The Weekend? Resting? No Chance

On Saturday the plan was to do a little bit of shopping for Lara in Reading, at ToysRUs and Mothercare, she has outgrown some of her sleepsuits (OK, I might have shrunk one too..) and Olga wanted her to have a little chair she could sit on for drawing at her table in the nursery, rather than kneeling in front of it as she has been doing. I was then hoping to make my first appearance of the season (as a substitute!) for the Prince of Wales Rangers in the afternoon, but to give me a chance to back out gracefully, I'd not told the captain I would be available in advance.
That turned out to be wise, as not only had I not known the kick-off time, but we were late back to Wycombe anyway as it took some time to load up the car with a new easel, chalks, quilt, pillow, pillow cases, pyjamas, sleepsuits and THREE chairs! There would have been a play-kitchen too if ToysRUs had the one we liked in stock!
Rather than force too many changes at once on to Lara, we didn't give her her new pillow and quilt at the same time, we started with just the pillow, and she sleeps in her new grown-up pyjamas in her old sleeping bag, but she LOVES her pillow. When we put her in her cot for a few minutes while we set up her bath, she voluntarily lies down and hugs it. Maybe it's just a coincidence, but I think her coughing in the night hasn't been as bad since she started sleeping with the pillow, so much so that we've had to listen quite intently to the baby monitor sometimes to make sure she's not suffocated by sleeping with her face in it! We'll try her out with her 4.0tog quilt on Friday night, that way if she has a disturbed night, we've got Saturday to get over it rather than having to go into work.
Lara took to her new easel straight away too. We can't leave her with the chalks unattended, she will eat them, but so long as we're there, she knows how to use the chalk and happily scribbles away on the blackboard. She's already a better artist than me.

On Sunday we went for a walk at Dorney Lake, between Slough and Windsor. This is a man-made rowing venue built by Eton College, and will host the rowing and canoeing events in the 2012 Olympics. I'd heard the tracks around the lake were ideal for roller-blading, and knowing that Olga has a pair of roller-blades in the loft, I thought we should go and have a look at it, and maybe we could make it a regular trip and get some more exercise than just walking with Mishka. The tracks are perfectly smooth, and access to the lake is free, which was a pleasant surprise. It's a 4km walk around the lake, so all we've got to do now is see how Olga copes with roller-blading while pushing the Quinny pram, while I either cycle or roller-blade with Mishka attached. That should be interesting. First I need to buy a bike or some roller-blades. I know, I know, I could just run.... but it's FOUR kilometres. I got cramp jogging accross the park on Saturday afternoon to watch a few minutes of the Prince of Wales Rangers match.
Here's the lake, anyway. You can just make out the rowing clubhouse (the light coloured building) 2km away at the far end of the lake.