17 June - 11 months old today

I was just wondering if I should do a practice run for Jessica's first birthday party as we have officially just got one month to go? Hmm? Do people do that? And what on earth should I do to make it a special day? Adam thinks we should hand her over to a babysitter and go out for a celebratory supper (if you are reading this, Jessica, you'll understand when you have your own children one day - there is an element of "gosh - you survived us as parents for a year" as well as "gosh, we survived you").

So, what have we done since Jessica got into cupcakes at Finn's party? Rather a lot actually. It goes something like this:

• fabulous weekend in Cederberg with the Stevens', on a fynbos farm in the middle of nowhere, but somewhere near the Olifants River, eating windfall apples from the neighbouring orchards and pecan nuts off the nearby plantation

• weekend in Montagu with home cell (I got tummy bug, we managed to do some climbing for the first time in months, someone drove into the back of Spiffy so we need to do repairs and have huge excess on insurance, plus got 2 speeding fines AND the interest rate went up. Comment: ARGHGHGHG)


• stealth weekend in Jhb (fly in, see parents, Adam organised last minute bachelors party for his best friend Stuart, drive to Dullstroon, do photoshoot/bestman thing for Stuart and Jenny, drive back, see parents, fly out and straight back to work an hour later)

Pics at www.picasaweb.google.com/kerryfeldman/FordWedding

• weekend in Ceres with the Hojems and tons of keen cyclists. We were the only non-cycling people there so made up for it by going walking at every opportunity in the most beautiful surroundings I've seen for ages (we had been invited for 2 years running and finally decided that we'd do it, no matter what. Started rather grimly with Jumanji - A's car - not starting. It took over 30 min of banging and some rather interesting comments to get it going as Spiffy is still out of commission as we don't have a spare tyre, but was so worth going and having some time out. Many thanks to Di and Jon who lent us their fabulous huge tent!)

Well, the month and travelling sound glam but, while nice, I have to say I am toast! We really enjoyed all the weekends (good weather throughout), the time with folks/friends and the various places immensely. I am however vastly relieved to be home and to know that I am home this weekend for the first time in a month. Whew.

Now to catch up on pool fencing for Jessica (thanks to Duncan and Julie), hanging some pictures, Adam's coffee table etc. One surprise amidst it all was that our veggie garden has done well without us although the parsley that I planted turned out to be celery (!!). Go figure!