Baby

Babies everywhere. This one is slightly less pink and squishy and rather more hairy than Grandson Two, whom R and I met over a Facetime call this morning, but is already walking and feeding itself very competently, and eating an impressively mixed, plant-based diet. To be fair, it's probably several weeks older.

R and I spent several hours out shopping today, which is not something either of us would normally sign up for - and especially not in company with each other. But as well as sourcing presents for the Boy Wonder and the Baby Brother (the former more difficult than the latter, because the Boy has just been through Christmas and a birthday and acquired a lot of stuff, while on the list of things B minor feels qualified to complain about, the quality of gifts received isn't yet likely to feature highly) we also needed to buy some food-based items for ourselves, and a couple of offerings to bestow on L and G when we go visiting in Cardiff tomorrow. 

The last stop on our shopping trip was Hillers, whose gift shop sells the nicest babygrows I've found anywhere, and this also gave me the chance to spend a few minutes in the bird hide, while R slumped in front of a cup of coffee in the restaurant. The hide has been closed since before Christmas because the Ragley Estate were doing "forestry work" nearby - which turns out to have been a euphemism for devastating the entire area. They've felled several mature pine trees which were favoured habitat for the local treecreepers, nuthatches and great spotted woodpeckers (and the invertebrates on which those birds used to feed), leaving behind a scrubby mess of small deciduous trees - mainly elder and sycamores, as far as I could see. So much lost, for so little gain - it was really quite upsetting. But at least Hillers are now able to put out food in the area again, and it was the waste fruit and vegetables from the farm shop that brought in this very young Muntjac and its mother. I was happy to see the babe, but unsurprisingly there were very few birds about, and I didn't stay long.

By the time we eventually made it home I was almost on my knees, but as you know I'm stoical in the extreme, so I barely spent any time stamping around moaning and slamming cupboard doors, before rolling up my sleeves and cooking up the ingredients we'd bought into an aubergine loaf for the Family B, and a saffron lamb casserole for our freezer. I didn't get round to making the Seville orange marmalade Child One has specially requested, but still... Domestic Goddess score 8/10.