I have two weeks of paternity leave so we are off touring the country to show off the new arrival. This week we travelled up to the Midlands to see Jay's family and also to retrieve Arto from storage and take back Daisy from her holiday with Ash.
Arto (unlike the Land Rover) started first time and it was soon restocked with the new essentials of our life on the road - the steriliser, nappies, SMA Gold ready mixed cartons, dog chews, ready meals, beer and wine.
The first night we took her to see the family Lomas (Kev, Amy, Josh, Toby, Jack, Tom and Chester - Jay's brother and family). She was not on her best behaviour - it had been a nightmare car journey up and she needed to sleep - but everyone loved her of course no matter what mood she was in. Typical of the trip I forgot the camera so there were no pictures alas. Gill and Chris as so often provided us with a delicious meal.
The next day it was off to see Sue and Graham (Jay's Aunt and Uncle) who were looking after Jade and Molly (Sue and Graham's grand-daughters) so they got to see Harriet and we got to see Jade and Molly's fabulous new house. The lack of wires coming from the many large screen flat tvs was particularly noted (... Chris's handiwork we were admiring there). Even Graham, who allegedly prefers not to handle babies so young and fragile, had a hold and Jade and Molly did too under orders from Sue. No camera again so you'll have to take our word for it.
In the afternnon we took Granny and Gramps out for a meal in a pub in Barton, which was extremely delicious and well above average for pub food.
In the evening we visited Michael and Anne (Jay's Uncle and Aunt) at home and they cooked a fabulous meal. Such was Michael's commitment to seeing Harriet that he even missed Manchester United for it (he did run out the room every now again when it sounded like something had happened but the conversation just carried on without him). Michael has a keen interest in genealogy and he has already added Harriet to the family tree and amusingly put me down as the mother without realising that is exactly how I am treated on the birth certificate (well, in the final version I am "Mother/Parent2"). No photos again.
The next morning we visited Carolynn and Graham (Jay's sister-in-law Amy's mother and father). This time I did remember the camera so at last we have so photographs! We had a tour of their beautiful garden and but the stars of the show (other than Harriet) were the extremely addictive chocolate chip cookies which we couldn't stop talking about thereafter.
In the afternoon we made a pilgrimage to Branston Water Park. We have walked round this (Jay more than me admittedly) many, many times pushing Jessica's pram and we wanted to do it again but this time with our own. The mission was accomplished but sadly the pub had shut for the afternoon so Chris and I, unwilling to face an afternoon without a proper beer, walked back along the canal with Megan and Billy so we could stop off at the pub in Barton. It was a perfect walk although we did save ourselves a bit of time (to make up for the second pint) by crossing the A38 which is a bit hairy and only to be attempted with a maximum of one dog each.
The next day was Jay's birthday and in the morning Kev and Amy came round so we have some pictures of them with Harriet at last. In the afternoon Sarah, Rob and Jess came round with Milly. So Rob, Chris and I set off with three labradors (Billy, Milly and Henry), one golden retriever (Megan) and two west highland white terriers (Samper and Pippin). There was no danger of us attempting the A38 with that merry lot so we used the flyover but it was still a superb walk unmarked by incident despite us needing to walk through a field of cows and as a short cut crossing the lock gates (I was particularly proud of Pip who traversed the lock gates several times and even Billy managed it across unaided, we won't mention Scamper or Milly's poor show).
In the evening we were invited round to Sarah and Rob's. Gill and Chris had bought the food - the centrepiece being an enormous salmon - and Sarah and Rob cooked it. It was stunningly good and sadly we could only do justice to half of it. For desert we had of course the birthday cake although that was with only a token candle since fitting the actual number on is a bit tricky these days.
We returned home the next day very happy. Next stop - Scotland!
