The girls got back from their road trip on Weds night - it sounds as though they had a great time and packed more into 9 days than we have managed in our entire time out here!

Yesterday we managed to squeeze in a trip to the 'mall' for some mandatory American shopping and also spent some time at the pool - although both Wellie and Ann are the archetypal 'English Rose' and therefore had to plaster themselves with factor 40 suncream before sitting in the SHADE - all very non-Californian behaviour! They also laughed at me for swimming in such a way as to not get my hair wet (!) - my excuse was that I was trying to preserve it for my 'date' with Ed that night (more about THAT in a minute!)

As they left, I remembered to take a photo of their ridiculous hire car - apparently it wasn't a Cadillac, but it was still ridiculous! It was SUCH fun seeing them - more visitors from home are very welcome!

So, about that date I mentioned...

Ed is leaving today for a week in the UK and so we thought we'd capitalise on having a baby-sitter on hand and go for our first 'date' since Daniel got home from hospital...

We walked down to a restaurant that is about 2 miles away - a beautiful walk along the coast with the sun setting - all very romantic and just the thing to get up a good appetite! We then shared a starter and enjoyed our main dishes - relaxed conversation, good food, some wine - we were having a lovely time... but then my phone went...

My poor frazzled Mum had been coping with a baby screaming blue murder for over an hour... she had tried everything (she has quite a repertoire of baby-soothing antics), but nothing was working - all my son wanted was my boobs! Nothing else would suffice! He is an absolute breast snob!

We quickly got the bill and then RAN the 2 miles up the hill to get home! Oh my! Running on a full stomach is not a good idea! I was just about OK, but my poor husband (who had eaten more than me!) only just managed to hold his food down - by the time we got home, Ed was looking green and had to take some indigestion medicine before putting himself into the recovery position on our bathroom floor! Not exactly the end I had envisaged to our date night!

Daniel had actually cried himself to sleep in the time it took us to get home - but he woke up about 10 minutes after we got in and guzzled milk contentedly in my arms before falling asleep... hopeless! I think we'll have to take him with us on date nights for the time being!