Friends

We went to an Easter party at our friends' house today. Thank you Elisa for organising the Easter egg hunt and hosting a house full of sugar-rushing kids! Applause too to Lisa, who took the four hyper toddlers outside for a runabout and survived.

Our group of Mums and babies (now toddlers) have been meeting more or less every Thursday morning for over 2 years now and there has been another 'crop' of babies over the past 6 months too! It's always good to meet up and be able to share anything, knowing that they've been there too. In fact the best bit of advice for any new Mum, I think, is to make sure you get out and meet other new Mums as much as possible from the earliest opportunity. I am so thankful for my group of friends and know that Grace really enjoys having her lovely little group of pals to play with too.

Grace, Ophelia and I ended up staying on for lunch and even afternoon tea. You can see Grace and Sebastian tucking into pizza at their special toddler-sized table. I also wanted to show the 'next generation' - the latest bunch of babies is growing up so very quickly, and I'm sure there is already some recognition between them through their regular playdates.

All in all it was a lovely day!

On the road home, I met two of my colleagues driving the other way and thought to myself 'hmmm - last day of term...where are those cars going?' I guessed they were headed to the Allendale Bakery for end of term tea and cakes. After dropping into the village for the girls to say hello to their Daddy who was at work and hadn't seen them all day (and for Grace to take Daddy and his colleague some Easter biscuits she'd made and iced in the morning), I went to the bakery and, sure enough, there sat a bunch of my workmates celebrating the start of the holidays. So we stayed and had a chat and a catch up with them for an hour or so. Ophelia was passed around for people to see, and eventually fell asleep in my colleague Steve's arms, which was very cute.

Tonight, after the girls were tucked up in bed, I've busied myself baking a squidgy white chocolate Easter cake from an old 'BBC Good Food' magazine. I made it last year too, but the day I baked it was my first day of proper morning sickness, so I didn't get to appreciate it. My sister and Brother in law are visiting tomorrow, so I thought I'd give the cake another go!