A long post about little things

So DD has had her first cold. She and I both came down with it on Thursday and it's a real stinker! She coped very well though with very little crying. Her main problem was sleeping as she'd wake up finding it hard to breathe so she'd cry but a quick visit from Mum or Dad and she'd settle again. The bad news is that DBF is now suffering from it (of course as it's a man cold he's home from work today) but at least DD and I are over the worst (and she's sleeping again).

DD is now experiencing real food on a daily basis. I did attempt to cook and mash carrot on Friday but that took waaaaaaay too much time and effort for so little reward (remember I was stuffed full of cold too) so I used the free bottle of baby food we'd got in some baby pack or other. DD lapped it up and was eager for more so I've told the nursery to get on with giving her food and I bought more jars this morning. She'll get fresh stuff at nursery and in a week or so I'll be giving her fresh fruit so I don't worry too much that she's having jars as well.

Saturday we went en masse to Swindon to meet up with some stitching friends of mine for lunch. It was to celebrate the birthday's of two of them and there were secret pressies for both. I think I've mentioned before that I belong to an online UK stitchers community and we'd all got together and stitched designs and one totally mad volunteer had made them up into two quilts. The lunch was great fun, the gifts were well received and DBF did a marvelous job of appearing to enjoy himself whilst surrounded by mad women.

We've booked a venue for DD's Christening - Sunday 28th May. Or at least DBF's mother booked it yesterday. We're having the party at the Officer's Club in Athens which is apparently very regal and dead posh. The main reason we chose it though is that it's cheap. DBF's father is an ex Brigadier General so the cost to us is so minimal that we aren't even including it in our budget! That's great as it means we can afford a few more guests.

After talking about it for ages I finally booked a photographer for this saturday so we can have some professional portraits taken of the three of us. I have this idea that we'll have a family portrait done every year around Christmas as a way of keeping track of how we grow and change. It also means that this year we don't have to worry about what to get people for Christmas as we can give them all a copy! I don't suppose we'll get away with it every year though...

Parking Permits. I never thought something so insignificant could become so important to us. Our street has actually featured on a TV programme about the worst parking places in the country. Basically it's a one way street that is a little over three cars wide and there's parking on both sides. It's terraced housing so there's no off-road parking at all so you have to park on the street. There are a couple of main roads nearby where the residents don't have any parking options at all. It's also five minutes walk from our street to the centre of town so people park there and go to work, park there are go shopping, park there and go eat and so on and so on.

Basically it's a total nightmare. Come this time of year we can't take the car out on weekends as there's never anywhere to park when we get back. There's a huge bootfair in a school playground just round the corner on sunday mornings so the streets roundabout are stuffed with cars. People park and go into town ALL day for Christmas shopping. Evenings you're lucky if there's a space as people go for late night shopping or those that park and go to work stay later to do a bit of shopping.

Oh and don't get me started about how BADLY they park. If you live on our street you learn to parallel park with inches to spare round the car (I'm not kidding) but non-residents park across what could be two spaces or leave their car two feet from the curb so you can barely squeeze past it. It's a windmirror graveyard as at least two a week get destroyed.

I guess you get the message from that minor rant that I've had enough right? Well I've been lobbying the council for years (seriously, we've lived there six years and this has been an ongoing bone of contention for us and many others on the street) and finally, last wednesday we got a letter from the council that the permits will be in place on 5th December!!!!! This is totally amazing and I can't even begin to describe how happy I am. I'm even considering taking the day off so I can watch people come to park and have to move...