Hello again, hello

Simon and I had a wonderful belated anniversary dinner at Petrus in Knightsbridge last week. The food was absolutely superb. The restaurant had a great atmosphere, a massive treat for me who only eats accompanied by yelling babies or simultaneously singing Old MacDonald. It was nice to have a grown up night out - feels like years since the last one. Simon must have rung years in advance to even book the table! Angela, one of the managers at Joe's nursery and mother of his pal Ryan babysat for us, so we could truly relax while we were out. Had my first hangover for years the next day!

On the home front our folding doors and window were finally put in this week. The builders have threatened to come and finish the job tomorrow so we'll wait and see, we might even be finished by Christmas. The man delivering the wood for the job managed to smash the hallway light in the same week that the mirror fell off the wall so don't know how many years bad luck that means - I think we've had more than our fair share this year.

The buyer for Joe's nursery has fallen through as the valuation came in lower than the asking price so back to square one on that front unfortunately. We will be scrambling for places with everyone else next week. Talking of scrambling, Joe had a nasty fall at the weekend, he hit his cheekbone, just under the eye, on the corner of the table while he was playing Ready Go (his new favourite game - involves running at high speed around the house while shouting), so we had a lovely day out in the various emergency departments of South West London hospitals, which was nice. He was fine of course, swaggering around covered in blood, making friends with all the patients and the cuts have completely healed up now.

I have been spending the last couple of weeks catching up with all the people I haven't managed to see since before Sylvie was born. She's met lots of new people and been showered with presents. I'm way behind on thank you cards so you'll have to pretend its your Christmas card as well! We've decided not to buy Christmas presents this year. We'll buy Joe some presents but if you were thinking of spending your money on any of us we'd rather that you made a donation in our name to Born Too Soon, who raise money for Kingston Hospital NNU.

Bean news

Laurence Hodson made a very early surprise debut last week. He's a power packed 4lb but is making good progress. Sylvie is looking forward to meeting him to swap notes on their favourite nurses!

More beans

Lucy Gaster put in an appearance last week, two weeks early but one ounce heavier than her brother Jack when he was born. Big congratulations to Julia and Dan.
Esther and Todd are expecting their own Australian bean next year, congratulations, make sure you have all your luxury holidays now!

Back to life, back to reality...

Simon is back at work tomorrow so I'm looking forward to putting Sylvie into some kind of routine. I am going to the Registrar tomorrow to register her birth and then we have her weigh in with the health visitor afterwards so fingers crossed she's continuing to put on weight. I think she should because the volumes of milk she's taking have increased over the last week. Joe is continuing to be enamoured of her, lots of kisses and enthusiastic cuddling.
Our boiler seems to be on the blink at the mo so no hot water or heating since Saturday morning. Hopefully someone is turning up tomorrow to fix it so we can all be clean and warm again soon.
Sylvie and I went to see the chiropractor on Thursday to be checked over. By and large we've come through relatively unscathed so once a few kinks are ironed out we'll be fighting fit. I'll be going back to my twice weekly visits so that Dan can start sorting out my prone neck and improve my posture. We're also expecting lots of visitors this week so there may not be any blog entries until next week.