Birthday in the West Country

My birthday seemed to spring itself upon me this year. We'd all been focused on Nik's Nan's funeral the day before (the reason we were in Devon), so it seemed to happen very suddenly on Friday morning. Nik and I were joined on the bed by a rampaging loony (guess who?) while I opened my presents. Tom seemed to think they were for him, especially the three bottles of excellent malt whisky I received from my folks and my in-laws, but once I'd explained they weren't for his consumption, he made do with tearing the wrapping paper to shreds and then eating it. Such a subtle child.

Anyway, my birthday outing started with a trip to Tavistock to give £145 to the local tyre dealer to replace the slow puncture on the Ralliart. £145? Ouch. Still, my fault for not getting it looked at sooner. It might have been savable a week earlier. We then thought about heading up onto Dartmoor to get a spot of lunch and exercise the lad, but the weather looked distinctly iffy, so we instead headed to a little village called Meavy, as we'd been recommended to try the pub there. Very nice it was too; Nik had a good portion of whitebait, I had a tuna baguette, and His Nibs ate all of his own lunch and a good portion of each of ours. His appetite is extraordinary just now. Worms? Or just a growth spurt? Still, he needs plenty of fuel at the moment as he seems to have boundless reserves of energy. After lunch, we spent 20 minutes or so watching Tom kick a football round the village green while keeping a careful eye on three very free-range (and splendid-looking) chickens hopping round the green.

We then drove the few miles back to Crapstone and put Tom down for his afternoon nap. We weren't sure what to do when he stirred (oppressive, tiring weather), but we dragged ourselves down to the village's rather spartan playground to give Tom a go on the swings and a slide on a very long, steep slide. He impressed us both by climbing up a very steep grass bank to get to the top of the slide - he seems to have very strong legs - but someone must have coated the slide itself with Uhu or something; Even without shoes on, Tom just stuck to the slide an d had to exhibit some bizarre backwards swimming technique to get to the bottom.

John & Carol kindly offered to babysit their grandsons so that Nik & I could go out for dinner (our 4th night out in 3 weeks!). John even chauffeured us to and from the "Who'd Have Thought It" pub in nearby Milton Combe - a lovely pub in an utterly gorgeous village. Situated in a steep valley and filled with lots of houses that we immediately wanted to buy (if they s uddenly dropped in price by at least 50%). Anyway, thank you Nik - a very nice evening.

Then a quick nip of one of my new whiskies (Ledaig) and off to bed.