A little change of scene here, I was getting bored of looking at the post below.

Martha is 10 months old today and has just returned from her first holiday to the Dingle Peninsula. She went for houndie walks, explored and stood without support. A good holiday.

I busied myself with a spot of knitting and I hope to have it finished before Martha grows out of it.

I know I am so bad not writing for so long. In my defence – I have been busy. Now I shall try my best to give an update on the adventures of Martha. Martha is doing well, she is still exclusively breastfed and thriving on it. She will be 24 weeks old on Saturday and will get her first bit of real food (though she has already licked apples, bananas and orange juice).

On Mondays Martha goes swimming with Dave and I. We attend a free swimming class for babies, the first 15 minutes are spent singing songs and swishing Martha about in the water and the final 15 minutes are for play. She absolutely adores it all and squeals with joy throughout.

Every other Wednesday Martha goes to the local breastfeeders anonymous group at the library, where she smiles at other breastfeeding babies and I get to eat scones. When we are not at breastfeeders anon we go to a parent and toddler group.

Most days we take the dogs for a walk in the afternoon. Martha loves to watch the dogs, especially when they are wrestling with each other. I think that Martha really wants to dig her fingers into the dogs’ fur – Gracie is having none of it and scarpers every time she sees a baby limb move, Maya is more accepting of being touched by a baby (she is just glad of any attention these days).

Martha despises housework and computing. She reserves her foulest screams for when either of these activities may be taking place (please note she is currently asleep and doesn’t realise that I am using a computer). She doesn’t mind baking and helped make soda bread and a coconut and raspberry loaf cake yesterday. However, when it came to cleaning up the mess I had made while baking, she protested very loudly.

And that’s all for now folks.

I would say that every person who reads this blog is already aware that I have had my baby. Just in case there is anyone out there who does not know – I had little Martha Amy on 19 September. We have spent the last 4 weeks getting to know each other and it is bloody hard work, but very rewarding.

The dogs were extremely interested in her when she arrived home. We sat her in her car seat on the floor and both Gracie and Maya sniffed and licked her. They were very gentle. When Martha cried both dogs started vibrating in fear – they have since got used to the sound of crying.

winding, originally uploaded by waveneyavenue.

Naturally I haven’t had much on the way of free time and I haven’t yet learned the art of multi-tasking feeding and typing. Though we have got to grips with sleeping and knitting or reading.

I have a new hobby – sleeping during the day. It is brilliant! The dogs love it too, we all pile up on the bed and rest a spell.

If it is quiet here it is because: I have been away; I am sleeping; I am working; I am talking about bathrooms; I am knitting; I am walking the dogs; I am eating my dinner.

I am slowly gathering together all the basics I will need for the arrival of my baby. Some stuff is bought and some is made. I threw together a quick homemade version of this. Dave wasn’t very impressed by it, his attention was only held for a couple of seconds. He reckons a boy would never be engrossed by something so silly. I said, just you wait to see your wee idiot son playing away with it! Actually, I didn’t really say that, I said something a lot less PC and had myself a hugh, wobbling belly laugh.

Needless to say our holiday was very pleasant. We stayed in a cabin in the woods in the Dordogne. It was bliss. We ate tasty food, we relaxed, we rafted on our little lake, we fed carp our leftover bread.

On our return we stopped over a night in London, where we visited the Cybercandy shop near Covent Garden (Hannah would love this place). We bought Hot Tamales, Jelly Belly Jellybeans and Watermelon Jolly Ranchers (which proudly proclaim on their packaging that they are both ‘Naturally and Artificially flavored’, so they are twice as good as other sweets!)

We ate lunch/dinner in Wahaca and then went to stay with London Aunt. The following day we were treated to a delicious brunch with London Aunt, her hubby and Ganching. A very pleasant morning was had.

Yesterday Nelly, Dave and I went for a walk in Portglenone Forest with the dogs (Gracie, Maya, Bonnie and Paddy). The dogs had a beezer time and Nelly and Dave nearly poisoned themselves eating Lords and Ladies.

Dave had picked up a leaf he thought was sorrel and asked my opinion – I didn’t think it was sorrel, but I couldn’t be sure. So, Dave and Nelly tore off a wee bit each and put it in their mouths and almost immediately both spat it out declaring it was definitely not sorrel.

Then their tongues started to burn a bit, and their lips. We all tried to figure out what they could possibly have eaten and whether or not they would collapse in the forest and die. Nelly eventually figured it out – Lords and Ladies – and I had a right old giggle at the thought of the pair of eejits nearly poisoning themselves.

So, August? August was a very mixed bag of happiness, stress, blues, laughter, etc. I can’t remember any other time recently where I have experienced so many emotions. I started the month with the blues because my holidays were over, then I stressed over making this dress for my Mum’s wedding only to find that it didn’t fit me, then I had happy times with family, then I had more stress and blues, then I had good times at the wedding, then I just plodded along, then I finished the month laughing, smiling and dancing at Electric Picnic. Belly laughing in the Silent Disco was just brilliant.

Hannah has captured the music aspect of Electric Picnic just perfectly so I don’t need to bother. I had a brilliant birthday (thank you to all those who sent greetings and presents) and spent the day on fairground rides (carooosel and chairaplanes), watching a Rachel Allen cookery demo (RA got HB drunk on cocktails), laughed watching the Revd.s dancing outside the Inflatable Church, watched the Breeders, and relaxed by a giant campfire drinking red wine from a plastic bottle.

Then Gracie and I headed out for a walk. At Harryville bridge we ran into a fellow dog walker, though on this occasion he was without dog and had obviously spent some time in the pub. He kept us chatting awhile. We eventually made our excuses and trotted on down Railway Street, over Stick Bridge and down towards the river past the old squash courts. This is when it started raining. We walked on and did our usual walk, despite the lashing rain. At some point I regretted that I was wearing jeans and not waterproof trousers, at another point I realised that my walking boots were letting in water. I congratulated myself on choosing a marvellous raincoat as my top half was the only part of me that was dry when I got home. Gracie was so wet Dave thought she had been swimming.

But the leaking boots are a problem. Especially as I am heading off to Scotland next weekend for a week involving a lot of walking.

This is for my family – if you want to access my photobox photos in order to get high quality prints send me an email or leave a comment and I will send you the password for my gallery.

…Like taking Granny out for a spin to the new museum in Ballymena.

I started off this bank holiday weekend with a huge list of things I wanted to do. Now it’s Monday and I feel that I haven’t done all that much. But the things I have done have been very positive, like seeing my granny, sowing seeds for the cold-frame and knitting. Knitting keeps me calm and not so bothered about the stuff I haven’t done.

I had seen Heike’s site before but not all the pictures of Ireland loaded properly for me, now it is working – photographs of Ireland.