Hurricane Heddlu!

Hold onto your hats people, Wales is windy! Lucky devil that I am, the first few days of our jolly to the wilds of Snowdonia saw us blown assunder by the tail end of Hurricane Katia as it made its way across the country after wreaking havoc on the American east coast. Thankfully the chipboard chalet was nailed down well. We survived.

More than can be said for my waistline, but that's another story - what's a weeks holiday if you can't enjoy the good stuff? We had a super week, very relaxing, plenty of sleep and many happy memories on Grace's first holiday. Special too because we got the spend a week with my family - parents, siblings and their children and grandchildren, and we even found time to go walking with Grace's godmother and her wild-mushroom-hunting Husband to be, Canoe Matt.

Grace has come on leaps and bounds. The fresh mountain air has put the wind in her sails and during our week away she has nailed crawling, doing a 'high five' (very cute), standing up while balancing her hands on something, and then today pulling herself up to standing too. Cheeky monkey wants to walk everywhere so both me and Matt the Husband are popping NSAIDs like popping candy to alleviate the progressive backache that is bending over to hold the hands of a little 2ft 6in belle. She's so pleased with herself, she is racing around like a pocket rocket and at last we are beginning to have to think about where we leave her... Matt the Husband narrowly averted disaster yesterday as she dove head first off the edge of the bed by hooking his finger under her nappy as her nose plunged worryingly close to the floor. We're learning fast!

We're starting to see new little things she's doing too - the subtle things I so often overlook if I'm not paying attention. Like putting the megablocks back in the basket instead of pulling them out, and trying to put her socks back on instead of pullng them off. It's like the starting gun has sounded and it's GO GO GO. Special times.