Saturday at the Green

What a lovely day Saturday was! Barely a cloud in the sky. The morning was Mishka's - one of the neighbours brought her 9 year old female German Shepherd round for a play date, except this grand old lady wasn't in the mood for a 2-and-a-half year whirlwind to mess her about. It was very interesting to see her put him in his place from time to time when he got a little rough or overly personal. The plan had been for the dogs to run off the lead in the "Dog" part of the garden, while us humans were watching from the upper decking, where we'd installed Lara. However, Tequila, the German Shepherd, was quite content to stay in the shade on the lower decking, which meant that that's where Mishka stayed, and so did we. For the 20 minutes or so that we were down there, Lara played perfectly happily on the top decking, without attention-seeking once, which was very encouraging.

Another highlight of the morning was I managed to get the hammock tied up between two trees, in a good place that won't always be in shade, which is the problem with where I put it last summer. I had a quick 10 minutes relax in it before cricket, and even Olga had a quick go too. It really is a great place to relax, we can just watch the red kites circling above.

Lara got her reward in the afternoon, with a trip to Littlewick Green to watch Papa play cricket. Our camping friends, the Fullers, who live on the Green, had a great kiddies play area set up in their back garden, so Lara passed a good part of the afternoon playing with the other kids on the mini bouncy castle and in the paddling pool. The plan had only been for Olga and Lara to stay for the first hour or so, and have a picnic lunch, then come back to pick me up later on, but it was just sooo nice there, and with the Fuller's playground on hand, that they stayed all day, even though our game dragged on until 8 o'clock! Then we just had to go to the pub on the Green for a drink, where Lara again charmed the locals, and astounded the other parents with her ability to remain happy and bouncy past 9 o'clock. Needless to say though, she went out like a light once she was put in bed at home!

Oh, we lost the cricket, since I know you were wondering... Olga was well looked after by the other cricket-widows, and I hope that continues for the rest of the season. I've always enjoyed playing there, but on a day with perfect weather, having your wife and daughter there too just made it all the more special.

First Blood (not the Rambo film)

We had our first bit of unwanted excitment last Thursday, when Lara and I were playing around before tea on the floor of the lounge, and she tripped forward and headbutted me. I could feel the impact had been under her eye, on the side of her nose, and indeed there were tears, followed by a reasonable trail of blood from her left nostril. This initial flow last only two or three minutes, and within five minutes she had calmed down (with the aid of Dr Iggle Piggle) and returned to her normal self, as if nothing had happened. The fact she was very calm, and the bleeding had stopped so quickly, reassured us that there wasn't any damage done, and it was just a good old-fashioned "bust nose". It was a relief to us all, but just another experience to tick off, it was bound to happen sooner or later, and it was just good that it happened at home, where we were able to look after her and Dr Piggle was on hand to administer hugs and kisses.
I'm only really posting about this to reassure other new parents out there that, whilst it's shocking for the first few seconds, once you've established that nothing's broken, dislocated, fallen off or otherwise in need of professional help, it's nothing that can't be fixed with a favourite toy, a kiss and food. (Ok, and plenty of tissues, wipes and a bunch of clothes, including Papa's t-shirt, going into the "Quick Wash" cycle).
We did tell nursery about this the next morning so they wouldn't panic if Lara started picking bloody bogies during the day! Lara is probably having her fair share of clumsy bumps at the moment, that very next day when we picked her up, we had another form from the nursery detailing how Lara had walked into a piece of furniture and had a bruise on her forehead.. that's her third in as many months, at least!
Nursery confirmed something Grandma noticed last weekend - Lara's a tough cookie. It seems to take a properly hard fall or bump to make her cry, usually there seems to be a microsecond of shock, then this turns into two microseconds of frustration at herself or the object that got in her way, then she's up again as if nothing happened.

Long may that continue!

Berbatov owes me £53

Does anyone have Dimitar Berbatov's email address? I need to tell him he owes me £53 - I had a bet on him to score the last goal in the Champions League Final in a 2-1 win to Barcelona. Barcelona did their bit, going 2-0 up; Fergie did his bit, bringing Berbatov on from the bench; just daft old Berby couldn't get his header on target from a corner in the 86th minute. He owes me......

United deserved to lose, they were rubbish for the last 82 minutes of that game. Tee-hee, couldn't happen to a nicer team ;-) Still only two European Cups behind Liverpool, then...

A big day for Lara (and Papa)

Today's been the day I've been looking forward to for ages - Lara's hair is long enough to put in bunches! Olga achieved what has so far been impossible for me, and it was a lovely surprise when I came home from work. Firstly she was standing on our (very wide!) windowsill, banging on the window at me when I got out of the car, then once I got inside, she just looked soooo cute! If anything, she looks a little older, and certainly a little.. erm... more "cherubic", shall we say!?
Anyway, the photos and one video are in the "New Uploads" album, click on the link to the left of the blog posts.

Bank Holiday weekend

We drove up to Radcliffe early on Saturday morning to see Grandma and Grandad, the weather was a bit grey on Saturday but absolutely lovely on Sunday. It was great to be able to let Lara run about in the back garden, playing with Mishka. She enjoys playing fetch with him, and throws the ball equally well left and right handed:



My aunt and uncle came round, and we had a lovely BBQ in the sun - the only person who had suncream on was Lara, so both Olga and I got rather toasted. Olga and I went out for drinkies in Bury in the evening, Lara behaved perfectly and slept, well, like a baby. She did enjoy getting up early though, by her standards, at 6am on Sunday morning and although she woke at 6am on Monday, she very kindly went back to sleep in her cot until 7.40.
Here's more of Lara modelling the playsuit Baba Luda made for her for exactly times like this: