G's first trip to the Islands

---

A whole week in the islands visiting Daddy's family. Not the best start, the ferry was delayed by over 4 hours, meaning we didn't get to Nana & Grandpa's house till around 2.30am with two sleeping children in the back of the van, and one sleeping Mummy in the front, good ole Daddy! At this time of the year it's practically daylight at that time, he says it would have been possible to drive without the headlights on. He says he didn't try it...

We had a lovely week, introducing G to the rest of the family, meeting all her crazy cousins, and even crazier aunts & uncles. Nana & Grandpa gave her lots of cuddles, too, and she met GrandAuntyA, and Paddy the dog. Daddy went fishing and played golf, and Mummy got some sleep, that's our idea of a top holiday these days!

Cafe Ag outdid themselves! The entire family (excepting the Norfolk contingent) dug into a veritable feast of curries, naan breads, rices & pickles, with lashings of ice cream to follow. Well done boys!

One fine day, Nana took the four of us to scramble up the hill overlooking the town to see some of the 50,000 trees that have recently been planted up there, the culmination of several years hard work by Nana and her crofting pals, in a project to reforest the hillside. Mummy had G in the sling and J walked much of the way, looking for puddles ('pahd!'😉 to tip stones into, hitching a lift on Daddy's shoulders when the going got tough. The rain kept off till we got back down, and stayed off until about 20 seconds after Daddy had driven off with J and Mummy began pushing G home in the buggy. It was the kind of rain that reaches the parts other rain can't reach, trust me! But once you're that wet, you're wet, so we carried on, at least G slept!

We took J along to the gaelic playgroup, thus doubling the number of tots there! (Until Dan arrived with Nana and made three.) There was a very nice man there in a suit chatting to everyone and wanting to get photos of himself playing with the children. Not what it initally seemed, we found out afterwards that he was the local MP doing some kind of publicity stuff.

G changed a lot over that week, it was like we'd brought back a different baby, no longer a newborn! She started to smile, became more alert, and a little more settled with her sleep and other habits.

(Lots of pictures, as ever make sure you scroll right down, silly new layout really is rubbish, but 2 years into this blog I'm loathe to start looking around for a new format.)

---

Photos

Happy Chaos
(Photo by cousin F, not bad for a 6 yr old!)

Visiting the baby trees
(Thanks Nana for this pic from your phone!)