Lulu's Conception Report, Part 2

(Filed by our Gaming Correspondent, Daddy)

After the madness of the Thursday night DnD marathon, I was somewhat out of sorts, and not pleased that Daddy went off to actually play a game without us, again! So when we eventually came over to see Daddy where he was being a Goblin warchief in the Main Hall I was already giving it some in a big, big way. Daddy heard me coming (so did everyone else actually) and when he saw me all upset in the buggy and Mummy calmly drinking her coke and chatting to someone he got very annoyed with Mummy and took me out for a cuddle. Wasn't really Mummy's fault, I had only just started 'mimping for effect' as the military parlance has it after all. But he thought it had been going on for a while and could see I somewhat snotty and out of sorts and somewhat overreacted by leaving his game and taking me back to the Lodge, which was probably way too much.

Mummy explained calmly and patiently to Daddy (as you do for the hard of thinking) that she is perfectly capable of taking care of me, ill and mimpy or not, and that there was no need for him to overreact like that. Daddy, as Daddy does once the calm and patient explaining bit is over and done with, hung his head in shame and apologised to Mummy, but then said he thought maybe we should just all go home that night and cut our losses with him only coming back to do LARPs and the Treasure Hunt, and Mummy was sort of in agreement. Well, I wasn't having this - I was on holiday! So I let rip once again, but oddly this seemed to sway them towards going home rather than sticking around like I wanted to...

After lunch, Daddy want off to do the muster and to help the Bad Girlz run their sci-fi parody LARP, 'Firefly Battlestar Deep Space Babylon Seven Gate Wars In The 25th Century - The Next Generation'. He also got to play the scary Foregon Ambassador in a full alien suit, with helmet and everything, for about twenty minutes, and told everyone to kill the Wibbles, who were small furry aliens who were secretly taking people over, before it was too late...these LARP thingies get very complicated if you ask me. Still, he said most people had fun in their silly costumes, even if they did all end up as slaves of the First Wibble Empire in the end.

The Wibbles Triumphant

On Friday evening Mummy persuaded Daddy that we shouldn't go home after all, on the very sensible grounds that there wasn't really much more that could be done to make me feel better at home than at the camp. So he asked her if she was sure, then if she was really sure, then if she was really really sure. I think you can guess the rest. However once it was all over he went over to do evening muster and put up a signup sheet for another run of 'Goblins and Commanders' on Saturday morning, which got filled up double-quick time, including by one of the peeps who'd just played 'Midnight's Children' on Thursday. Double Daddyness, what a masochist!

When Daddy got back, Lippy and Aunty Lucy had come over with the Arkham Horror board game. Daddy was supposed to play it with them while Mummy chilled out, but somehow he ended up sorting out little old me pretty much all the way until bedtime...I feel a mwahahaaaaaaaaaa!!! is in order here, so.

Mwahahahahahaaaaaaaaa!!!

Anyway, Mummy got ready for bed right quick after I settled down, as my nasty snottiness meant it was only a matter of time before I'd be up and wanting snuggles, and Daddy played the game. Being 'Arkham Horror' it is of course based on the Cthulhu Mythos, which means Daddy loves it! He is a sucker for all that 'cosmic horror' malarkey, apparently...

Saturday morning dawned, freezy and cold. Daddy got me up for first bottle and we went to sleep in the sofa together again afterwards, then he got Mummy up to look after me while he went to call morning muster and run his Goblinz game and get my big sister settled into her first game, a Fairies game with a nice man from Portsmouth named Mick. What a lot of tattoos he has...

After stopping to see my sissy, we went over to see Daddy about 11 o'clock and one or two of the players seemed a bit perturbed when he suddenly had a baby to help him run the game. But I soon got them into line and helped them rescue themselves from disaster with some really neat moves before Mummy came back. Daddy's friend Pat was the only survivor in the end and only got away with it with a perfect swan dive into a moat about 200 metres below a window - it was a real beaut of a move, apparently.

After lunch it was the big one - Garry Grotter and the Society of the Sparrow, written by Mummy and Daddy. One or two people pulled out at the last minute, like Daddy's friend Kiera the Stunty - I don't know why he call her that, I've seen pics of her and she doesn't look that short. But there are always peeps to play LARPs, and Daddy ended up saying it was the best LARP he's ever run, and some of the players agreed as well!

There were people in school uniform aplenty - the Dweebley brothers were in ridiculously bright wigs, the Dutch contingent were out in force (whatever that means) and it even ended with a grand confrontation between Garry Grotter and Lord Fondlebot (played by Knobby the Goblin, resplendent in his twirly black cape) which Garry won in true LARPy fashion to defeat the bad guy and get everyone home safely to Bogbort's, where they wiped out Luciars Milfoy who had trapped them all on a nasty hellplane (even Fondlebot as he was attempting a doublecross) but unfortunately forgotten to run away afterward...

Like I said, these LARP thingies get a tad complicated sometimes.

Saturday evening Daddy had an unusual duty to perform at muster - he had been told about severe weather warnings for Sunday so he explained to everyone in his usual shouty voice that they might want to check weather reports for their route before setting off if they were going back on Sunday. And with crushing irony he then had to go and give the same warning again to the 'Mountain of the Dead' LARP - which is set on a Mountain and was played with all the characters in full winter clothing in the freezing cold Games Rooms. I really think some of them thought he was joking.

Daddy says he set a new record during 'Mountain of the Dead' - shortest guest appearance ever. He was supposed to be an Ithaqua cultist (yes, more of that Cthulhu Mythos stuff, it seems to be very popular with people at Conception) who didn't feel the cold, so he turned out in just a t-shirt on his top half and thought he'd get very cold as he pretended to be a lost Native American who had just stumbled accidentally through a magic portal and into the Russian camp. Only the lady playing the Russian Commander saw he was armed with a tidgy little knife and just walked up and shot him five times before anyone else could interact with him in the slightest. So he lay down playing dead for about two minutes then got up and got his jumper and jacket back on. Total time on his feet roleplaying about 30 seconds, definitely a new record.


After Mountain of the Dead finished Daddy went partying for an hour or so. This nice chappie called Steve always throws an ace party on the Saturday night and apparently this year was no exception.

Steve as the Vampire Prince Michael of Bournemouth, from an old Daddy LARP

However we shall draw a veil over what a certain Goblin (not Daddy) did after getting rather too drunk at said party...when I'm older I don't think I shall drink this alcyboos stuff. It doesn't seem to have a very good effect on you, in fact if what Daddy told Mummy the morning after is anything to go by I'd frankly rather eat one of my own poopy nappies and would probably still feel better afterwards than this person did.

And then Sunday dawned. The Last Day of Conception. By this point everyone is struggling (especially after the saturday night parties) to keep going, people's money is running out, the faces are looking more drawn and more haggard.

And this is the morning when Daddy runs the Kiddiez Treasure Hunt.

Daddy's first headache was that the heaters for the Games Room he had been faithfully promised would be in there from 8am sharp werent there when he arrived at 9.15. So he had to go and jump up and down at the main desk to get things moving so it was still a little chilly when the children arrived at 10.30.

Every year Duncan the Rusty One brings a huge bag of dressing up clothes for the children to dress up in, and other people donate bits and bobs as well such as masks and in one case a blond wig from the Garry Grotter LARP which one of the children wore all day long in the end, even through the closing ceremony! Before the Hunt starts all the children get dressed up in fantasy costumes with the help of my Daddy, my Mummy and their Mummies and Daddies and one or two other helpful people from the Bad Girlz. I even wore my Tigger suit just to get in on the act.

This year Amber (who is getting too big for all this now frankly) wore a cool cape and hood and had a homemade bow and everything! We had someone dressed as a monster called an Umber Hulk with big mandibles and stuff, an ickle Elf princess, and even a Ninja Penguin by special request with a full-sized beak and everything...

And then the dressing up was done, and it was time for the Treasure Hunt. On the Sunday morning Daddy seeds clues on big bits of paper all round the main building, sometimes giving them to people and sometimes just posting them on walls and stuff. Then the children have to figure out what they all mean and go get the next clue until they finish. This means lots of charging around and general mayhem, including tiptoeing through the Bar ('The Place Where Children Mustn't Go) and lots of runs through the main hall where most people go 'awwww' and the hardcore gamers moan at the noise.

When it was his turn to be a Clue, Bob the Diceman made one of the children cry by pretending he was going to eat their baby sister, and gave him a free big dice to say sorry. He gave me my very own set of Goblin Green dice when we arrived as well as a naming present, he is very very generous with his stock. My big sister and he have been friends for years and years, she even bought a set of dice made from Blue Jasper off him once, they are very tiny and beautiful pieces.

I was a Clue as well! It said 'Find The Baby In Disguise', and that was me because I was in my Tigger suit, see? When they all piled back into the Games Rooms where I was waiting I was having Tummy Time and very very nearly crawling, yay me!


Eventually after loads of clues the last one said 'The Goblin In Black Has The Final Clue', and everyone had to chase my Daddy back into the Games Rooms to pick up their prizes. They got loads of sweeties and a cuddly toy each, and the ickle Elf Princess got an extra cuddly because Daddy thought she had the coolest outfit.

Once the Treasure Hunt was over we headed back to the Lodge with Amber and had our lunch. Mummy and Daddy started packing up ready to go home while we ate, but I was so excited by this point I hardly touched it, and so I was a bit on the hyper side when we went back over for the closing ceremony.

Andrew, Duncan, John and Julian all stood up on the stage and gave their speeches about how much money Conception had raised and who it was going to (mostly Round Table and the like, but also £1000 for an equally worthy charity called Help For Heroes) and then Daddy got on the stage to do the Golden Badger Awards for the people whose characters had died in the most amusing ways. After he was done the charity people came up and thanked people for their efforts while Daddy snuggled me next to the stage - unfortunately just as they were finishing up I detonated a Size Five in my nappy and Daddy had to take me out for a bum change, so I missed most of the raffle. Daddy says it was very quick this year as people have complained about how long it was on previous occasions...

Next there was the photy session, which featured me in my special custom-made Conception X T-Shirt - but as it was outside it had to be a really quick photy shoot because lo and behold, it started snowing!!! What a great way to end the proceedings, with the first little wispy bits of snowy goodness.

After the raffle Mummy had gone back to the Lodge to finish the packing, so Amber went into the play area to run around playing Tickle Monster with some of the other ickle kiddiewids, and Daddy and I wandered around the main building having cuddles and saying hi to people. I got lots of cooing and even some cuddles off a few people when I was feeling generous enough to let them snuggle me, but eventually I started getting tired so Daddy took me back over to the Lodge. However, when we got there Mummy had already got the packing done and was just waiting for Grandad to arrive, so Mummy filled our car with stuff and when he did she took me back to the house while Grandad filled his car with the rest and took Daddy back. But as they were leaving it started to snow, really really hard - and I slept through it because when Daddy and Grandad arrived back at the house I was totally gonzoed, ooopsy!

Mummy decided she might as well just go back to the camp to pick Amber up with me asleep in the car (after clearing out enough things to make room for my big sissy of course, couldn't have her perched on the parcel shelf now could we) so off we went, but by the time I woke up the snow had mostly stopped. Bummer, huh?

So I went to bed that night, dissappointed at missing the snow and still a bit icky and snuffly (in fact I still am a bit icky and snuffly, I can't shake this naughty cold!), but in the morning the world was a bit different to the night before...


So there we were, home in the snow after my first ever Conception. And now, please join me in raising a bottle to the idea of many, many more in the future!

Lulu's Conception Report, Part 1

(Filed by our Gaming Correspondent, Daddy)

Well, we did it. Sort of. We didn't stay till the bitter end, because I was ill, Mummy was just getting over being ill and Daddy was just starting on being ill, which is something he traditionally does on the Sunday about three and a half minutes after the big closing ceremony.

Conception started at about 10.30 when we arrived at the holiday camp. The nice peeps behind the desk were ready with our keys, and I officially declared the Convention open with a short speech. In Shriek.

We took our keys off to the place that would be my home for the next four nights - lodge ML6. Andrew, who is Mummy and Daddy's friend who sorts out the accommummydation was very kind and had made sure we had a lodge that was really near the main building so I wouldnt have to go too far in the coldy weather. Just as well too, it was freezing when we got there.

We seemed to have soooo much stuff to unpack. Mummy had loads of stuff in the car (as well as me), and Grandad came to help too with his car which is even bigger. It's all mod cons when we go on holiday, and no mistake. I had my high chair, my wipeable tarp thingy for it to sit on, a whole box of toys, my walker, my door bouncer, my sleepy bouncer, Whoozit, Rabbit, my chew toys, my blankies, my dummies, my vests, my tops, my trousers, my nappies, my creams (got a nasty bit of nappy rash you see) and everything but the kitchen sink really, because happily enough there was already one in the Lodge.

We even had custom made clothes (see post below) including Website Advertising, which Daddy assures me is a very big thing.

The Lodges are quite warm places, and have comfy sofas and comfy beds. I know this because due utter hatred of my travel cot I always spend nights away from home cuddling Mummy in which ever bed she's sleeping at the time, and due to my snotty cold in addition it was a foregone conclusion. Mummy and I were both snotty at this Conception, so Daddy ended up sleeping in the other room after the first night after he was subjected to the Snorting Twins all night long and got no kip at all. He did offer to take me the second night but Mummy reckoned that if he did he'd just get my cold anyway and then we'd all be ill, which is fair comment I suppose.

All in all, it was just like home really, except every time we went out there seemed to be more and more rather large men in black clothes and beards. Which brings us to what we were going there - games and gamers.

Conception isn't the biggest gaming convention in the UK, that's called Gencon. But it is the biggest one in the South of merrie old England, and is all for charity instead of money, which makes the peeps who come along much more generous with their donations.

Daddy's first function in all this is to organise the LARPs. These are the games where all the peeps dress up and actually act out what they are doing 'live' instead of rolling dice and/or moving figures about a tabletop. Daddy has to work out who gets which games and then slot people into them, and sometimes he writes them too. This year his LARP involved lots of ladies in school uniforms. Legitimately.

Daddy said he'd never written so much plot for a LARP before, but it went really really well. And there were lots of cool school uniforms - piccies will no doubt follow. Some of the last minute players even went into Bournemouth in the morning to buy shirts and ties to look more like wizards from Bogbort's - now that's what I call dedication.

Anyway, once we'd got all our things squared away it was time for Mummy and Daddy to argue about who was responsible for leaving behind all the stuff they left behind. Which included a full 75-litre rucksack, which you'd kinda think would be hard for them to miss...but eventually Mummy took me over to the house again to pick everything up.

While we were gone, Daddy had to go over and do his other job for the first time this year. This job is called Calling the Muster. It seems to mainly consist of standing next to Duncan (who is apparently a bit rusty, not sure what that's all about, I can't see all that many flaky bits on him) in front of lots and lots of gamers and yelling a lot whilst waving bits of paper. I have pointed out that this could equally describe being an MP and is presumably not as well paid, but he says even he has some moral standards when it comes to employment.

As Daddy calls the muster the people gradually go off to their games and eventually only the people who couldn't find a game they liked before they got filled up or have just turned up hoping for a random space are left. Then he and Duncan get to work running around, remembering who had a spare space and who didn't and in Daddy's case sometimes literally going into the main hall and shouting for anyone with a spot to wave their hands and shout back what it might be.

Daddy says he's never seen Conception so busy. Obviously number ten, or 'X' as it was known, was the bee's bottom. Or something like that anyway.

When Mummy and I got back from the house I had my first meal in this new place - daddy biscuit, nana, apple and dates to follow, always a good combination. Once I noshed it down Mummy put me in the new 'car buggy' (which is like the Tank in almost no way at all whatsoever, being small, impossible to steer one-handed and light as a feather by comparison) and walked me over to find Daddy in the main building.

The big bit of the holiday camp is the Main Building. It is shaped like a big L, with the main hall at one end and the bowling alley and the main dining bit at the other. And a bar in the middle, naturally. Trust me when I say that if you're going to game for five days, twelve hours a day, you'll need that part. It was fascinating to watch how the complexions grew whiter, the circles around the eyes grew wider and darker, the heads dropped lower and the look of utter determination just to get through till the next game was over got stronger and stronger. And that was just Daddy!

Anyway, we found him over in the main hall, running his Dungeons and Dragons game based on the Order of the Stick, which he thinks is a very very funny Webcomic indeed. Apparently he had it looked over and personally approved by the author himself (who even made some minor corrections to the character's abilities) so it was as real as it can be - and this year helped by, bizarrely enough, being run for a group of people who didn't know the comic but liked the idea of a bunch of incompetent misfits such as he described on the signup sheet so much they signed up for the game anyway...

I went back to the Lodge with Mummy and had my tea while Daddy finished up his game, and had my tea. We seem to have a decent enough cooker and grill thingy because I managed to have my potato stars and some sliced up chicken fillety pieces which were a bit dry but that was OK, because it meant I could munch on them good and proper. It must have helped because I popped yet another tooth the day after!

While I was scoffing Daddy came in and Mummy told him she was already cooking his tea – she was very obliging through the whole Con and cooked nearly all of Daddy’s meals, wasn’t that kind of her? Then we went back across so Mummy could Work On The Desk.

Working On The Desk means that you have to sit down a lot, and talk to all the gamer peeps. It looks maybe a bit boring (well, except for all the people cooing over me but I’m used to that by now, what with being so gorgeous and all) but looks pretty well-paid though. Loads of people gave her money for doing it so maybe she should quit her poopy job at the kitcheny place and do this instead? She could make a mint! But even though I got a little bored occasionally there were some compensations...


Daddy came back over to the Desk a little while later ready to Call Muster again – this time I got to hear him in action.

What a noisy man my Daddy is. After that experience there’s no way he can claim I get it all from Mummy ever again, that’s for sure. He also seemed to be very eager to find a person called ‘Charmingly Shallow’, but he didn’t seem to want to step forward and make himself known…

Once Daddy called the muster, he went into the main hall to run his first Goblin game of the Con. It was called ‘Goblins and Commanders – The Bottom End Of The World’ (weeeell, alright, he didn’t say Bottom but this is theoretically a family-friendly Blog after all, so…) and like so many of the games he writes all the players were playing Goblins. They had to assassinate a Humie general and crawl through the sewers (ewwww!) to reach him.

Needless to say, being Goblins, albeit of the scary sneaky kind, they made a bit of a hash of it. They did a lot of hiding and sneaking but not quite enough moving about, and they kept getting cornered by Humie guards. Luckily for them the Humies couldn’t quite figure out where they were going next and kept going the wrong way, so eventually they managed to get to the general and fulfill their mission. Unfortunately the general’s mysterious wizard adviser managed to wipe them all out after they got the general, though one of them might have escaped if he hadn’t gone all heroic and actually gone back for his Feebleminded comrade-in-sneakiness instead of shimmying out the window. Most un-Goblinlike behaviour, Daddy assures me.

The Feebleminded person was played by someone called Knobby the Goblin, who didn’t look green enough to be a Goblin at all, except curiously enough during the closing ceremony on Sunday afternoon. Daddy waved a finger at him and reminded him of all the things he’d done during and after the party the night before, and called him a very naughty Goblin indeed.

Apparently in former Conception years Daddy used to run a thing called Goblin Day on Fridays, where he and sometimes other people would only run games with Goblin characters in them. I think that must be why he has ended up being known as Goblin Boy to everyone, and even has the name printed on his Conception T-Shirts. Knobby was once mad enough to do all three games one year with the same Goblin character called Knobby, and that’s how he got his name, see?

Knobby the Goblin, not as green as you'd expect

I went back for bedtime about 8, and this was when I started getting all snuffly and snotty, as well as a bit crabby because I wasn’t feeling well and was a bit miffed that we didn’t go back home so I could have my own cot instead of the poopy travel one. So I pretty much ended up sleeping on Mummy for the night whilst Daddy tossed and turned in the bed next to her as I grumped and mimped and moaned. A lot.

In the morning, a somewhat bleary-eyed Daddy got me up for my first bottle and we fell back asleep on the sofa together as we often do at home. I woke up about 8 and he played with me until half past when we went in to get Mummy up so he could go and call the muster.

Well, it wasn’t a pretty sight, I can tell you. There were moans. There were groans. Tears after bedtime just wasn’t in it, dearie dearie me. You’d think he’d invited her to a ‘bring your own red hot poker’ self-torture party the way she carried on. Pretty much like most mornings really, now I come to think of it.

Eventually however we were able to extricate Mummy from her pit by running out of the bedroom with the covers, and off Daddy went to do muster and also something very special – yes, Daddy actually got to play a game instead of running one! He had spotted a game of 3:16 the night before and ran to the signup boards threatening to flatten anyone who got in his way in case the last remaining spot in the game went before he got there with a pen.

However, pleased though he was, there was a small sting in the tail – namely that sneaky Duncan had given that game Table 1 – right by the Desk so when I arrived with Mummy a little while later after breakfast, Daddy was right on hand to play with me whenever Mummy wanted him to…

3:16 is a very noisy game, it seems. I’m sure I heard quite a few of those bad words that Mummy and Daddy tell each other off for using, and had to Shriek quite loudly so I wouldn’t hear them properly. Naughty Daddy. But in 3:16 you play really bum-kicking space marine types, so I suppose it’s not realistic for them to use words like ‘poop’ and ‘bellybutton’ for emphasis. Though some of them did appear to be using the other kind instead of things like punctuation and grammar, now I come to think of it.

In the afternoon we had a new thing – my first game. Well, sort of. Daddy promised that he would try to run at least one game in the Lodge so she could play it, and they agreed that he would run an old classic he wrote with Uncle Dave, called Midnight’s Children. We played with Aunty Lucy, Lippy and Ryan from Yorkshire, and two other peeps who were brave enough to sign up despite the sheet saying that there would be a cute, gorgeous, but also very loud young baby present throughout. It’s a two parter as well, they were very brave to stick with it until nearly midnight. I was a tad mimpy through a lot of it, but in the end Daddy said that it was a fairly good ending after Aunty Lucy’s character got Dominated by the enemy Sorceror and killed off half the other characters, and Ryan’s got dropped off the back of the Sorceror’s Dragon boss and ended up as jam.

I always have jam with my morning toast. I wonder what flavour it was?

(Part 2 of this report will be filed by our exhausted and still rather ill correspondent when he can find time between feeding and changing to write the rest of it…)

Guess Where We're Going Today

Call Me Fourteeth Williams

..two in one day baby! Now we're up to four with the top middle ones coming out as well, and Mummy and Daddy can see the two either side of them are just about ready to pop clear as well. I even christened my new chompers on one of Mummy's fingers when she tried to show Dan my new toothies when we went to Clo-Clo's today.

So to sum up, I'm massively teething just in the runup to Mummy and Daddy's one actual holiday this year, as Conception starts on Wednesday. Daddy says the appropriate phrase rhymes with 'hug her'.

Biology Question

If this rather fluffy-haired person...

and this very well-dressed, but nonetheless rather sheepy-looking person...

...were to have another baby, would he or she look like a half-baby, half sheep? Well, Daddy says in about eight months we are going to find out! Congratulations guys, and lots of love from me to you :)

PS See you at Conception on Wednesday. And Saturday. Er.

Something About That Conception Thingy

As the strange gaming convention thingy is coming soon, someone thought they'd make a video all about it. Weeell, sort of about it. I'm pretty sure that Hitler blokey in it won't actually be there, Daddy says its from an awesome film called Downfall and lots of people have done what this clever person has and added their own subtitles to this bit of footage.

I didn't really get it myself no matter how much Mummy and Daddy laughed, but hopefully the grownups will...

Party Party Party

Tis the season to be jolly, and get presents from Auntie Holly, and other things ending in olly. Plus Mummy's birthday was on Sunday, so we had a party on Friday night to celebrate. Amber went to Granny's and lots of peeps came over to coo at me. Amongst others, Uncle Julian (he's one of my non-religious Godfather types) and Aunty Sue came over, and I even let her hold me for a little while without screaming. Wasn't I good?

Julian and Sue on my Naming Day

But the crown for the evening's 'holding the baby without the baby raising merry hell' award had to go to Ed for sheer persistence. Even when I kept mimping and looking at Daddy all imploringly as if to say 'how can you possibly leave me with this strange American for another second?' he just kept on playing with me and cuddling me. And in the end he got to snuggle me for a whole twenty minutes (!). Mummy and Daddy were amazed, not to mention mightily impressed.

Ed and I. I am reading him a story with lots of teething in it.

At first when it was Julian and Sue I was quite happy. But then for some reason lots of peeps arrived all at once, and everyone seemed to crowd into the kitchen where Daddy was holding me at the same time. I started feeling it was all a bit oppressive, but luckily Daddy saw it coming and took me out of there before I fully let fly. Apart from that I actually quite liked having lots of people there, they cooed and cooed and cooed and gave me lots and lots of attention. And if they weren't paying enough attention I just gave out a quick yell and that got them back where they should be, i.e. worshipping at my little feet.

Nutty Nate was there. He's the one Daddy and Julian started moshing with during Mummy and Daddy's wedding reception, suits and all. His luverly lady Kate was there too. She has uber-big hair, it is totally awesome and seems to get bigger every time we see her.

Nate and Kate at Mummy and Daddy's Wedding

Big Dave and his girlfriend Alex came too (Daddy doesn't seem to have any photy's of them, sorry) - I had to stay away from Alex though because she is a scary ill person. Daddy says she was a Plague Bearer and she didn't seem to argue with that one. She did make sure it was still OK to come over though which was very kind of her to do.

Big Dave is a super-clever person who knows loads and loads about the stars. My big sister wants to do GCSE Astronomy and he will says he will help her out loads and loads because he is only one more degree away from being a full Astronomer, which I think means he can look at a star and tell you what its called, how far away it is, and probably what it had for breakfast as well.

Also Rob (who Daddy keeps referring to as Jack Silver, after the bumbling Vampire he played in the game Daddy first met him in) was there. He is High Priest of the Temple of Prog, which sounds very grand indeed to me even though I don't know exactly what it's all about. But that's OK, because Daddy says no two people have ever managed to agree on exactly what being Prog means anyway.

Unfortunately for Mummy, because of people being ill, people related to people being ill, and people having to work late, none of what Daddy calls Mummy's 'girlie mates' made it over, so nearly everyone who was there was a gaming person. And those gamer peeps, my they do like to talk shop, so to speak. It's like another language really, though I'm one to talk I suppose what with my fluency in Yell, Shriek and Red-Faced Strain.

All in all despite the occasional moment when people didn't pay enough attention to me, and a bit too much gaming natter for the non-gamers present, it was a really great night. I even went to sleep near the end after exhausting myself with all this social stuff, despite a few people still being downstairs making noise.

I hope we do it all again for Mummy's 25th next year. I don't get to properly entertain nearly often enough.

Bournemouth Bournemouth Bournemouth

Yes Bournemouth, Lulu was back! You see my big sister had managed to leave her Peebag on the bus (still having trouble getting why she carries a bag of wee around to school three times a fortnight, but there you go) but luckily it had been handed in to the driver and so Mummy and Daddy took me into Bournemouth to get it and decided to make an afternoon of it.

I didn't want to go in the car at first, and had a righteous mimp about it. Well all right, to be precise I didn't want to have any clothes on at all and had a righteous mimp about that, and then had a righteous mimp about getting in my coat and the car seat. However Daddy cheered me up from the back seat by pulling silly faces at me and talking to me as usual and my mood soon improved.

When we got to Bournemouth we parked opposite one of Daddy and Amber's favourite places - the great big Ohdeeon. This is a place where you go to watch films on great big giant screens and you dont have to put tapes or DVDs in them first. Daddy and Amber used to go there on a Sunday morning to see lots of films because they did very cheap movie tickets for kiddiewid films. They even had an 'on the way to the cinema' song and everything!

After Daddy reminisced about the Ohdeeon we walked down to a bookshop called Waterstones and bought some books about children who have misplaced their things but take a while to find them, like "That's Not My Dragon" and "That's Not My Rabbit". I guess they must be for my sister as she is always losing things. Maybe there's one called "That's Not My Peebag".

I started to get a bit mimpy in Waterstones as Mummy got to the counter then asked about 10,000 more books. That's what Daddy said, anyway. She said it was only one or two but she was in there an awfully long time so Daddy wheeled me backwards and forwards outside untul she was done.

I was still a bit mimpy when we walked down to get Amber's peebag from the Yellow Bus office near the big Square. I soon got distracted though, as there were lots and lots of things to see. Every year in Bournemouth as December draws near there are lots and lots of new stalls that spring up outside, both in the Square and leading up Commercial Hill. They are all in neat wooden booths that look like mini-cabins, and they sell lots of food and drink and christmassy things for all the people that flood Bournemouth looking for presents at this time of year. People were just starting to put them up when we got there, so if we go back again before Christmas there will be lots and lots of cool food and shiny things to play with, yay Bournemouth!

After going to get the peebag and seeing the stalls being put up, we went inside a shopping mall on Commercial Hill. Mummy went upstairs to the sports shop and Daddy took me into a place called Humv to look at the Metal CDs. Apparently one of his fave bands from when he was young and had hair down to his bottom (still have trouble picturing that) has a new album out and he got all excited, bless him.

However by this point I was getting tired and just like last time everybody seemed far too busy to coo over me, so I started turning heads by conducting our conversation in Yell. Daddy stopped looking through the CDs and talked to me for a minute, and a very miserable looking boy with the floppiest fringe ever bumped into the Tank and gave Daddy a really evil stare, as if it was his fault that he missed seeing a four foot tall ABV (Armoured Baby Vehicle). Daddy politely suggested that if he cut his fringe he might be able to avoid stationary objects, and he stalked off with his lip wobbling.

I think Daddy made him cry. I know I'd cry if I had a haircut that stupid.

We went outside of Humv to wait for Mummy, but she took ages and ages upstairs doing her shopping (again). When she eventually did emerge we went to have our lunch in the Moon! Twas funny, I always imagined it would be more cratery and white, but instead this Moon was full of people having drinkies and nosh.

We found a little table in the corner of the Family Area, and the momentous occasion of my first ever sit down meal occurred. Mummy went to order her and Daddy's food and get some hot water to heat my bottle up, and when she had got it Daddy gave my bottle while Mummy went outside for some potential lung cancer, as Daddy puts it. I really don't think Daddy likes her smoking again, you know.

Well, I can tell you I felt very grown up indeed, having my bottle in a proper restaurant like the grownups do. I am a proper Big Girl now!

Mummy and Daddy both like eating out, as Daddy says that food always tastes better when someone else has cooked it, and Mummy generally adds that with his cooking it's pretty much a certainty. They both like Chinese and Italian food, though Daddy still likes Rice even when he has Italian food. He usually has something meaty whereas Mummy has something Spaghetti-like. His favourite is a special Seafood Risotto, Mummy's is Spaghetti Bolognese. Unfortunately these dishes are from two different restaurants, but that's Mummy and Daddy for you.

After we all had our lunches, we went back home and I fell asleep in the car. It did seem to me that my big sister was back early, and Daddy said that this was because she had been on a whistle-stop tour of lots of different places where people worship God. Or Gods. Or ancestors. I think he must mean like her Dungeons and Dragons playing Lamb worships Azuth. I wonder if she went to an Azuthan Temple?

After all that excitement I really didn't want to go to sleep and kept waking myself up to play with Daddy after my last feed. I managed to get up, do a big stinky weewee so as to require a big bum change, then fight the sleepiness until Mummy got home from hockey practice. It's a great talent of mine, that is.

Today I did really well with my baby rice, and Mummy and Daddy were very pleased. I think they wish taking these luverly solids would help me sleep better, but you can't have everything.

Grandad is very pleased with my insomniac tendencies of course. He says I am his revenge on Daddy for not going to sleep until he was 4 1/2 years old. Daddy says it wasn't his fault, he didn't know better. Grandad says neither do I, so that all works out in the end. Not sure I follow the logic there, but Grandad seems very pleased with it so who am I to argue?

Night night and sleep tight everyone.

Yorkshire

I have returned from the wilds of Yorkshire. And believe me, when I say wild I really mean it as regards the return trip. It took poor Mummy and I a whole nine hours to get back through wind, and rain, and more wind, and more rain.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's rewind back to Friday morning when Mummy and I set off for Yorkshire.

Daddy got me up bright and early for first feed so Mummy could get moving as quickly as she could and avoid the rush hour in the places we'd have to go through to get to the moteyway. I think she actually managed to only come back in to the house to pick up something she'd forgotten once (instead of the usual three or four), that's how ferociously focussed she was.

The weather was gorgeous on the way, and as we wended our way north, and well clear of nasty poopy London (as Daddy calls it) I was so impressed with all the cool landscapes. There were so many different things to look at - new hills, trees, people. The great outdoors, baby! I love it.

Eventually though it was time for me to have my next feed, and we stopped just before a place called Oxfood which presumably has lots of farms in it. I didn't mind stopping to nosh some milkies, but then once I was finished Mummy had the barefaced cheek to try and get some food of her own from somewhere called Macadees.

I didn't like Macadees. It smelled funny, and being in there was stopping me from enjoying the thrill of the open road, or something. I put up with it as we waited in the queue to be served, I put up with the smelliness, I even put up with waiting to go back into the car. But Mummy actually let go of me with one of her hands when she picked her juice up off the counter, and this was just the last straw. So I decided to use my baby martial arts to deliver a swift kick to the offending article and show my displeasure.

Unfortunately it all went a tad wrong. I'm not too sure how I did it, but I kicked at an angle that sent the juice all over Mummy's face. And my face. And my hair.

Mummy? Not impressed, I can tell you.

So there I was, on the way to Yorkshire to meet my cooing public, and now I smelled of orange juice and baby wipes. So I didn't try any more of the old high kicks again. I'm only in my Pink Babygro after all. When I get my Black one I shall be able to aim them perfectly to only get Mummy with a flood of juice and avoid myself.

I fell asleep after a while, quite a long while in fact. By the time I woke up we were well along the Moteyway. This is a very long road with lots and lots of cars on it, and Mummy gets to drive much faster on it, which she is very pleased about. Also it flashed by so fast that I could barely take in all the sights, but there were lots of other cars that seemed to be barely moving at all next to ours. It was very strange, that. The background (trees, fields etc) seemed to whizz by, but the other cars only seemed to be moving a tiny bit. Weird.

And then, after a whole seven and a half hours (apparently) we reached Yorkshire. Yorkshire is where Granny B lives. It is a house with a nice garden next to lots and lots and lots of hills. Because I was still a bit sticky from all the Macadees orange juice I had a special Yorkshire bath, which means I went in the kitchen sink and made a big splashy mess! It wasn't like at home where I have a special green baby bath, and have lots of towels laid down to stop me soaking the carpet. I thought everyone had baby baths, but obviously they do things differently 'north of Watford', as Daddy calls it. Shortly before receiving a ding from Mummy, usually.

When I went to bed I did not like the feel of my travel cot. It was very different to my supersoft bed at home, plus I was still a bit of a snotbox from my cold. So Mummy gave up and laid me down in my beloved bouncer and I passed out almost straight away. It had been a long day's travelling, after all. Apparently Mummy kept waking up to check on me all night, but I didnt stir on account of all that hard looking about and yelling I'd done.

In the morning we went from Yorskhire to the village, which is called Honley. But inevitably Mummy forgot her car keys and so Granny B pushed me along in my cousin Molly's pram and I fell asleep, as I like to do in the Tank. But when I woke up we were somewhere very odd. A lady was pouring water and stuff on Mummy's head, and there were ladies and men with scissors chopping off other people's hair! It was very disconcerting, but I was OK for a while because there were lots of people cooing over me. Some wore funny uniforms and were the people doing the hairchopping, so I was a bit unsure about them. After all I don't want them going near me with those fierce looking scissors, I've barely got any hair to get cut off in the first place!

Anyway, all went well until someone tried to attack Mummy with a very stubby looking object that I recognised. It made a strange noise and it started to blow poor Mummy's hair all over the place. If I hadn't gone completely howl-at-the-moon mad at this I think it would have charged up and blasted Mummy like some sort of weird raygun. I've seen those dodgy sci-fi movies Daddy likes, I know what a raygun looks like and I'm not having anyone point one at my Mummy!

Once I had saved Mummy from death-by-raygun, we went to see Aunty Jayney and Bob next. I was still very upset from the trauma of nearly seeing Mummy blasted into atoms, so when Jayney wanted to snuggle me I really protested. But she is annoyingly persistent and eventually I gave up and allowed her to cuddle me off to sleep for a little while.

I was supposed to meet one of Bob's grandchildren today, but she had the dreaded Chikunpops. Apparently this is a nasty illness that makes you feel really yucky and then go all spotty. Daddy gets very annoyed about it, because he says some people are really silly and think that children can only get it once whereas they can really get it loads of times as not all kinds of Chikunpops are the same kind. So if they are like like the Poppin Chikun then there must be Barbecue Chikunpops and Spicy Chikunpops and that sort of thing, I suppose. Anyway, some people actually bring their babies to see other children who have the Chikunpops so they can get it when they are tiny, which is about the meanest thing I can think of doing ever!

(Daddy's Note: It really is an Urban Myth of the silliest kind that children can only get chicken pox once. Amber has had it three times, I know of one girl who has had it six times. So don't ever, ever hold a 'chicken pox party' unless you want me to come over and make you eat ten snotty hankies by way of a metaphor for what you are doing to your children.)

It was all go today. No sooner had I woken up from my sleep then off we went again, this time to a special sale at the mill that Grandad B works at. All his friends who also work there and other people there to buy woolly things (no sheep for sale though, I was a bit disappointed about that) endlessly cooed over me, so by this point I was cheering up quite considerably. Then we went back to Jayney's to switch cars and left to go to another special Cooing Party. It was organised by a very nice lady called Granny Walker (who isnt Mummy's Granny but seems to get called that anyway and there were loads of people there to coo over me. I was the centre of attention for ages, it was great! True, there was a grownup called Virginia there who seemed to be getting quite a bit of greetings too (something about her 21st, Granny Walker must have a lot of grandchildren then) but really she got much less attention than me.

After my next bottle and a giant poopoo, Mummy took me out into Granny Walker's back garden to see something I've never seen before up this close - a great big horsey! I've seen some go by pulling carriages when I've been sat in the Tank but I never realised just how big they are before. Mummy wouldnt let me touch the horsey's mouth like I do with her and Daddy though because horseys have great big teeth and big flappy lips and I might get swallowed. Urgh, what a yucky thought, I sort of lost the urge to play 'Lets rip your lips off' after that.

Once everyone had had at least one good coo over me we dropped Granny B home and then went to see Grandad B and Granny She and the doggies.

Their two doggies are called Rubble and Freddie. They are both very bouncy and friendly doggies (not like Syco at all) and I played with them for hours. Rubble ate my little feet and made them all slobbery, and Freddie licked at my hands. I giggled like a maniac, they were so funny! Mummy reckons Milton's shares must have climbed after all the sterile wipes she got through, whatever that means.

I even got to pull Freddie's ears, bonus! Then I sat with Granny She and watched Mummy fight Rubble for the doggies new 'unbreakable' chew toy, which seems to be able to make a grown woman sprawl about on the floor playing tug-of-war with a doggie. What a versatile toy it must be. I watched Mummy rolling about and laughed like a drain the entire time.

Next I got to open a present!. It was a snazzy new coat, and I liked it so much that I tried it on straight away and then wore it outside to step into Grandad B's back garden and watch the fireworks go off nearby. I love fireworks - they go bang and pop and fizz and make pretty colours in the sky. Luckily the noise doesn't bother me at all, because I know that the bangs mean there are more pretties on the way.

As the fireworks finished, Grandad B's friends Diane and Robert came and cooed over me, but I was so tired out from all the excitement of the day that I went to sleep when i really shouldn't have done. I was rudely woken by Mummy to go back to Granny B's house to have my last feed of the day. Unfortunately for Mummy because I'd has my Powernap I was still very awake after the last bottle and I didn't want to go to sleep yet, after all this was about as exciting as the busiest day ever! Even after she finally got me down I still woke up at 3am. And 4am. And 5am. And 6am.

I think there was a pattern emerging at this point. Mummy took the hint and got out of bed to give me my first feed shortly afterwards. But joy! My cousin Molly was waiting downstairs for me when I got there, having her breakfast with Granny B. She is a bit bigger than me, she isn't quite big enough to be walking yet but she does crawl a lot. I think Granny B was having trouble catching her so she could give me all the morning smiles I was due.

After I played with Molly for a while Mummy packed all our goodies in the car and we left Yorkshire to see my namesake, Auntie Lucy. She is one of my two Godmothers and she lives with her fiance John in a big building with lots of floors and a really funny glass lift thingy. She is also a gaming and fantasy geek like Daddy, yay! Or not depending on your point of view.

Aunty Lucy also has a nice slidey wooden floor that I got to go dry swimming on. Dry swimming is what happens when a baby knows how to do all the motions to start crawling but hasn't quite figured out how to do them at the same time yet. I'm getting really good at it.

I also got another present from John and Lucy - a Tigger suit! Lucy took some photys of it next to me, but I didn't like it when John loomed over me to take some of the two Lucy's. He is very tall and a bit scary, so I kind of mimped until he took the hint and backed off.

After lunch we said goodbye to Aunty Lucy and John and Mummy said we were leaving Yorkshire and going home, which didn't make much sense because we left Yorkshire and said goodbye to Granny B earlier on. However we were soon on the way as Aunty Lucy lives very near to the Moteyway and that's the speediest way to travel, baby!

At least it is when the wind doesn't roar and the rain doesn't fall down in sheets. You see after we stopped for my next feed, I did a huge weewee shortly afterwards so Mummy had to stop at the next services to change me. And then a few minutes after we got going again I detonated a Size Six in my nappy, just to shake the journey up a bit. Well I wanted the fresh air, didn't I. It's not my fault Mummy wouldn't take the hint.

After all the delays for bum changing we were running later than intended so we were still on the Moteyway when night fell and the rain really hit hard. I didn't like this at all, as now I couldn't see much of anything and Mummy had to slow down as well, so I screamed for 50 miles straight to make sure my displeasure was fully understood.

However we took a big break just before that Oxfood place again and a funny thing happened. Suddenly Mummy's friend Sam and two of her friends were there, and I got some serious cooing. Now that made me feel much better, I'd gone without a good coo for hours. As Sam lives near us, from then on Mummy followed her car down the roads so she had a good target to aim at. It all turned into a bit of a blur for me afterwards, I think I fell asleep at least once before finally, after nine hours of gruelling travel, we arrived home at Chez Lulu.

When we got there Daddy wasn't very well. It seems he felt very ill in the car coming back from Indiecon and had been laid down for a couple of hours before we got home. So there was poor exhausted Mummy coming indoors and wanting to hand me over to Daddy, and Daddy thinking he was going to throw up any minute when I got all excited and started kicking at his tummy while he gave me a welcome home cuddle.

I decided to make them feel better by not going to sleep for ages, as I figured they could use the company to cheer them up. Oddly enough they didn't seem to appreciate the gesture all that much, the ungrateful pair.

So that was my trip to Yorkshire. I enjoyed it very much up until the darkness and the rain fell on the way home, and I'm sure I'll have forgotten about that part soon. And so will Mummy once her ears have stopped bleeding from all the screaming.

Night night and sleep tight everyone.

The End Of An Era (Well, Halfterm Anyway)

Yes, I have Officially caught Mummy's cough. This Officially Sucks, and means it's going to be another very long night for my dear parents. They are starting to look a bit ragged around the edges now. Daddy is even drinking Coca Cola for the caffeine content seeing as he doesn't normally touch coffee with a ten-foot pole.

My big sister goes back to school tomorrow. This also sucks. She has played with me lots and lots this halfterm, and changed more of my nappies than Mummy did today! She is teh Star.

I wouldn't go off to sleep this afternoon, so Daddy sung me that weird lullaby he likes. I don't know what the words all mean but it's very soothing and often calms me down and helps me get my Powernaps. Mummy frowns if she's there, because apparently she doesn't think all the words are 'entirely appropriate' but Daddy takes the pragmatic, if somewhat suicidal attitude that 'it calms her down so bog off'.

We all went down to Mudeford Quay today and fed the ducks, swans, cygnets, seagulls, weird looking big seagulls with grey hook beaks, moorhens and other feathery creatures. The seagulls really swarmed and whenever one managed to grab a piece of bread from the air and fly off with a pack of his friends in pursuit Daddy amused us by doing a racing commentary to accompany the action.

At one point Mummy thumped Amber upside of the head with a loaf of bread when she kept dangling slices over Mummy's head and seeing if the seagulls would do their business on her. The bag split and slices of bread flew everywhere. Daddy laughed so hard I jiggled up and down so fast I could barely focus on all my seagull friends, though he says this is Setting A Bad Example. I don't know why, I think it's all very funny just like he does and that can't be bad.

All in all despite the coughyness it's been a good halfterm with my big sister, all things considered. And I'm off to Yorkshire with Mummy this weekend to be cooed over by all the Mummyrellies while Daddy and my big sister go to Indiecon, which Daddy won a free pass for by answering lots of questions in a quiz. Yay for Daddy and his geeky knowledge of roleplaying games!

Night night and sleep tight everyone.