Five weeks is a long time in the life of a naughty child. On July 11th, the most Amelie could do with a plastic stool was to crawl up to it, lean on it and laugh at her mother. Now she can climb onto the thing and stand up to get a better view of the TV...


She also uses it to get within grabbing distance of Chloe on the back of the sofa, which is quite enterprising if you ask me. Admittedly, there's every chance she could fall and break her neck the moment you turn your back for more than five seconds, but the way I look at it, at least she's not rummaging around under my computer desk and pulling the leads out of my monitor.


Anyhoo, the big news of the day is that I'm now officially on holiday for a week and a half. We're currently living in the last days of Lisa's thirties, so I've taken some annual leave to help her through the inevitable midlife crisis. It's the first break I've had since starting my new job, so today felt like like the last day of term. I should have taken in board games. Possibly a box of 'Snakes & Bladders'.

I've actually spent the day at Horsham Hospital, which is one of my favourite places to work. Especially since the council's tourism department got to work on the beautiful park next door...


Mmm... nothing brings those visitors flocking in like a few signs mentioning rats. I sat next to one while I ate my lunch. A sign that is, not a rat. I've mentioned here before that Horsham Park was the scene of the world's biggest custard pie fight back in June. Frankly they should have hired the custard pied piper instead.

But taking a leaf out of Hamelin's book, tomorrow we're driving Amelie out of town and dumping her with her grandparents for the weekend. Then first thing on Saturday we're off on a magical mystery tour to celebrate Lisa's birthday. I booked it for this weekend, because by Tuesday she'll be too old to enjoy it.