Lucas starts to walk

Well... almost.



BTW he's now able to walk much better.. he's learnt much in the last week.

Spring weekends

Well, its almost the end of Spring now in England. The other day Anthony came and visited from London, and the family spent the afternoon watching the FA Cup final, which is the first time I've actually watched it in daylight. Traditionally, Australian football fans tune into the FA Cup at midnight.

Lucas enjoyed hanging out with the big boys watching the football.



The following day the family made the most of the Spring sunshine to play in our 'Alpine Meadow'.. aka dishevelled overgrown lawn that needs another cut. Sigh.. I just mowed the lawn a few weeks ago.

Lucas got to know Stanley, the neighbourhood cat a bit bitter. We think that he used to play with the young family who used to live in the house before us, and he quite likes to play with us.





We even tried out our new 'Lucas Pack', lent to us by Jo and Andrew for our upcoming trip to Wales.



Spot the similarity?

Where is Lucas?

A milestone in my marriage

For the first time ever, I fulfilled one of the central tenets of a happy marriage. In fact it was the first time ever in our relationship. I'm amazed Nat has put up with me for so long waiting for me to satisfy one of her most primal and basic desires as a woman.

Yes.. that's right... I mowed the lawn last weekend.

It was not easy.. as the grass was quite long and I had to make do with a hand-held push mower which cost 20 quid from Argos. It took me about 45 minutes. Nat was very glad as I paraded around the back yard in my jeans and tight T-shirt for most of the afternoon.

Here is a picture of the fruits of my labour!

Chipping Norton Beer Festival

The day of April 28th dawned bright and sunny, perfect weather for my first foray into an Oxfordshire beer festival. However, the reality of the event was somewhat different to what I had expected.

Admittedly, we arrived rather early, at about 2 pm. The festival was held in the Chipping Norton town hall, and for the first few hours I was the youngest guy there by about 10 years. The town hall had about 30 - 40 people in it for most of the afternoon, and they were nerdy bearded bespecled anorak trainspotting hippie types.

Only at about 4:30 pm did other people arrive in jeans and trainers who looked under 30.

Having said that it was good value and I got absolutely hammered on a North Costwold Pale Ale that was 10% ABV!!! I also got a sneak preview of a new Wychwood ale (the makers of Hobgoblin) called 'Owzat' which certainly tasted promising. Although ironically, the best beer on the say was a Lager brewed by the Cotswold company.

I would have liked to have stayed longer, but Nat was getting a bit fed up with pushing Lucas around the streets of Chipping Norton. Chipping Norton is a rather pretty traditional Cotswold stone village with good views of the surrounding hills.



Lucas enjoyed roaming the streets.. for some reason he got a major case of the giggles whenever I said 'Uh oh'.

Deddington beer garden

We caught up with Jo the other day for the ceremonial handing over of baby car seats and jumpsuits. Jo is an old uni friend who is doing post-doc research work in Oxford. We decided to meet each other half way and have lunch at one of our favourite destinations, the Unicorn in Deddington.

The meal was up to the usual standards that we've come to expect. Also, they had Young's Special London Ale on tap, which was magnificent (I had two pints and Natasha drove us home).

The sunshine made it possible for us to enjoy the Unicorn beer garden for the first time. It may not have a stream running through it with ducks and an view of the surrounding hillside, but it was quite pretty nevertheless. It was also the first time that Lucas was allowed to crawl on the grass (he has since done lots more as the great April weather meant that the ground has become quite dry).

New Chad Vader episode!

You can see all Chad Vader episodes at

BlameSociety.net

More birthday pictures

Lucas had some visitors over last Monday for his birthday. This meant more chocolate cake and candles for Lucas!



Lucas' favourite friend from the Banbury Mothers group scene, Lucy also came to visit to wish him a happy birthday!

Lucas explores the washing machine

Lucas has always been fascinated with the mystical movements of the washing machine, now he is old enough to explore the machine properly!

Lucas feeding himself

Lucas is now able to feed himself rice crackes, bagles, cooked carrot sticks, mandarin segments, pieces of cucumber.. and many other sorts of food. He is quite good with his hands.

However, when it comes to mushy food that requires a spoon, he needs a little more practise.