William conquers another mighty peak

At a very young age (I've forgotten exactly how old he was at the time - brain cell loss due to getting up at 5am in the morning too often) William was taken up Red Pike in the Lake District - his first 3000 footer. A few weekends ago, he completed his next major peak - Pen Y Fan in South Wales. This time he walked some (about 10%) of the way himself. Not bad for a 20 month old.

The weather was beautiful, and we enjoyed a picnic on the way up to take in the view! Here we are at the top.

William fell asleep on the way down, so missed seeing the little lake with a dragon in it. However, he awoke at the very end of the walk, just in time to throw some stones in the river with Grandad and to splash daddy!

Farmer William

The first time that I took William to Farmer Gow's, Andrew was working, so he wanted to go again so that he could see it all. Unfortunately this weekend William was a bit unwell with a fever, so we didn't stay that long. However, as you can see, much fun was had riding the tractors and feeding the goats.




William and Zoe are first cousins, once-removed. Here they are by the Usk at Crickhowell 3 weeks ago.


I bought these pjs for William the first time I left him (when I went to a conference in Canada, for 5 days). I like them!

Naughty mummy

While buying a book about Toddle Taming online recently, I was tempted by these VERY cute (and soft leather) shoes, which I naughtily bought for William. Only naughty as he doesn't need them, but not too great a crime.

We took William to the circus tonight - I think he loved it, as he just sat still and stared at the whole thing - for 2hrs! He didn't eat any fairly floss (but we did). He was pointing alot when they got daddy up to dance with a tutu on in the main ring. He he he. Unfortunately no good pics of that - Andrew was twirling about too quickly!
[Andrew on left with pink tutu, and pink fluff on his head.]

Oh, and while I was letting W run around with no clothes on (before his bath) later this evening, he did a wee in daddy's shoe. :)

Finally, a picture of my intarsia knitting, in progress. Pretty complicated with 5 bobbins of yarn, but coming along ok.

All three of us!

Wow - the second ever picture of all three of us - taken on a walk around a reservior when we went up to Leeds to visit Martin, Ruth and Megan a few weekends ago. It was a fun trip and we went for lovely walks on both Sat and Sun.

More gratuitous pictures of William, taken aroud Iffley Church, near Iffley Lock in Oxford.

New noise

William can a make a few different animal noises now.

His favourite is "Raaaa" like a lion.
He can make a little popping/mhup sound like a fish blowing bubbles under water.

And he learnt a new one the other week while I was away in Baltimore:
"Ooo ooo ooooo" like a

(drawing courtesy of William)

The monkey isn't the only picture of Williams that we have up on the wall in the kitchen, as you can see from this photo of William and I eating spaghetti together (below). If you know the Disney movie, 'Lady and the Tramp' well, then this scene will be familar.

William meets the farm animals

William and I had a GREAT day today. We went to Farmer Gow’s which is a farm set up for kids to visit a little way out of Oxford. It was such fun. Just after we walked in, there were some 1 day old chicks that we could pick up and hold. William was very interested in the light (it went up to a plug in the ceiling – very exciting when you are into plugs and wires as much as William is) and the sawdust in their container, but soon was quite fascinated by their cheeping and little wings flapping. He gently stroked them, and enjoyed watching them play in their container. After having fun outside climbing on a 6 m high pile of bales of hay (which also had a secret tunnel running underneath them) and riding the toy tractors we went to meet the animals. William was pretty brave, I thought, leaving my lap to feed hay to the 10 adult goats who stuck their heads through the railing. He helped me feed a bottle to the 5 day old lambs, and then fed pellets to the sheep and adult goats all by himself. By this stage he was happy to feed a bottle of milk to an adult goat, and wasn’t bothered as they all trotted about him, going from person to person to get food and milk. I didn't quite manage to stop William from trying some of the milk from the goats bottle - after the goat had had some. Oh well, I'm sure it is good good for his immune system! We then helped collect eggs in the hen house, and lead a goat on a lead back to the barn. It was such an action packed day and he was so interested and keen throughout. I think that we’ll be going back to Farmer Gow’s again.

This evening William had a bath....lit just by the light of a duck! It was fun! Nana bought William a duck that lights up (different colours) when wet, so each evening as we choose toys for the bath we enjoy throwing it in with the lights off, so that we can get the full spectacle when it turns on. Instead of the usual bath of 20 toys (if you count each individual milk carton lid as a toy…) we just had one bottle and the duck this evening. And William was perfectly entertained....

Pictures from last weekend

Last weekend we took William to a community run drop in centre for toddlers, called Donnington Doorstep. He loved it. He showed us how he can climb a ladder all by himself (eeek!) and drove a little sit-inside plastic car around the garden.


Then we went to Oxford Castle Unlocked, where we learnt lots about Oxford Castle and the prison. William seemed to love running around the inside of the prison shouting 'Raaaa". Daddy put us in the stocks, but we didn't mind!

Then we went to Carluccios for lunch, were William was very well behaved.

Finally, we came home and William helped out with the cooking. William really enjoys standing on a chair by the kitchen bench and helping out. On the weekend he always helps us to prepare breakfast by taking the peg off the bag of oats, then helping to pour some oats into the saucepan, the undoing the lid of the milk (currently each of his hands can only undo in on direction, so you need to offer the milk to the hand that can undo in the appropriate direction!), pouring some milk on the oats, then stirring the porridge with our wooden spurtle (bought at Towersery Folk Festival). He loves eating porridge!