This week has seen Rachel’s birthday on Wednesday 10 and we planned a quiet evening in with a couple of friends, Mark and Emily.

Claire, one of Heidi’s godmothers popped in beforehand for a cuddle on the way home from work and we had a nice chat whilst Heidi showed off her social skills she has recently developed. Smiles masked her naivety in some areas, but she was rewarded with hugs and kisses for her efforts. Fat hugs really do work along with gooey, saliva-ridden smiles.

The evening was not meant to be too grand but we all decided on a curry theme so I started making three curries in the few days in the run up to her birthday.

This served several purposes; to keep fuss to a minimum on the night and to ensure that the flavours develop over a period of time. It was a trio of Red Lamb Thai Curry, Lamb Tikka Masala and Chicken Balti all created by me – with the help of some ingredients from the oriental food store. Once cooked they ended up in a foil container and stayed chilled to develop the favours for a day, and then were frozen for use on the day. A few naans, some pickles plus some fresh poppadoms made it a success. We started with jumbo prawns in a cocktail sauce though which may be a little 70’s, but always goes down well, albeit non-Indian….

Rachel had made a raspberry torte earlier in the day and so this was accompanied by some local clotted cream.

Heidi enjoyed the first part, but went upstairs as she could not hack the pace. The evening ended near midnight and hopefully everyone had a nice evening. Heidi had remained in deep slumber allowing us to chatter inanely.

Friday saw another gourmet gathering, this time at my mum and dad’s. It was fish and chips there, and was really nice. The six of us, including my brother Duncan sat down to plough through a mountain of chips. Heidi appeared briefly before retiring to the front room in her Moses basket and nodded off happily. We’d ordered five cod and four chips, but the portions were enormous as usual, plus I think they gave us an extra bag of chips. Five cod and two possibly three chips may have been adequate.

The weekend saw us shopping and we purchased Heidi’s cot for her. It only took a few minutes for me to build it, although when first unpacked I thought all the screws were missing, but this ended up not being the case. I was hopping temporarily.

The mattress we had for Fred fits perfectly although he only ever got to use it one night, the night before he was diagnosed.

Following the health visitors tips on starting weaning Rachel today gave Heidi her first taste of something other than milk. Heidi has experienced two lots of Calpol, and seemed to enjoy the change. Here it was heavily pureed carrot which looked really nice and orange, but clearly was not to her liking. Much face-screwing and tongue flapping by her, she managed to get ¾ of the ice cube sized portion down. We will keep on with the non-sweet stuff gently and see how she goes. I guess it will be orange poo from now on…….

I had hoped to post some photographs but again I have left my camera in the office so will add them tomorrow if I remember.