Since the last time I did Heidi’s ‘blog she is completely mobile and is on her second pair of shoes, with also a pair of willies and some all weather boots for splashing on the moors. She is probably ready for her next pair of shoes soon. The current ones are Velcro fastening which mean she can remove them far too easily – laces next I think.

Her repertoire of food is expanding and contracting. Once a fan of the Brussel sprout (sort of) she is becoming more fussy but still likes fish and potatoes, along with stew. Homemade pizzas are a current favourite and fruit such as banana and apple her shovelled in. Sometimes only breadsticks and cheese are what she’ll or eat an occasional nugget of chicken.

The good thing is that she is happier to feed herself, normally without us peering at her. Us feeding her is getting less and less now so results in some great messy hands, with butter and marmite in her hair. Mayonnaise is a great “firm hold” gel the following day.

Today she visited Santa Claus in his grotto at the Palace Theatre in Paignton. She was second in the queue and was wary of the great man. She did have a photo taken from a distance and gratefully departed with a small gift.

Rachel won a competition to come up with a recipe for sausages for our local butcher. I entered too, having spent a considerable amount of time coming up with a variation that I was sure to be a hit. Rachel pipped me at the post, and won free sausages until Christmas with bacon, tomato and black pudding. They are really nice but we have only managed to get our hands on two. The rest of the batches have sold out in each shop, which is good.

Heidi is gearing up for some carols tomorrow in the park and seeing Santa again on Tuesday. Her destructive tendencies mean the tree has not been found a home yet……

The last few weeks have seen really good weather which coincided with some time away.

Early in the year we booked a long weekend in North Devon at the Tarka Holiday Park, which is just on the outskirts of Barnstaple. It was one of those £10.00 per person holidays from the local newspaper and was the second such offer we have taken this year.

The park is quite small but was really nice, with a rather rickety but very friendly clubhouse which I popped into one night. Roaming free-range were the resident chickens which Heidi liked and with sunny weather meant we had a good time. In fact, the caravan heated up too much during the day which I suppose is a good thing, as it was a bit chilly at night times.

We met up with my colleague Paul, who lives not far away and visited Bude. Again a sunny day which was finished off with a barbecue in the back garden.

The last few days have seen us Weymouth where we stayed on their £29.00 per room deal which was good. The weather was sunny, though is now getting noticeably cooler – should be really as its October. Still seems like summer to me.

No cooking for us, so that meant eating out in child-friendly places, timed by Heidi’s small but expectant stomach. Having a Brewers Fayre next door meant things were easy at the end of the day. No having to find a microwave or other heat-source to make her grub as she had to eat whatever we were eating which we try and do as much as possible. The only problem we had is keeping milk cool, so resorted to small cartons of UHT full fat milk which she was happy with.

Thursday night saw her enjoy some whitebait of mine plus Rachel’s lasagne and garlic bread. Whilst in Weymouth the following day Heidi dabbled with some of my black pudding but she was not keen on that.

Our last night was a really nice curry for me and Rachel and Heidi had the tomato and vegetable pasta – again a hit with Heidi. I have discovered she loves poppadoms which is a good thing.

Once back, it is return to the same routine and back to work tomorrow. Hopefully Heidi likes her little jaunts around the south west and beyond and she certainly is more fun now and developing all sorts of peculiar traits.

Still big on waving and smiling at strangers as we go by, she has now perfected the handshaking greeting…..

It has been quite a few weeks since I last posted something on here. I found a draft ‘blog for the 14 April which I never got around to posting, but have added it in any case.

Lots of good things have happened in the last few months. We went on holiday to Hayle, near St Ives and stayed in a timber chalet. The site is set in the sand dunes close to the beach, and was really quiet in June. The weather however was very good which meant Heidi could play on the grass outside happily. The only problem was that it was too hot some days, and finding shade was hard.

She loved being in the sand and the sun, and eating all together. Lots of pub lunches and the occasional meal out in the evening fine-tuned her social skills. During that time she was quite confident in standing up and gliding about the room holding on to things. Her crawling speed was very high and escaped outside on a number of occasions, only to eat stones and twigs.

She is now fully at walking and running speed and rarely crawls. This means she has a full run of the house, with the exception of various devices that have installed to keep her out of rooms and cupboards. Once she realises she has been thwarted, she’ll fly in to a rage that lasts a few minutes before she wanders off to something new.

That also meant new shoes. £20.00 for a pair of doll’s shoes was a bit steep I thought, but was good fun buying them anyway.

With the good weather we have been in the paddling pool in the back garden and she loves in there.

In the last few days we went to the Chagford Show. It turned out fine in the end and Heidi did some walking amongst the crowds on her reins that she now has. She rarely goes in the direction you want and randomly sits on the ground to inspect the gravel or grass.

Her vocabulary is improving as is her ultrasonic squeaking which can almost change the channels on a television. It sure does annoy people in the shops when she is having fun doing it.

Heidi’s hair is growing at a fair rate now, and at the back of her noddle is a wodge of curly blonde locks. It is not that long, so it does not get brushed constantly but serves a purpose. Bath time make her look like Patrick Moore in some ways, but then the brush really does come into its own.

She is coming on leaps and bounds at Jolly Babies, and is now waving and clapping to order. She accompanies this with an infectious grin and laughs like a pixie too.

The last few weeks have seen her with a cold, which cleared up, and then a throat infection. The latter took it out of her a bit, in that she really could not clear the phlegm very well, so hacked and hacked until she was sometimes sick. On the two or so occasions this happened, I was below her, at 0400h in our bed as she had some milk because she was unsettled and could not clear her throat. The milk tends to clear her a bit. She was smiling away and then a torrent of hot milky sick came out once, and then twice. It was as hot as a cup of tea I tell you.

Bed sheets changed, sleep suits changed and my PJ’s all at the early hours, meant a sleepy day later. Luckily for Heidi, she was instantly better, and went to sleep quite happily until the following morning, having a bit of a lie-in. It has almost cleared now but she still has runny nose and hacks a bit.

Last weekend we went to Martock in Somerset for Yandle’s Woodfair, so that Rachel could find a new supplier of wood for her carving. It was an interesting day, where the sun shone and we had a picnic. Heidi enjoyed all the action around her, meeting new people as she went.

This weekend we went to meet up with a colleague, Sarah, who lives on a farm some 40 minutes away through the lanes from us. Heidi regularly visits farms when visiting Rachel’s relatives on the moor, so she took the cows in her stride, but had a good look at the lambs and the sheep. One lamb was being topped up with a bottle feed, so happily came up close so that Heidi could reach out and touch its fleece. It was a nice warm day with a breeze and Heidi sat up high behind me in the backpack. A few circuits of the fields and lanes, we returned for some scones, jam and a cup of tea, rounding off a lovely visit.
The weather this weekend has been good, so today was a visit to see my godson, James who is three soon. Heidi loved dismantling his little railway whilst he graciously observed, and was polite enough not to stop her.

Once back we went out into the garden to catch the sun, and Heidi promptly fell asleep. A busy old weekend for her, in fact the last few weeks have been full…

The weather for the last week has been really good, and this weekend has been the hottest this year. It has meant that Heidi has been spending more time in the garden, playing and finding her new world now it’s not wet or dark outside.

The paddling pool that Emily gave as a birthday present was unpacked yesterday and inflated on the little noisy compressor. It has an inflatable sun-shield that fixes to the pool, and gives a little bit of shade. Once inflated it was placed in the back garden and filled with cold tap water. We let it warm up a bit before Heidi ventured in.

Once in the garden, Heidi lost all her previous nervousness of leaving the mat, and crawled without fear all around the garden eating anything in her path. Stones, sticks and some daisies. She liked the cold water and leant in, splashing timidly at first and then more boldly. Soon she was soaked and so we stripped her off, and got her into her swimsuit. On top of that came the wetsuit and we let her dangle her feet in at first. Very cold to her, as she normally only encounters warm water in the bath.

She soon was happy and in the pool, splashing and shuffling around chuckling to herself and occasionally waving at her reflection in the patio doors. She could not master the getting-out sadly and she really did not have a clue how to do it. Once out she was wrapped up and taken in for her bath which she enjoyed as usual.

Today saw us emptying the pool and using it to water the plants, as she had filled it with grass and bits from yesterday. Filled this morning, it warmed up during the day to a reasonable temperature.

A visit to Grandma and Grandad’s house saw her out in their front garden too, crawling as fast as she could – around the flowers beds stopping occasionally to eat some greenery. As it was approaching midday and getting hotter it was time for some shade and lunch at home.

She had her pasta whilst we ate ours, and it was all very pleasant. She was in the pool again, this time mastering the getting in and getting out. Only she did it constantly – clambering in and then out again and again. She loved it and tried to grab the two dragonflies which were trying to share her water.

Once dried and dusted down we headed off for another first. Today was a visit to the beach. Heidi has sat on Seaton beach which is pebbly, for a few moments as well as the beach in Woolacombe just as it rained. Today it was hot and lots of people were there. The fun fair was behind on the Green, and we were there, all three of us. Rachel, Heidi and Hayley. I bought her her first bucket and spade too. We sat on the beach and Heidi soon started to eat the wet sand and dig her hands into the warm sand. She really enjoyed this. It was great for us too, seeing our beloved little daughter playing in this way. All the things we wished Fred would have experienced. She got very sandy and grubby so we took her down to the surf which was very small but gave her feet an icy wash. She looked a little confused at first and then became curios of it.

We returned to our pitch and enjoyed the sun again, with Heidi in her sun cream, under the shade of her parasol. We really need to get some beach things – windbreak, pop-up tent etc etc for when we are away next.

It was still very hot underfoot as we walked to the pub for some tea. Heidi was rather animated and noisy in the pub but was much fun as usual.

On return to home she played for a bit and then suddenly she was fast asleep in her cot, hopefully exhausted after a busy day of new experiences……