HAPPINESS!

TABLES ARE TURNED

Something very disconcerting happened yesterday. We were all put firmly in our places by a two-and-a-half year old. Over lunch Oscar spotted that Grandad had a sliced up apple on the same plate as his sandwiches. "Grandad has pudding on his lunch plate. Oscar not allowed to do that," said Oscar. I told him that I was so old that there was no-one to tell me what I was allowed to do and that if I wanted a raspberry with a fish I would have one. "That's very cheeky" said Oscar looking me straight in the eye.

Then we went to Great Grandma's house. Great Grandma let slip that she didn't like sour oranges. "Maybe when you're bigger," said the wise one.

THE GARDEN

I sit out on the patio for hours on end when it's sunny, surveying the plants and flowers so today I took some pictures as a record of what's out in mid-June.

Fortunately our son took some photographs of the lovely birthday cakes made for us by a neighbour. I'd been cursing because we cut into one of them at the party on Saturday before I'd had the opportunity to take some myself.

But the highlight of the week is Hugo's first smile

THE BARBEQUE

Ever since we booked our 60th/65th barbeque for June 11th we'd been fretting about the weather. How would we cope with 70 muddy shoes on our new creamy-coloured carpet if it rained. All week it poured down and then two hours before the bbq team came to set up, the clouds parted and lo and behold, there was the sun. It kept shining in a pale blue sky for the rest of the day. The air temperature may have felt more like we're used to in February, but that was a small price to pay.

As people filed in they were saying "What a lovely picture of you both". I looked around the hall but couldn't make out what they were talking about. "outside on the garage" they said. Had they had a few before setting off? I went outside to humour them and there, on the garage door, was a huge banner......

And apart from being very proud parents/grandparents every second of every day, our hearts (as our neighbour put it) were prouding over! And if I'm honest, a big part of me was saying "YES!" when I noticed that there were no apostrophes to be seen!

Hugo was much admired

and managed to sleep through most of the racket.

We cut the beautiful cakes made by a very talented neighbour

And at the end of the day Oscar and Grandad had a lie down on the bouncy castle

TAKE THAT

Although I'd always had myself down as an optimist, I think that deep down I'm a bit of a pessimist. For yesterday's Take That concert I expected to get lost on the way to Manchester City's stadium; I thought I'd never find a parking space; I took a blanket, cagoul, umbrella and spare shoes in case it was cold/wet; I packed binoculars because I thought we'd never see anything and I was absolutely certain that the nose-to-tail journey home would take at least four hours.
In the event we drove straight there, parked without a hitch, sat in the baking sunshine with a great view of the stage and then roared away from the car park and were home by midnight. Oh, and the show was great too. The Pet Shop Boys were better than I ever remember them; Robbie got a 45 minute slot all to himself (a bit overindulgent I thought) and Take That put on a spectacular show. My friend and I weren't the oldest there by any means but we must have looked our age as we tucked into Fry's Turkish Delight and bottled water while all around us were waving bottles of wine and pints of beer.

STAG DO

Our London son is on a stag weekend in Tallinn. I must admit I had to look Tallinn up in the atlas. I've now managed to find a webcam overlooking the town (which looks beautiful - although I doubt if the 16 lads will be doing much sight-seeing). And using the planefinder web site I tracked the Easyjet plane from Stanstead airport all the way to Estonia. My husband must have been fed up with me telling him to come and look where the plane was - passing over the North Sea, now over Holland - oh look, over Denmark and so on. He rang the night before he set off and we asked what sort of luggage allowance he had. The answer was none - well actually, he had an allowance but all the boys had decided that they would only take a bum bag and that any clothes would have to be worn. So I had visions of them all with three pairs of underpants and socks, two pairs of trousers, two shirts, two jumpers and two jackets - just as well it's a bit chilly in Tallinn.

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.