Yummy Banana

"Yummy banana", "more" and "here it comes" are the new phrases I have added to my repertoire since Charlie has started on solid food.
To say he has taken to it well is a bit of an understatement. The food hardly touches the sides as he gobbles it up. His current favourite at the moment is butternut squash, which he will scream quite loudly at me when he has finished the bowl and I walk away, leaving me hurriedly trying to defrost another ice cube to satisfy his incredible appetite. I am sure he will get through the entire range of root vegetables by the time he is 6 months. He does sometimes like to go a bit tropical and is partial to a bit of mango for breakfast. He also likes to hold the spoon when I am trying to feed him. Looking forward to when he can throw it.........

Acoustic Rock Week at the Orpheus Centre

Last Friday night I attended a very special show, performed by the students at the Orpheus Centre. These were no ordinary students though, these young adults all had disabilities of varying degrees and were attending the acoustic rock week. This workshop is on every year and run by Russell Barrow with Jon and Jo as the other tutors and other brother Rob as one of the enablers. All week the students work with them to write and compose their own songs and then Friday night is the big performance.

It really is the most amazing show. The songs the students wrote were interesting, funny and some of them very moving. Many of the students were unable to actually sing their songs due to their disabilities but joined in other ways. Other students not only sang really beautifully but also played a variety of instruments. I was particularly impressed with a guy called Andrew who played the keyboards, Hammond organ style so brilliantly, he really was a very gifted young man. There was also Sam on the drums who kept the whole night going with his rhythmic beats. I must admit I did spend most of the show welling up as I found the whole event so moving and very humbling. Music is such a powerful medium and a way of bringing a lot of joy into peoples lives and to be able to write, compose and perform your own song in front of a large audience is a major achievement for anyone but if I could have bottled the positivity and happiness the evening projected I would be a very rich man.

Telegram from the Queen

Yesterday Mike's Gran celebrated her 100th birthday and to mark this special occasion all her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren took her out for lunch to The Grand Hotel on Folkstone seafront. It was a trip down memory lane for her as this is where she used to live and her late husband was one of the chefs in the hotel when it was in its heyday. It was an amazing day, and the first time Gran Bailey had met Charlie. It was quite emotional watching her with him and he was such a star chatting to her and squealing when she spoke to him. She thoroughly enjoyed herself and it was a really momentous day.

Neptune is alive and well and living in Whistable

Yes the good old God of the Sea made a grand appearance at the opening of this years Oyster Festival. It was a somewhat creepy sight though to see this 12 foot mannequin slowly moving through the crowds on the harbour, what with that and the loony Morris Dancers with their scary horses heads made me feel like I had just stepped into the house of horrors. A good day was had though and Mike, Charlie and I spent it with our neighbours Becks and Harry wandering around, having lunch and yet again sheltering from the torrential rain storms that periodically let rip.



Sunday was Harry's baptism and after the service we all headed back next door for drinks and food. It was a brilliant day, and we all had a great time meeting Becks Irish family who were hilarious and swapping stories with some of our other neighbours. The celebrations continued well into the night and once we put Charlie to bed we went back round with the monitor in tow to finish our drinks and conversations. It was great to know that we live in a fabulous road and have a great bunch of fabulous neighbours with whom we have all become such good friends. Roll on the next party.

Festival Madness

On Sunday together with a huge gang of friends and their kids, we descended on the Lounge on the Farm festival, held not surprisingly at a farm in Canterbury. I was sooooo excited as I hadn't been to festival for such a long time and was eager to see if I still had my festival dancing feet. As Sunday morning dawned though, the skies opened and we watched the thunder, lightening and heavy rain battering down. Not good for festival goers or those with no wellies as mine were still in Scotland with the Mackay/McKendry clan, left behind from our trips up there in the 90's. We were not to be put off, however, although when you are also taking a baby complete with buggy and all the paraphanalia it's hard to be minimal with the packing. So off we set complete with rain cover, sunshade, bottles, blankets, walking boots, flipflops, cagouls and sunscreen and got there just as the cloud was clearing and the sun started shining.

It was an amazing day, the atmosphere was brilliant, it was very family orientated with a kids area as well as all the music tents and lots of food tents. With beer in hand we wandered around the site taking it all in. All the kids had a fabulous time, they we were all in the tents grooving with the rest of the ravers. Charlie loved all the music and spent most of the day totally wide-eyed at all the different sights and sounds. He even had time to shake a few tunes of his own with his mate Max. As the evening begun we gave Charlie his last bottle, put him in his pyjamas and settled him down in the buggy at his usual bedtime. We were hoping he would have been asleep for the main act but no, there were far too many things to see and hear and when I took a peek at him he was chuckling to himself and having a really groovy time. So we decided that we would go to see the main act anyway and wandered down to the Cow Shed where Alabama 3 were playing and finishing off the days music. The main man Dr Wayne T Love whipped the crowd up into a frenzy and the funky country styled music began. Unbelievably, Charlie fell asleep during their set. How he managed to do that was beyond me, the music was banging out of the sound system and we had to shout to hear each other.

After the main band had finished Mike and I went to look for the others and as we wandered around the sky suddenly went very black and we watched the most amazing lightning storm followed by torrential rain. We were all in the beer tent watching but unfortunately at the point of the rainstorm, Mike was in the middle of the field trying to rescue our friends belongings and sun umbrella and was left standing under this trying to shelter from the rain. It was a ridiculous idea and I ran out to get him but in those seconds out in the rain the pair of us looked liked we had just stepped out of the shower. Eventually the storm blew over and we made our way back to the car and home. With Charlie safely tucked up in bed the only thing left to do was a hot bath and a cup of hot chocolate.

Surf's Up

Whilst Mike was having a nostalgic weekend at the scooter run the other week, Charlie and I drove 250 wet and windy miles to North Devon to spend the weekend with my parents who had rented out a cute little cottage in the town of Appledore. Brother Rob also came along and was good company on a really terrible drive in the torrential weather and kept Charlie amused when we were stuck in traffic. We had a lovely couple of days and Charlie was great at adapting to his first time in a travel cot, although he did wake at 5am, once he had his bottle he snuggled down with me as a holiday treat and we both went back to sleep. We had a great day out at a place called Westward Ho! (no not a typo it really has an exclamation mark) It is one of the most fantastic beaches in Devon, really long and really wide and is a haven for surfers. We walked along the beach as the tide was coming in and the wind was picking up speed and at one point we let go of the buggy and watched it as it raced along the flat sand in heartstopping fashion. It was quite exillerating being in the wind like that and I loved watching all the surfers out on the waves. Walking back was quite a struggle with the wind in our faces and battling with the buggy. Ice creams on the promenade topped off the day and we headed home.

Lazy sunny days

At long last we finally had a sunny weekend after all the torrential rain and hail storms and as we were unsure whether it was actually going to last Mike, Charlie and I spent the whole weekend lounging around enjoying our new mediterraean chill out area in the back garden. It was fantastic, Charlie played happily on his mat in the shade, squealing and screaming demonstrating his new vocabularly and Mike and I lazed in the sun, lapping up the rays, drinking wine and eating cheese and french bread. Saturday evening we fired up our newly acquired cool BBQ and invited our neighbours in for a fish feast and more wine, the sunset was one of those amazing whitstable scenes, purple and red sky truely beautiful. Once it was dark, the candles we had lit gave the most amazing light and with cool tunes playing in the background it was a perfect ending to the day. Sunday we went for our usual swim and then a leisurely stroll back home found us once again in the lounging position ready for another day of sun. It was a truely blissful weekend.

We are the mods we are the mods........

After months of fixing, oiling, tinkering, building and buying numerous spare parts, Mikes scooter was finally on the road and just in time for the Camber Sands Scooter Run. After saying goodbye to Charlie and then dodging the torrential rain on the way down, Mike made it to his salubrious accommodation for the night that was Pontins holiday camp. The weekend was amazing, and a trip down memory lane as Mike watched The Jam minus Paul Weller and now known as The Gift play a wicked set of all the old tunes. Much more merriment was had in the various other venues within the holiday camp particularly the Northern Soul room where DJs were spinning more musical memories. Wandering around the campsite Mike snapped pics of all the bikes that stood out as classy and brassy and picked up a cute sleepsuit for Charlie complete with vespa motif. Watching the 'rideout' the next day evoked memories of scenes from Quadrophoenia and all that was missing was the gangs of rockers revving up their bikes looking for a fight. No sign of The Face though.