Entertaining Herself

I was ill for a couple of days this week. Nothing too noteworthy, just the usual early winter bit of sickness that makes you not want to do anything apart from lie in bed, groaning pathetically. Unfortunately, the worst of it coincided with Thursday, which just happened to be my only day of the week with G at home.

She gave me a lie-in, which was very decent of her, but the long sleep only served to give her more energy when she finally decided to wake up. "Get up daddy!" she repeated, excitedly, trying to pull the duvet from where I'd attempted to securely anchor it. "Daddy's feeling sick, daddy's very sad," I managed in response. G thought for a moment, and said: "I kiss you and make it better!" followed all-too-inevitably by, "There! All better! Get up daddy!"

Later in the day I had to go back to bed, but managed to persuade her to come with me with the lure of Mrs J's iPad, which she'd thoughtfully left behind for just such an eventuality. I dozed off, and woke up some time later to find G still enthusiastically tapping away at the thing. She could well have been ordering boxloads of fine wines and other expensive fripperies for all I knew, but at that particular moment I was happy that something other than me was keeping her occupied.

I'm feeling much better now, by the way. The picture was taken last weekend, on the swings in a park in Salford.

Local Playground For Local People

We marked the first sunny day for a couple of weeks by visiting Marsden. After the inevitable ice cream, we walked up to the playground so G could have a go on the climbing frame and the swings. I realised as G was swinging quite how picturesque it was, and quickly snapped this photo.

If you recognise the white house on the hill in the distance, it's because Marsden was used for the far-away shots of the village in the League of Gentlemen. Sadly the local shop itself was only a piece of set. So, luckily for G, I've never forced her to go and look for it.

Too Big For The Swings

I've been working a lot in the last few weeks, so today felt like my first normal day at home with G for quite a while. There are obviously lots of things I'd been waiting for the opportunity to do, but I couldn't really bring any of them to mind this morning, so I settled for taking G into Uppermill to visit the playground.

It's still a bit far for G to walk, so I decided to take the car. "Playground!" she said excitedly as I pulled into the car park nearby. This turned into anguished cries of "plaaaay-grooound!" as I turned around and left the car park, because there weren't any spaces. After going round the block, I returned and found someone just leaving. The happy "playground!" returned. Such are the emotional highs and lows of being a toddler.

As I pushed her on the swings she's used since she was a baby, I noticed that G's feet now just scrape the floor as she goes back and forth. She's now 2'11'' which doesn't seem particularly tall, but clearly it's too tall for the baby swings. Time to upgrade to the ones used by the big boys and girls.