Happy Days

The weekend was pretty busy - no time for blog I'm afraid. Saturday morning saw us at the HLC for Tom's swimming lesson. Matt was in the pool with him this week. Once again he was very well behaved and Matt dunked him under for much longer than me! One new move was Matt going under water with him. Looked good, but I'm worried about me doing it next week - I'm quite buoyant at the moment!

We had a quick drink with Rose and Martin and then returned home quickly to pack. Then off to Newport for a quick lunch and drink before saying happy birthday to Lou at The Swan. Next stop was London, so back in the car for a easy journey to London (Tom slept all the way which was fab.) We got there just in time to surprise Pat at work with her Grandson.

Had a quiet night, then on Sunday morning Matt was up early to go into Central London for his carving course at Simpson's in The Strand. I stayed in Mortlake, gave Pat a quick lesson on how to change a nappy, what to feed him for lunch, a tour of the changing bag etc etc before hopping on a train myself to meet up with Matt for lunch. Tom stayed with his Grandparents.

Had a fabulous lunch. Matt had had a good time on his course and got huge brownie points from me as he had asked lots of cooking questions and written detailed notes on how to cook joints. We've been doing it wrong. Apparently you don't need to cook the meat for long, but you must leave it to rest for as long as you cook it. When you take the meat out of the oven it continues cooking for some time, and the core temperature actually increases. He came away with a recipe for Yorkshire puddings (industrial scale) and even went back to ask the Master Cook (no chefs in this establishment - something to do with the owner back in history hating the French and declaring NO FRENCH on the menu - oh sorry - Bill of Fare) a couple more questions after me grilling him.

Once both of us were suitably stuffed on good food and wine , we pottered back to Waterloo
and the train to Mortlake to be met by Pat, Bob and Tom at the station. Sounds as if he was a good baby (except refusing to eat much for lunch) Spent the afternoon lolling about in the garden with Tom - was very pleasant indeed.

As we left this morning, both Pat and Bob said to Tom that he could visit anytime and that he doesn't need to bring his parents with him - so I think he worked his magic on them.

Today has been pretty run of the mill, drove home in 2 hours 20mins which is a record, Matt went straight to work and I played with Tom (he slept the whole way home) and then went to Asda to pick up some bits. We have left over meat from Matt's carving course for dinner today and tomorrow - apparently the Master Cook said that any meat left over from the course would get thrown away so to help themselves, luckily Matt did.

The pics - 'Matt the Master Carver' and Tom with his new toy (Pat saw it in a shop in Islington and couldn't resist. It's going to live in London so Tom has something new to play with when he visits)

Oh Tom is getting very very frustrated at the moment. He is trying soooooo hard to crawl, but just can't work out how to do it. He rolls on to his front and starts clawing at the floor with his hands, but invariably ends up looking like a beached whale with his belly on the floor and arms and legs waving around in the air. Pat reckons he'll be crawling within a week. I hope he works it out soon as he cries with frustration trying to work it out.

Oh, almost forgot to say, Tom slept through on Friday night, the first time he has done so on a run of the mill day. Lets hope he continues to do so.