bairn blog: a tale of three henleys

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12:35am Wednesday, 2nd July 2008

what a fun few days and it has been lovely to see gethin back to his normal self after a week plus of grumpiness. we had a fun saturday, although peta was feeling poorly, so with ryan and shelley visiting we (all but P) headed into Falkirk to the cinema for National Treasure 2. much popcorn was eaten and fizzy drinks quaffed – to the point where cole and G had to run out midway for a pee. G rather comically decided he wanted to use the urinal like daddy does (despite still being in nappies) so cole had to hold him over the urinal, nappies round ankles, whilst much gurning ensued.

after flicks we headed back into linlithgow for softplay – slightly diverted by the orange marches in grangemouth which were quite intimidating. never quite understood the need to overtly display ones religion so aggressively in the face of anyone who happens to pass.

anyway, after breaking through the amassed ranks of grangemouth, we headed off for Gethin to brave the soft play area whilst cole, ryan and shelley braved some lunch and coffee before dropping our visitors off at the train station to return home to edinburgh. saturday evening saw the christening of Ben and Ruthie’s daughter, Poppy. it was a lovely event and after a brief downpour, the rain held off for the outdoor baptism and subsequent sheep roast. gethin had fun with his compadres in crime – wren and casper – and cole had fun drinking Ben’s home brew, meeting all the lovely people and supping on some rather tasty baked bean wraps.

sunday was stay-at-home-dad day again for cole with G before an evening at friends watching the euro 2008 final. after 22 years of hurt as a spanish supporter it was great to see them finally win something and to do it playing so well – plus had a sneaky bet on them to win the tournament so now a few quid better off. also, it is great to see the baton of perennial underachiever pass on to england. muhawhawhaw

gethin’s childminder has gone on holiday for a few weeks so cole and peta are having to juggle childminding duties with friend denise (or ‘deese’ as Gethin says) at moment although, drum roll please, uma and oompa are taking G away for a week next Sunday. with the exception of 2 days when we moved house (which, to be honest, wasn’t really all that relaxing) this will be the first time G has been away from cole and peta for more than a day so nervous and exciting times ahead. what to do with out evenings? how will we cope? can we cope a day without changing nappies? might put that money from the football towards a meal out for me and P – something we’ve done once since gethin was born. let’s hope G is on his best behaviour for the grandparents!!

the young boy has been really good fun this week – he is enjoying dancing and particularly breakdancing and moshes along to his favoured tunes like a true punk (daft punk and the white stripes have turned out to be some of his favourites). after a fortnight or so of him being quite a pain (he has had yet another ear infection) he is back to his old loving, caring and fun self, full of hugs and kisses and inquisitiveness. he continues to enjoy jumping off tall things (no injuries yet) and is particularly fixated with cars and tractors. a junior mechanic in the making me thinks. sadly for all of us he’s not been sleeping too well this last week or so which we finally discovered is because he thinks there are monsters in his bedroom. poor wee guy – it’s almost like a rite of passage to think that evil things lurk under the bed/in the wardrobe.

elsewhere, our garden is coming along nicely. the wet summer we have been ‘enjoying’ has brought the best out of all the flora – good and bad – and our courgettes and potatoes are now flowering which i think means they’re ready for the picking. cole made 8 jars of gooseberry jam with all the fruit we culled the other week (and some lovely gooseberry jam turnovers) and the raspberries have had to be tamed as they seem about to take over the whole garden. some ruthless pruning and tying was required on sunday. we may even have our first strawberry before the week is through.

sorry still no snaps. will instruct peta to get on the case as soon as possible!