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…..