A baby, Jamie Oliver, and more than one nasty swan...

Friday morning I caught the train down to Nottingham spend Friday with Alison and Daisy.  Since I arrived at lunch time, we met Scott at Jamie Oliver's restaurant - Jamie's Italian;  I was impressed by the ambiance in the restaurant (the decor is fantastic) and even more so by the food; we had a few different samplers of starters for our lunch, alongside a variety of bread and olives on ice.  It was perfect.  I would have wanted to love it no matter what, as I have a bit of a soft spot for Jamie Oliver, but I had to fabricate nothing. I loved the whole experience.

Daisy was a little gem and slept throughout the whole meal, leaving us adults to chat.  Ali and I spent the afternoon browsing around the shops;  and again Daisy was a star.  I think she is gong to be an impressive shopper one day.  She will certainly have the experience behind her.

I took this picture when Daisy was getting ready for bed.  Her mom wants a copy of this as it will look great in her bedroom :) I love what my camera can do with colour effects.

She's a little beauty, for sure;  and those legs! Ridiculous chubby eh?

I was happy to give Alison and Scott a night off, in order that they could both get a good night's sleep.  They didn't need asking twice and cheerily made their way to bed by midnight and didn't appear until just after 8 a.m., rested and ready to go for the day.

Me?  Well lets just say I didn't get much sleep.  This could be for a number of reasons:

a) I often don't sleep well the first night or two I'm away from home

b) Miss Daisy is a restless sleeper; she kicks the mattress repeatedly in her sleep. (How those legs stay so fat is a mystery :)

c) I constantly had one ear tuned in to the baby which is silly because it's not like I wouldn't hear her if she woke up (which she did once, at 2:30, but only for a moment).

d) When I did cat nap I had ridiculous dreams.

And still, when she woke at 6:00 am I couldn't be grumpy with her because the smile that meets you first thing in the morning could melt a glacier.

Much later in the morning when we were all up, we stopped for coffee and then got on the road to Clumber Park where we met Andy Connor and Molly.  Andy swapped Connor for me as he will be staying with his Aunt and Uncle until Wednesday. 

Here are a few pictures from our walk through the park.

If there is a tree that needs climbing, Connor will find it:

Connor, me and Ali: 

Me and Alison:  

Scott and Andy with the pram:  

The swans were in abundance; they didn't like Molly at all; and boy can they hiss, the beguiling little buggers:  

I'm not sure why Molly isn't in any of these pictures... she was probably too busy trying to figure out ways of sneaking past the swans into the water.  (Although we didn't let her swim on this walk as the last time she was in fowl-filled water she came down with an irritating itch.)

 Baby was enjoying her walk :

I spent the rest of Saturday feeling a little punch drunk, and because it was just me and Andy in the house, Molly and I were able to catch a two hour nap later in the day.