she'll be able to properly bite her turkey on Thursday afternoon (before falling asleep after watching Her Maj the Queen like the rest of us). Famous Last Words but Lara slept through the last two nights, waking only to cough, and we had to wake her this morning at 7.40 to get up for nursery! Fingers crossed for three nights in a row.

Our singing snowflake

Lara starred in her nursery's Nativity Play on Tuesday, despite a bad cold and teething problems. She was one of the snowflakes - we weren't convinced the male babies were overly impressed at being snowflakes, but Lara seemed to like her fairy costume - the suggestion from the nursery staff had been just for the babies to wear something white, perhaps with the odd doily or two stuck on for that snowflake effect, so we went overboard :-) Just click on the slideshow to see the full size photos and watch the videos.



Lara didn't last too long sitting in her high chair, once she realised we weren't far away, in the audience, she wanted to come and join us, although she wasn't very tearful, she was very loud. We reckon she was singing along :-)

Haute Cuisine

It's been a strange few days in our kitchen - I watched Saturday Kitchen and saw what Rick Stein was going to make, and realised straight away that I just had to have a go at making that... Fish tacos with guacamole from Baja California . Considering I'm not a great fan of salsa (too much raw tomato, eeuuchhh) or guacamole (I'll have a little bit of it with some doritos) at first this seemed a strange thing to do. However, Olga and I enjoy chicken fajitas, and this is pretty much a fishy version of that, and I knew Olga would love it.
The funny bit on the recipe page on the BBC website was "Prepartion time, less than 30 minutes". This may be true for Rick Stein, but after I'd spent an hour in Asda finding all the ingredients - I'd never had to find avocados or plain flour before - it still took me an hour just to make the salsa. Then another 30 minutes to make the guacamole... and that's before I'd even started on the fish. I took a break from the kitchen and walked the dog at this point while Olga cut up the fish for me.
Anyway, deep-frying the fish in my batter in a wok half-full of oil worked a treat, as we don't have a deep-fat fryer, and all in all it was a great success, and without wanting to blow my own trumpet, it was the best salsa I can remember having. I didn't take any photographs - my presentation left a little to be desired, but I'm inspired now to make salsa and guacamole more often - visitors, you have been warned! Here's how it would have looked, courtesy of www.loscabosrecipes.com's photograph:


Then, as if to balance things out, on Monday I reverted to a staple meal from my childhood, presented in the style that Mum poineered to make mealtimes more interesting for me... and this time I did take a photo! Can you guess what it is yet?

Yep, sausages, mash and beans. Olga had the castle/moat design, I had the smiley face. Just so you don't think I was completely slacking, the sausages were Sainsbury's special pork and honey ones (reduced for quick sale). Somethings never change!

Two very tired kids **Updated**

We went for another long walk today, but a little closer to home, around West Wycombe. The baby carrier we bought has turned out to be a good purchase, it makes it so easy for us all to go out for a walk in the countryside. We were lucky today with the weather - it had rained all day yesterday, but was dry today; this seemed to put people off going for walks and we barely saw another soul while we walked for three hours. It also meant that we could let Mishka off his lead, we love to see him running free and enjoying himself, but we love it even more when he comes back to us when we call him! He was very well behaved today, and the long walk (we think we covered about 7km, but Mishka will have done more like 10km!) has tired him out completely. It did mean he got a good bath when we got home, which takes some time, but is very good for his coat.
To help us recover from our exertions, we had a swift half in the George and Dragon in West Wycombe after the walk, where Lara enjoyed playing with the landlord's little terrier - it's nice to see Lara's not afraid of dogs, albeit this one weighed about the same as her!
We really enjoyed our walk, and hope now to make it a regular weekend thing during the winter. Lara was fine all the way round, she had a little sleep for half an hour or so en-route, and was asleep in the car within 5 minutes of setting off for home. Considering it's only an 8 minute drive home, she thankfully slept on at home for another half-hour or so which gave Olga time to bath Mishka!
This wasn't a documented walk, we just made it up from the OS map - I think I might investigate hand-held GPS systems so we can accurately measure how far (and exactly where!) we've been. Here are a couple of photos from a scenic break for coffee, and one from the aftermath! I've plotted part of the route we'd taken on the second photo, just for the fun of it.


And here's a map of the walk (it's been quiet at work on Monday!)

(map: Crown Copyright 2008)

More on Lara's Birthday

Phew, what an exhausting evening! Given that we weren't going to have a party, it turned into quite a party! First Lara opened her cards and presents, and in typical fashion was equally impressed with her balloons as much as she was with her lovely presents! Kids, eh!? Then she had a very big tea involving quiche, pizza and birthday cake, amongst other things. There was an "In the Night Garden" theme to the cake and one of the presents, and indeed you can see Igglepiggle eyeing up the cake in one of these photos.

Take a good look at Mishka in his fluffy coat, he's off to the salon tomorrow morning for a strip. Poor lad will be freezing for a few weeks!

We'll put some more videos up on YouTube later of Lara with her presents.

1 Today!

Here's Lara at 7am, playing with the Farmyard Shape Sorter that Eve has given her - At Eve's birthday party Lara loved playing with it! Now she's got one of her own.
Lara had another good night last night, although we messed her normal routine about. It was the Christmas Party at the nursery yesterday afternoon, and although Lara wouldn't normally be there on a Tuesday, she was allowed to go to the party. It was only for an hour, but it meant that she didn't have any afternoon nap at all, and by the time I'd wandered round Asda with her after work, getting lots of party nibbles for tonight, she was absolutely exhausted, and she slept in her pram from 6pm until almost 10pm, then had dinner in front of the TV - we're setting her a good example! - then her bath before a very late bedtime. Well, you're only 0.9973 years old once. After a bit of a struggle to get her back to sleep, not surprisingly, she slept through until 4.50am, but again I was a bit selfish and gave her a minute or two to settle back down before getting up, and she duly obliged. She even slept through while Olga had a shower this morning, only waking when the hairdryer started up. Once she woke up properly and had her yoghurt, she was in a really good mood, even better than normal, and she loved playing with her first new toy of the day, the farmyard shape sorter. We'll open the rest of the cards and presents this afternoon; Olga is getting out of work in London early, and I'll pick Lara up from nursery at 4pm. The plan is for the grown-ups to crack open a bottle of bubbly at 17.12, the time of Lara's birth....

364 days and counting

It's Lara's big day tomorrow, although we're just keeping the celebrations confined to 46 Deeds Grove. Lara likes helium balloons, so I've got her a big #1, and there'll be a cake of course. Presents have arrived from Grandma & Grandad, Auntie Cath & Uncle Nick & Lizzie, and Eve, and we're looking forward to the look on Lara's face when she gets her hands on them tomorrow morning. Having said that, perhaps we might wait until we get her home from nursery, as it might be a bit cruel to give her some wonderful new toys then take her off straight away to nursery! We'll be picking her up earlier than usual so we'll have plenty of playtime later on.

It's also a crunch time in her feeding routine, as the ready supply of Mum-milk will be turned off. We weren't looking forward to mornings, as the routine up to now of bringing her to bed for an hour or so when she first wakes had been working really well. Recently teething and a cold has meant Lara had been having fitful nights, waking at least once in the middle of the night then waking for a feed around 5am, which would be too early for us to get up and give her breakfast (but had been perfect for bringing her to bed for an hour). No sooner had we quizzed Catherine on Sunday about what she had done with Lizzie, and expressed our concerns about Lara waking at 5am, than Lara went and slept through the night on Sunday night, only waking at 6am when Olga got up for a shower! I got up and gave her water and a yoghurt in place of Mum-milk, and Lara was absolutely fine with it. Last night she woke once at 2.45am, but recently we've decided to be slow with our response, as on occasions Lara has settled herself and gone back to sleep without us helping, and she did this again last night. She woke around 6.30, and Olga gave her water and yoghurt, and everything was fine. Can it be this easy!?!
The next big test will be to start Lara on full fat cow's milk. Cath reports that Lizzie wouldn't take it, as she wasn't used to feeding from bottles, which seems to be a fairly common story from fully-breastfed babies, and we've not fed Lara from a bottle for well over 6 months now; we'll try some milk in her usual cup and see how she goes, but we'll not hold our breath. If necessary we'll supplement her dairy intake elsewhere, such as an extra yoghurt or some more cheese each day.
We're expecting meal times to get messier now too, as Lara has discovered what fun it is to put bowls and dishes on her head (so far only empty ones!):

Lara's new hobby - Delivering Stuff

As part of Lara's march towards standing up, then eventually walking, she's progressed on to pushing boxes around like a miniature delivery driver...

A Sunday walk in the countryside

Yesterday we met up with Cath, Nick & Lizzie half way between Wycombe and Portishead (roughly!) at a village called Bishopstone, just east of Swindon. I'd found a walk on a website about the Ridgeway, and I'd booked us in for Sunday lunch at a pub in the village. We were half an hour late because our road map bore no relation with the reality of the A419 (if you've ever been there, you'll know what I mean) - visible roundabouts are a thing of the past in this part of Wiltshire, and it seems that only those villages that pay enough to the local council get their village added to road signs. I'm not kidding that Bishopstone doesn't appear on any modern road signs in the area, only on those older versions that were probably removed in the Second World War in case of invasion, then replaced afterwards.

It was a perfect day for a stroll though, and Lara and Lizzie enjoyed comparing their sedan chairs. We cut the walk short to make sure we got to the pub in time for lunch, although this involved passing through an organic pig farm. The piglets were very cute, but we weren't convinced the flimsy wire fence would prevent their mum from defending her little oinkers from Mishka if we'd let him get any closer! The enclosure containing the dads wasn't much stronger, but they didn't seem too bothered by us. It certainly seemed very natural and healthy for the pigs, although as Olga pointed out, "they probably don't actually like living in a muddy field".

The pub itself, the True Heart, was very nice. £9 for a two course Sunday Roast, they provided an extra bowl of veggies for nothing when we asked for some - Lara and Lizzie could have had their own kiddy-sized Sunday dinner but they just shared the grown-ups meals. We even went as far as having dessert too - how Nick has made it into his 40s without having Dead Man's Leg, I'll never know :-) (Jam Roly Poly for the non-Lancastrians)

Lara and Lizzie seemed to enjoy themselves, and we just loved Lizzie's words - "gotgot" for choccy or a biscuit, "meat" when asked what else she'd like to eat, and "Rara" for Lara. As Cath pointed out, it does help that Lizzie's other cousin is called Tara, so "Rara" works for both!

It was only an hour's drive for all of us, so it's something we'll have to do more often, especially if Cath supplies the coffee and cookies again!

Snow! But not our own :-(

There was plenty of snow about on Tuesday and yesterday, but oooopp Norf, not down here. It was all over the BBC news website how schools had closed in Bury, so I called Mum but she was out (making a snowman, perhaps!?), but she sent these photos later on...

Mum's very modern - taking these photos on her mobile phone then bluetoothing them to her laptop to email to me! I'm very impressed. All we need next would be some photos of snow in Lesnoy!

Lara Update

Olga took Lara to be weighed this morning - it was a "clothes on" weigh-in, and she was 8.82kg (19lbs 7oz) up from 8.48kg (18lbs 11oz) on 6th November; this keeps her above the 25th percentile. She is eating very well at the moment, finishing off everything we offer her, which is encouraging.
After being cold-free for a couple of weeks, she picked up a new one yesterday, so all my talk of how well she was eating will mean nothing for the next few days as her appetite normally suffers when she's ill, as does her (and ours) sleep!

Dave's 40th

Just a very quick post for any of the ex-Liverpool graduates passing by.. Dr Dave Hinds still exists, and in fact has multiplied. Here he is about to tuck into an individual portion of birthday cake, flanked by wife Martine, son Olivier (5) and daughter Avril (2).

And Tall Paul Richards (described to Martine by Dave's mum as the "tall one with the huge feet), showing us exactly how many pupils at the school where he teaches in Liverpool haven't nicked a car this week.

I couldn't make a post without including at least one shot of Lara - she enjoyed the party a lot, and was delighted to be dressed as a Babooshka, or Grandma, after the meal.

Mumbai Police Tactics?

I wonder if the Mumbai Police method of accurately firing a submachine gun is really helping the situation over there?

New - Travels Website

I started to post the story of the trip to Devon, but I ended up writing way too much; considering we've had a couple of really fantastic holidays in the last few years, I decided now would be a good time to start a website dedicated to those travels, where I can write up a more detailed account and post all the photos. A potted version and the better photos will still appear on here as and when we go on new adventures.

I only started it tonight, and I'm using a new HTML editor that's I've never seen before, so currently it looks very clunky, but you can at least read about days one and two of the Devon trip here.

Teething and Bond

We had a nice and quiet weekend this weekend, trying to continue the holiday feel. Lucy came over on Saturday, and we all went down into Wycombe. My plan had been to take Lara to the pub to watch the England v South Africa rugby match while Olga & Lucy did girly shopping, but somehow we all went to the pub.
Our next big idea was that we'd get Lara off to sleep nice and early, and Olga and I could go out for the evening while Lucy babysat. Great plan, only Lara hadn't read it. Far from screaming her head off, she was just super happy and awake from 7pm (proposed sleepy time) until 8.30pm (actual sleepy time), which meant Olga and I had to make a fast dash down to the town centre, grab a quick meal in Pizza Express and a couple of pints in a pub before getting home for soon after 11. Better than nothing though!
On Sunday we took advantage of Lucy still being around to go to the cinema for the first time since Lara was born, I think (well, together, anyway). We went to see Quantum of Solace in the Eden Centre Cineworld. The cinema was very nice, not quite as nice as the Vue in Reading, but considering that there was only one other couple watching the 11.20am showing, we were pretty happy. I'd only give the film 6/10 though, it was wayyyyyyy too fast-paced, vital parts of the plot were skimmed over at a hundred miles an hour, and just because the free-running at the start of Casino Royale was so good, they felt compelled to include a lot of free-running in this one too - it actually gets boring after a while!

Lara's sleeping is more disturbed at the moment, which we're putting down to teething, there's lots of gum- and finger- sucking going on, red cheeks, and regular waking in the night. Ho hum, not much we can do about it other than keep the teething gel and calpol handy. I'm writing this late at night as I'm going to sleep in the nursery with Lara tonight so Olga gets a good night's sleep as she has to get up early to see clients in London tomorrow.
On that note, I can hear some cries... oh no, false alarm I think, she's quietened down again.
As Zebedee once said.. time for bed.

The Devon photos have arrived

I have edited the collection down from 90 to a mere 36, including a couple of videos, you'll find them here.

It's a tad late tonight for me to compose a post of the full story of the trip, I'll get round to that later in the week, hopefully if it's quiet at work... sssh!!

We're back from Devon

We had a lovely time in Devon this week, so nice that we'll definitely be going back sometime in 2009. I'll try and write the full story of the trip over the weekend, but in the meantime, here are a few taster photographs. The full album should be available after the weekend too.

November Photos

Here are a couple of photos from the Darlington weekend, Lara is looking very serious, and very blue-eyed!

(Anton, Becca - yes, the totseat works a treat!)

Have Baby, Will Travel

We decided it was time to get a proper carrier for Lara for times when we're out walking with her and Mishka in the countryside; the BabyBjorn is great for trips round the shops or short walks on footpaths, but as soon as you "off-road" it becomes tricky because you can't see where you're putting your feet.
Catherine showed us her Deuter Kid Comfort child carrier she has for Lizzie, it was a make we weren't aware of but certainly ticked all the boxes, so I plunged into eBay last week and won an auction for one, and it arrived yesterday. Lara seemed to have no problem riding around the lounge in it last night, and Dad even got his ears pulled and head massaged, which is a bonus!
Between this, with all it's extra pockets for "stuff" and Mishka's saddlebags, Olga shouldn't need to carry anything but herself with grace and dignity when we're walking in Devon next week!

Lurgy Weekend

It wasn't the most pleasant time Chez Nous this weekend, where Lara passed on to first Olga, then me, a tummy bug she'd caught at nursery. I shall gloss over the gory details, but suffice it to say for the adults at least it was only a 36 hour thing, and Lara is over it now after three days or so of having a poor appetite and not keeping much - how shall I put it? - "in".
The silver lining was that it happened on a weekend when we had no plans, last weekend it would have spoiled our trip up north, and next weekend is Eve's 1st birthday party, then we're off to Devon on Monday morning.
Oh, and we've all lost a bit of weight in the run up to Christmas!

The Liverpool Uni Happy Families Club

We went "oop norf" last weekend for the christening of our friend Desme's latest family addition, Anya. There were a bunch of people from my Liverpool Uni days there with partners, spouses, about-to-be spouses and kids. Lara just couldn't resist practising her favourite activity of the moment - pointing - on the group photograph.

Mishka survives his weekend away

Mishka was fine when we picked him up on Monday afternoon, after we'd been away in the North East for the weekend. It was reported that he'd eaten OK, and hadn't needed his buster cone on as the staff hadn't seen him scratching his poorly cheek.
He seems to have learnt some clever things from his dog-mates, he can now undo our stairgate at the bottom of the stairs, which has prevented him from coming upstairs for nearly two years, this led to a few surprise visits by him in the study and nursery this week. I made some alterations to the gate last night and now he can't open it, but whilst he was told off for doing it, we were secretly impressed that he had learnt how to defeat the gate!
It wouldn't have helped him get through the secondary gate that we have installed at the door to the nursery though, which we use when Lara's playing in there and we can't be in there full-time with her, so we weren't worried that he could get to Lara without us being there. Even if he did we've not seen anything so far to suggest he'd harm her, but of course we're not going to tempt fate.

Lara Update

Olga took Lara to the clinic today to get her weighed - it's been three weeks since her last weigh in. In that time she's put on 1 pound, so now she's 18lbs 11oz or 8.48kg, which is very good news. In the 6 weeks prior to her previous weigh in, she hadn't put any weight on at all, and this took her below the 25th percentile. This new weight gain in the last three weeks has taken back above the 25th line, and means what we're feeding her - a mixture of mum's milk, jar food and fresh food - is working.

We're also biting the bullet and trying to encourage her to fall back asleep herself when she wakes in the night. Previously we've "interfered" by picking her up, cuddling her, rocking her etc.. until she fell back asleep, or in extreme circumstances, or when she was ill, Olga would take Lara back to bed with her. Now we've taken the decision that we'll be in the room with her, and there might be some stroking and sshh-ing but we won't take her out of the cot unless we really have to.
We started this on Monday and so far, it seems to be working. On Monday night it took a good 45 minutes of Lara sitting up in her cot and crying while Olga watched over her before we could lie her down, and she fell asleep. That night she woke once in the middle of the night, but again rather than rush down to deal with her, we waited a few minutes and Lara got herself back to sleep. On Tuesday night Lara was able to lie down herself from a kneeling position and go to sleep, albeit on her front, so I turned her on her side, and she only woke once in the night and then some sshing worked to get her back to sleep.
Last night was the best yet - from being put in her cot at 7.30pm, we didn't need to go in and soothe her at all, and she slept until 6am, when Olga brought her to bed for a feed, and then she slept again until 8am.
It sounds cruel to sit there and listen to her cry for a long time, but actually so far, we only had to do that on Monday, for 45 minutes, and since then the crying has only been patchy and lasting a few minutes.

Famous last words...

Remember, Remember the 5th of November

We're not going to do anything this year for Bonfire Night I think - how could we top last year's firework display?! Those who were privileged enough to be there will know what I mean.
We'll just keep an eye on poor Mishka in case he freaks out at the fireworks. It's strange as where we are in Wycombe you can look down onto the fireworks from the town centre as the explode.

Too much watching Mishka? ..and a Touch Typist?

Maybe Lara has been watching Mishka too much?

And her computer skills are coming on a treat...

Well, it was a half-day after all

I had to collect Lara from nursery after lunch today, they reported she had the squits and we needed to take her home and we can't bring her back in for 48 hours after the runs stop. We're going to miss Monday anyway as we'll be up North, but it's a pain for Friday. It's rather surprising too, as she acts absolutely fine, as happy as ever she's been (even between 4.40 and 5.40 this morning!).
I took some photos of her (and of Mishka) this morning when the weather was chilly, to say the least. They are in the New Uploads web album (or get to them from the slideshow on the left as usual) but I particularly liked this one, after I'd messed with it in Picassa:


OK, and one of Mishka just to maintain the balance:

It'll be work for us today, then

Sadly the snow didn't fall all night, and whilst it's still lying there now, it won't last too long. It'll be nice when I take Mishka out in a few minutes though.

Woohoo Snow

I don't know about everywhere else, but it's snowing in Wycombe tonight! In fact it's snowing hard enough that they've abandoned the football league match down the road at Adams Park, maybe a mile or two from here. It'll have to snow all night to cover the grass in the back garden - now I wish I had cut it weeks ago, but the decking is already covered, so if nothing else we'll go into work late tomorrow (if we can get in at all - there are three good hills between here and work) and play with Lara and Mishka in the garden. A proper photo opportunity!

Holiday time!

We've been hoping to arrange a few days holiday for some time now, life's been very hectic for ages, and we just wanted to go somewhere nice and relax. I found a cottage today on a last-minute cottage website on the South Devon coast which looks exactly what we have been looking for. We had hoped to go away for Lara's birthday but that week looks really busy for us at work, and we just want to get away sooner rather than later, so we're off for 3 nights here from the 17th November. It's on an organic farm, right on the coast, and we're looking forward to going for some walks during the day with Mishka, then just relaxing in front of the woodburner with a large brandy in the evenings. The fact it's in an open-plan, brand new cottage where Lara can crawl around to her heart's content (apart from near the woodburner!) is just a bonus.

Lara must be growing

Lara must be growing, tonight we've lowered the level of the matress in her cot, to remove any chance of her trying to climb out when she wakes in the night - she was already getting good at pulling herself up the sides of the cot; Armstrong by name, armstrong by nature.
She's sleeping better now too, which is bound to be famous last words, but again last night she slept through till 5.15am, which on a "school day" is only 45 minutes before we get up anyway.

Apples, anyone?

I had to admit defeat in trying to mow the back lawn yesterday afternoon, it's just too long at the moment, and too damp underneath. Also there is a carpet of fallen apples, which I was planning to just mow into the grassbox as I went along. I got precisely nowhere, but not wanting to waste the time in the garden, I decided to bite the bullet and try to pick up the fallen apples. Considering the tree still has many apples still attached, this year must have been a bumper year for the apple crop. I got Olga to guestimate the weight of one of the bags of apples that I took to our new recycling bin, and using Lara's weight as a guide, we reckoned this bag was around 12kg. Well, it was the last of 5 bags that I had collected! 60kg of apples, or around 130lbs... I went to Asda later for a buy-in, and noticed that a kilo of Cox's apples is £1.28.
We agreed we will try harder next year to collect them as they fall and before they rot on the ground. Anyone visiting next summer WILL enjoy the apple sauce, apple pie, apple crumble, hopefully cider, and any other apple-based products they are offered, OK!

GMT already!?

I was a bit thrown this morning, I thought the clocks would go back next weekend. I'd stayed in Lara's room for much of last night to allow Olga to get some decent sleep, and it was my turn to look after Lara this morning. So when Lara woke and was clearly ready for breakfast, I checked the clock in her room and it said 7.30, which meant she'd actually had a good lie-in, as recently she's been wanting breccy between 5.30 and 6.30.
Anyway, I took her up to our room, and checked the radio-controlled clock we have in there and sure enough, it said 6.30. I wasn't convinced until I went back to the nursery and turned the news on and saw the clocks had gone back!
It worked out well in the end though, as we are normally quite slow to get going on Sundays, but even after giving Lara a bath, then her porridge & yoghurt, feeding Mishka, Olga having her shower and taking Mishka for a walk, then coming back and cooking us a nice big fry-up, it was still only "10.30"... This is why I have the time to write these blog posts and update the webalbums with some new photos. Lara and I will be off to the pub for at 1pm to watch the Chelsea v Liverpool game, which is why she's got her Liverpool kit on in the new photos.

Poor Old Mishka

No sooner has Lara recovered from her lurgy (sorry, Baba Luda, I mean illness!) than Mishka decides it's his turn to get some attention. Olga had noticed earlier this week that Mishka was behaving slightly strangely, it seemed like he was trying to lick the air around his head! On Wednesday evening I noticed something nasty in his fur on the side of his head, below his ear. By Thursday evening he was scratching this area a lot, so on Friday we took him to the vets, and either a cut or an insect bite has become infected, and he has a badly affected patch of skin about the size of a £2 coin. The vet shaved this affected area so we can get to it to clean it, and apply some magic gel, and Mishka's also on antibiotics now, but to top it all off, he needs to wear one of those radar dishes as much as possible over the next few days to prevent him from scratching the affected area. He really didn't like it on Friday evening, and we let him sleep without it then, but as of yesterday he's wearing it all the time apart from when we take him on walks. He's off into kennels next Saturday morning until Monday afternoon, so we hope it will have cleared up by then. Imagine the embarrassment he'll feel in front of other dogs if he has to go in looking like this:


It's also taking him some time to get used to getting through doorways and between furniture, and while he's got it on we dont' let Lara play with him in case he accidentally hits her with his "dish".

An Autumn Visitor

Olga had a visitor while I was in Houston, well at least next-door's back garden had a visitor - the first Monkjack deer for sometime. He or she looks very healthy considering it lives in a fairly built-up area. While I was in Houston hunting was a much-discussed topic amongst the menfolk, as deer hunting season starts next month. I tried to find out how they woulsd react to this situation, but I suspect I already know the answer, although they'd have to wait until the deer strayed onto their property before shooting it. Two of the guys I spoke with (both in their 50s) hunt with bow and arrows as well as rifles! Texans, eh!
Anyway, full marks to Olga for shooting this with nothing more harmful than a Canon 10D with a 90mm lens at 1/90th second exposure.