Of Relatives And Restaurants

I was pleased to receive a special Award from Mummy and Daddy last week. It was Best Behaved Baby Girl In A Restaurant Ever (Nine Months Category). I am teh Big Girl!

Yep, Grandad B and Granny She came down all the way from Yorkshire to see me, and finally persuaded Mummy and Daddy to abandon their 'no Lulu in restaurants because it isn't fair on the other customers' policy for teatime. So off we went for teatime at the Somerford, and were ushered to the far end of the restaurant to sit round a big round table for our dinner after a bit of a wait.

The highchair the nice lady bought for me was blue, and very open indeed. Not that I can't find ways to circumvent the straps on my own chair at home if I feel like it, but this one made it really easy! However I tipped my hand a bit too soon for my own good with an attempt at the floor, so Mummy tightened up the straps, really tight. I couldn't even get both my feet up on the food tray or anything.

As grownup food takes a while to cook and it was already my dinnertime, Mummy asked the lady to bring me some bread while we waited. So everyone else watched me eat, and looked all envious as I munched my way steadily through a couple of slices of bready goodness. In fact I've taken to plain bread so much now that I keep stealing Daddy's when he has broth for lunch...

Soon however my food arrived. I had a kiddywiddy portion of fish bites, chips and beans, and it was really yummy. Daddy says food always tastes better when someone else cooks it, Mummy says that's just because his cooking isn't very good...

Mummy had a nice healthy salad as she usually does, Amber and Grandad B had the giant Burger thingies, Granny She had a traditional haddock and chips, and Daddy had the Mixed Grill, a meal he describes as being able to make your arteries go "Kerchuuung" just by looking at it for too long. I didn't catch what all of its ingredients were, but there was definitely meat involved. Lots and lots of meat.

Thing was, I didn't go true to form. In fact Daddy wryly remarked that I ate much more neatly and tidily than I do when he feeds me at home. Everyone, the waitress and even the people at the next table (except for the teenage girl who kept worrying loudly about how she looked and if her hair was nice - she was really annoying) said how well I was behaving. And I was quiet too, no shrieking, no yelling or trying to wrench the tray free from the chair - which yes I have to admit is something I do quite often at home.

Unfortunately there was a very naughty boy a few tables down who was much bigger than I am who made far more noise. He was being really mean to his brother and his Mummy didnt seem to want to do much about it, and when she did tell him off he started fake coughing really, really loudly until she stopped. Daddy quietly made a very cutting remark about how well behaved I was by comparison, can't say I blame him really.

Try not to let the glare from my halo hurt your eyes there.

After you have your grownup meal at a restaurant, you can have your pudding as well. Daddy got some pie, Amber had some ice cream and Grandad B and Granny She shared a huge ice cream and even gave me some - my first ever taste of ice cream. It was so yummy I even forgot that I'm not supposed to let anyone who isn't Mummy, Daddy or Amber hold me for more than two minutes and let Granny She hold me the whole way through pudding time!

Once we were done we said goodnight to Grandad B and Granny She and Mummy drove us home, and then she went back to have more time with them. Poor Mummy does miss them very much, she is always upset when they have to leave again and wishes they could be with us for longer.

In the morning I was supposed to get an early breakfast so I could leave room for a brunch (which is like my Tenses used to be before Daddy started giving me my toast instead of a bottle first and then cut them out of our day, the meanie), but wouldn't you know it, I decided to lie in for ages and eat every last crumb of my toast as well, so when everyone else was sitting down salivating at the thought of a nice brunch I wasn't that hungry, so I settled for a slice of Daddy's bread and one of his Hash Browns.

Brunch was at a place called the Cliffhanger. It sits on top of the cliffs that Highcliffe (where Granny and Grandad Williams live) is named after. You can also see Naish, where the famous Conception takes place, from there as well, and even the bits where the cliffs on that side have all collapsed. If it happened this side as well Granny and Grandad would be living in Crumblecliffe or Fallencliffe instead.

Once upon a time Daddy used to walk the whole way from Highcliffe to Barton-on-Sea along the beach. Now you literally can't do that any more because the cliffs have collapsed and jutted so far out into the sea. It started happening during the winter Granny and Grandad moved down, which just happened to be the stormiest winter for decades - bad timing on their part there...

Naish is smaller now than it was back then. This is because it owns the land the collapsing cliffs are part of, and during the scary stormy winter some of its holiday apartments actually fell down the cliffs! I kid you not, there used to be thirty-foot pipe sections jutting out of the cliff wall a few years back, and to this day there is a roadway that used to lead to those apartments which just...ends. Yes, there is a sign and stuff but its still a bit scary, frankly!

Anyway, once again I was a little angel. I really have got this whole eating out business down to a fine art now, I rock at it! In fact I could put certain much bigger people than I to shame, Daddy says. Even when I had finished and should theoretically have been getting ready for my midday nap by getting all snippy, I was still a little angel as long as I was still getting Daddy snuggles. Besides they have a huge mirror behind the bar which kept me entertained for ages :)

However after brunch it was the sad time again (see above). Mummy was very upset about Granny She and Grandad B having to leave, so she went back to the house while Daddy and Amber walked me up to see Granny and Grandad Williams for a nice visit. After an hour or so Mummy came over there too and we had another first - I graciously let Granny and Grandad babysit me for a whole ten minutes while Mummy and Daddy went to look at carpets round the corner. Yes, Amber was there too and her and Granny were sat down on the rug with me and a whole box full of toys, and yes, I didn't realise that Mummy and Daddy had pulled a fast one and slipped out until they were actually backa agin, but that's not the point. It was technically genuine babysitting time, so there's another milestone crossed...

So that was my last week's midweek, you might say. Good food, great rellies and lots of polishing the old halo. It's not a bad old life really, when you think about it.

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…)

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.