Frosty Playground

Today was a day off at home with G. After lazing around for a bit, looking doubtfully through the window at the cold outside, I asked her what she wanted to do, hoping she might suggest something indoors and somewhere warm. A sauna perhaps.

"Playground!" she replied, "Playground! Playground! Playground!" Looking at the thick frost outside, I put an extra layer on us both and drove to one fairly near our new house that we were yet to visit.

As you can see, G ran off excitedly in the direction of the swings. As you can also see, there was nobody else around. The frost in the park was still untouched, so not even any dog walkers had been past during the morning.

We didn't stay all that long, but there was time for G to save the day. We trotted back to the car to get out of the cold, and as I opened the door G gave me a serious look and said: "No daddy, you left the bag at the playground". This was true enough, her potty, wipes, spare clothes, water, and all manner of other posessions were still where I'd left them. I strapped G into the car and took a more leisurely stroll back to pick them up. Not that anyone would want to make off with them normally, but there really was no chance of that today.

Out In The Cold

It's been chilly here the last few days. After G coughed and spluttered her way through most of December, I've been a bit reluctant to take her outside too often, lest she pick up another cold. But we decided to take a bit of a walk along the canal to the local garden centre this afternoon, for a cup of tea and a cake rather than any garden implements. As everybody knows, garden centres have the best tearooms.

This gave us the opportunity to put G in her new snowsuit, a 2-3 years model so still a bit big for her. As shown in the picture, her hands didn't quite stick out the end of the sleeves. This meant that when G was doing her usual 'I want to be carried' signal of furiously waving her hands around, her sleeves just flopped about, which kind of lessened the impact of her mini-tantrums. Obviously I still picked her up in the end though. She's not quite too heavy for that yet.

Turning Cold

Things have turned decidedly cold around here in the last few weeks. You wouldn't know it from this picture of G attempting to climb onto my lap in our lovely warm home, but all the going out in the wintry Saddleworth weather has taken it out on both of us. Either I've give her a cold or she's given me one. The end result is the same though, and when it comes to looking after G, we're suddenly spending a lot more on baby wipes and those plug-in things which give off a sinus-clearing vapour.

G is clearly not bothered by the fact we still live in a political vacuum and are without an MP, while Phil Woolas continues to try to regain his seat. Everyone else expects there to be a by-election soon though, including the Liberal Democrats. I walked G along into the next village the other day to interview that party's new President, Tim Farron. It was a bit chilly out though, and he was running a bit late, so G was getting a bit miserable by the time I got to speak to him. The Lib Dem candidate did his bit by pulling faces at G to keep her quiet during the interview. I didn't get either of them to kiss her though, that would have been a cliche too far.

Whitworth Art Gallery

Continuing our patronage of the Manchester arts scene, I took G down to the Whitworth Art Gallery today. Shamefully, during the whole year I studied at the university (which is basically next door) I never actually got round to going to the gallery, so thought I'd better put that right. And besides, people kept telling me the café was brilliant, which is enough reason to visit anywhere.

It's been a cold day in Manchester so I wrapped both G and myself up in plenty of layers and set off for the walk down Oxford Road. I'd arranged to meet a friend for lunch and made sure I turned up in plenty of time so I could have a quick walk around the gallery with G. When it comes to museums I usually prefer looking at stuff rather than art, but I enjoyed an interesting exhibition on American prints of the 20th century. There was also an exhibition about art as it relates to trees, and I have to say that lost me a bit. True to form, G was fast asleep throughout.

We both perked up when it was time to go to the café to meet my friend for a coffee and some food (I had a tasty Indian parsnip soup, who knew the Indians liked their parsnips?). Well I say we both perked up, I certainly did, although as you can see, G remained oblivious to everything until I got her out of her pram so my friend could have a hold. Even then G stayed snoozy, and not even the occasional groups of bored-looking students disrupted her. I tried telling my friend that G isn't always so angelic, but I don't think she believed me.