Park, Park, Park & Park

Two lovely people, outside of a lovely cottage, in a lovely section of the world.

On our way to Norfolk, we stopped in Cambridgeshire for lunch and a stroll. Lunch at one of Bella's old pub haunts in Maddingly, and a stroll for C at the Cambridge American Cemetery. He's got to learn from two history books...

Now listen here, my good chap. We've polished off these three already. And there's more to be had in the chiller. Everyone is making goo-goo over your brother in the other room now. I'll do a reccie in there; you grab the fresh bottles. And then I'll do off with these dead soldiers here. And stop hic-cuping, for god's sake, you'll give us away.

Here's a bit of the background to yesterday's picture. We attended Ned Quinton's christening yesterday. In attendance was Elise- also seen here . Rupert, C and Elise are all about the same age, and generally behave themselves when they get dressed up.

"Um, what do I do now Mummy?"

As we drove through the Scottish countryside over the holiday, C gave us a funny story. We were driving on single track road, going up into the Highlands. Lots of scenery to see, so Bella and I were focused on the granite and heather all around us. C was jabbering in the backseat, mostly nonsense. Then, in a matter of fact tone of voice, he states “Fire” and pointed at the wing mirror on the passenger side. We look and see that flames are coming out of the mirror housing. So I quickly pull over, douse it with a bottle of water, and thank C for his perceptive abilities. He was significantly less concerned about it than his parents. It turns out there was a short in the mirrors’ internal electrics and it cost £50 to fix. And here's a picture of C standing in Loch Fyne amongst the seaweed.

All three of us had an interesting walk in the country on Saturday, which ended up with Bella carrying a freshly shot pheasant in her jacket back to the car. Email me if you'd like the whole story. Suffice it to say that C finding himself on a shoot shouldn't be a big surprise, considering that all three of his Godparents are hunters. Andy is quite the upland bird shooter, Louisa holds a record of some sort for shooting a Kudu in South Africa, and Ubu has quite a few snipe under his belt (as well as a few high quality antique guns).

Bella's father came over on Thursday and spent the day with B and C. They went to the park in the morning, tumbled into puddles, and then had lunch and supper together. Here they are reading a Christmas card together though Grandpa isn't sure it's quite the right way up.

C took a big step in life yesterday. He minded the gap and rode on the tube, not in his pram, for the first time. We had a boys morning out, and met up with one of my Ash friends. He had his own seat and chatted to the other passengers. And was amazed when the doors would open and people would spill on and off.

Bells took the boy in for his once a year (so far) haircut yesterday. Here is a previous post for comparison. Here are the results.