IS IT SUMMER?

Every single day during May I have looked out on grey skies, often driving rain and all my beautiful plants and trees being bent and tossed in bitterly cold, gale force winds. Am I in Siberia? No, I'm in a seaside resort which is only a couple of hundred miles from where my cousin lives. But every time she has looked out of her window this month she has seen clear blue skies and a big yellow sun. Our friends have been on Skye this week and instead of seeing beautiful mountain views and sunsets they've had to contend with volcanic ash, torrential rain and gales that have ripped down power cables - leaving them with no electricity in their log cabin. The only slight comfort I can muster from this foul weather is that by the time we have our joint birthday barbeque in June, we surely must stand more chance of getting a dry - if not sunny - day.

We took Oscar to the amusement arcade yesterday. This was after ruling out his first choice, which was "Somerfield". On the way in the car I asked him what he'd been doing at his little pre-school class. He touched a little bruise on his cheek and said: "Oscar fell over". I asked him what he'd been doing when he fell. "Running."  I persevered - what had he been playing with when he was running: "a chain saw".  "A CHAIN SAW?" "No," he said giving his answer syllable by syllable for his silly grandma, "a DIN - O - SAUR". After a couple of seconds thought he added: "what is a chain saw?" I changed the subject.

Oscar's mummy was helping him to brush his teeth when I picked him up. He wasn't too keen so I agreed with his mummy that it wasn't nice to have yellow teeth so it was important to brush them. "Grandma's got yellow teeth." That's done it. A tooth whitening kit is top of my list for the shops today.

Our son who lives in London visited last weekend to see his new nephew for the first time. But first Oscar wanted a bit of his knee!

Hugo is now three weeks old and already he's weighing everyone up - especially his big brother who is desperate to give him some of his juice and a sweetie.