A Year in Pictures: Week 29

Saturday 16 July


This is Jessica, Jon's niece, modelling a creation she made herself from an old mailing bag. It's called Mildred...


Sunday 17 July


When I put Daisy in her pushchair, I usually assemble it outside (it lives in the boot of the car) then bring her out to it. This morning I brought her outside then realised I needed two hands to put the pushchair together, so she just sat on a box of nappies in the boot while I sorted it out.


Monday 18 July


I bought Daisy a gilet to take on holiday with us to the Lakes next week. It's 6-9 months (she's almost 11) and is enormous on her - I'm glad I didn't decide to get the 9-12... When she turns her head the coat stays where it is and she just sees the inside of her hood ;).


Tuesday 19 July


Love those puppy-dog eyes :).


Wednesday 20 July


Daisy's getting really good at standing up. She sometimes needs a hand to get there, but once she's on her feet she can stay there for ages.


Thursday 21 July


Always up to date on current events.


Friday 22 July


In the last 48 hours she's really mastered the art of getting to her feet. Easy peasy.

A Year in Pictures: Week 28

Saturday 9 July


Just doing some reading. Hmm, interesting...


Sunday 10 July


Today we had salmon for dinner, with broad beans, red onions and courgettes from the garden. Just call me Felicity Kendal. Actually I didn't grow them, so just call Jon Richard Briers...


Monday 11 July


I always put Daisy in the middle of the lounge, and she invariably moves immediately to underneath the TV and stays there. Just in case she misses anything from three feet further back.


Tuesday 12 July


First time in a big girl shopping trolley :).


Wednesday 13 July


Daisy helped me wrap some birthday presents today. OK, maybe 'helped' is overstating it a bit, but it was nice that she wanted to get involved.


Thursday 14 July


First time on the swings! There's a little park right next-door to our house, with a small playground, and while she's a bit small to enjoy any of the other things, she loved the swings.


Friday 15 July


We went back to the park this afternoon as it was such nice weather. I attempted to get Daisy to model her sunglasses but literally a second after I took this, she had taken them off...

A Year in Pictures: Week 27

Saturday 2 July


We had pasta for lunch today, with broad beans straight from the garden :). We also concluded our week off work (or, in my case, parenting) with a trip back into London to see Les Misérables, Jon for the second time, me for the seventh. Alfie Boe and Matt Lucas are both currently reprising their roles from the 25th Anniversary Concert at the O2 last year, Jean Valjean and Thénardier respectively. They were both excellent, but really no more so than every other member of the cast. Everyone sang really clearly and was easy to understand, particularly Javert, who was played by Hadley Fraser, coincidentally also a feature of the 25th Anniversary Concert, although playing Grantaire, a much smaller part. This occasion marks the first time I haven't cried at a live production of Les Misérables. Wow, I must be growing up ;). Actually I think it's more to do with the fact that the last scene, where I usually cry, contains one of my now-favourite songs in the show (now that I'm sick of the usual suspects: I Dreamed a Dream, On My Own, etc), and I was concentrating so hard on listening to every note that I forgot to cry ;).


Sunday 3 July


Daisy came home today after a week with Daddy. Here she is sharing a joke with her octopus.


Monday 4 July


Daisy spent much of today putting assorted toys into my slippers, then taking them out again and grinning.


Tuesday 5 July


After having a really good day yesterday, Daisy decided to top it off by throwing up her entire dinner just before bath time. Fortunately for her, she was standing up and using me as a prop at the time, so I was able to direct the vomit away from us and onto the floor. Unfortunately for us, she had had pasta with a tomato-based sauce for dinner. It would probably have been easier to clean up if she had got it all over me instead of the floor, but I didn't think of that at the time. I spent half an hour scrubbing the floor while Jon put Daisy to bed, but didn't get much of it out. Here's Daisy admiring her handiwork this morning. I'll be ringing the carpet cleaners later on today.


Wednesday 6 July


Although she still hasn't mastered proper crawling yet, Daisy leans onto her hands from sitting, puts one foot on the floor and takes a 'step', dragging her other leg along with her. Which means she can get around the room pretty quickly now. Just 10 seconds before this photo was taken, she was at the other side of the room, and the next thing I knew, she was picking out DVDs.


Thursday 7 July


Boo!


Friday 8 July


Daisy got quite warm in her car seat this afternoon. I don't think it's the air temperature as much as the material the seat's made of, which doesn't breathe all that well. When I got her out of the car her hair had gone curly in the heat :).

A Year in Pictures: Week 26

Saturday 25 June

We went into Cambridge today and had lunch at Jamie's Italian. It was nice. Not excellent, as you might expect a Jamie Oliver restaurant to be, but nice all the same.


Sunday 26 June


I love this picture of Jon and Daisy reading the papers. Caption competition, anyone?


Monday 27 June


My two favourite girls in the world, both looking beautiful.


Tuesday 28 June


As we are child-free all week, we've made the most of it and are seeing one or two shows/concerts. Tonight was the turn of Glee Live, which kind of played a part in getting Jon and me together. Here we are waiting for the show to start. It was really good, and I wasn't the oldest there, not by a long way. I was expecting there to be thousands of teenage girls and us, but there were actually just as many over-25s as under-25s, if not more. You can't see it in the picture but I'm wearing my William McKinley High School cheerleading top (it's actually the top half of the pyjamas that Jon got me for Valentine's day;)). Excuse my hair, by the way; I had a mobile hairdresser come round last week and I asked her to cut me in a 'growing out'-style fringe I could sweep across to the side. She cut it way too short and I'm still trying to work out what to do with it for the best until it grows a bit longer...


Wednesday 29 June


No show today, but we did go for lunch in this beautiful building, which happens to be a Michelin-starred restaurant called Paris House. The food was delicious, and really reasonable at £30 for three courses. We both had profiteroles for dessert, which were served with salted caramel and were the best I've ever tasted - and I've tasted a lot. We spent the afternoon visiting the house we've bought in Milton Keynes and watching X-Men: First Class at the cinema. A great day.


Thursday 30 June


The second show of the week was Take That at Wembley Stadium. Jon booked tickets before we got together, but he found himself with a spare ticket, so I took it, then another person in his group couldn't make it so I asked the lovely Clare to come with (sorry again, Jen). It was a great concert, particularly as I'm not a huge Take That fan - I don't dislike them, but I haven't ever bought any of their albums - but just as great was seeing Clare, who I used to see at least once a week and who I haven't seen for two months, since I moved up to St Neots. She said she missed me and I cried ;). Anyway, here are Take That singing my favourite of their songs, The Flood, on stage at Wembley. On the big screen is Robbie; he and the rest of the band are standing on the silver rigging below the huge statue on the right of the picture.


Friday 1 July


We went to see Betty Blue Eyes tonight, a musical based on the 1984 film A Private Function which starred Maggie Smith and Michael Palin, among others. It was very good - a bit too farcical for my liking; I like my musicals to have a bit more substance, but definitely value for money. During the day we spent a good three hours looking round St Paul's Cathedral, somewhere I've never been, despite having been to London dozens of times in my life. The entrance fee was £14.50, which I thought was a bit steep, but it was well worth it as the audio tour which was included in the price was excellent. And the audio tour headsets were iPods - hope they got a deal from Apple ;). However, given that photos are not allowed anywhere in St Paul's and it's difficult to take a picture of the outside as you can't stand far enough back, here's a picture I took while walking there this morning. It's of the famous 30 St Mary Axe, or 'The Gherkin', as it's more affectionately known, and I think it's beautiful. Maybe I missed my calling and should have been an architect...