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…