Water, water everywhere...

July has been a month of steady progress for Saskia - more swimming, more eating, more nursery and more seeing friends and family left, right and centre. It also had a distinctly wet last week as the mighty Chelt burst its banks after days of rain, and turned the town upside down for a chaotic fortnight. Fortunately Sas' world wasn't badly affected, even if baths became a bit of a rarity for several days...

Saskia started off the month getting a taster of the exciting world of big kids (well, relatively speaking) at Hannah Wilson's first birthday in London. Quite a busy few hours for Sas trying to avoid being trampled on by the cosmopolitan Kensington & Chelsea NCT baby contingent as they showed how good most of them are at walking, opening presents, not to mention reorganising the Wilson living room. She found it a bit safer being held by her mum instead! At least the next day she got a go on Hannah's baby walker (see below).

Swimming classes have been carrying on weekly, with Sas getting more and more confident as she gets used to the trauma of her mum splashing her in the face - part of the lesson incidentally, not just Wendy getting frustrated. Unfortunately the last lesson of the month was cancelled following the floods as the swimming pool sank underwater (!), so Sas is waiting to test her new-found paddling skills somewhere else. We'll see if her holiday at the end of the month helps on this front.



She's been continuing to eat well, showing this off to Auntie Naomi when she came to visit early July. Cauliflower cheese is the latest favourite, and although we've taken the precaution of trussing her up head to toe in a giant bib she's not half as messy an eater as we feared - famous last words of course.

Granny and Grandpa also came to visit, just in time to have their grandparenting skills put to the test while Wendy was taken over by an urgent translation job! The three of us stretched our legs round rainy Cheltenham on several walks wheeling Sas around Pittville Park and Battledown leaving Wendy at home to work.



And finally to Cheltenham's semi-biblical flood of the 20th July. Wendy and Sas firstly got drenched in the rain as they went into town to get hold of the last few bits and bobs for our holiday, after which they turned up at nursery looking like a pair of drowned rats. A few hours later, Tim was on pickup duty and found himself literally coming through hell and high water on his way to the nursery - well, a flooded NT carpark, some Dr Foster-on-his-way-to-Gloucester-sized puddles and an improvised ford across Old Bath Road. Sas waited patiently at Circus contemplating putting her swimming skills to good use to get home, but fortunately things didn't quite come to this and we all got home safely.

Miraculously, while most of the rest of town was out of running water, Harp Hill seemed to have its own private supply and we were able to keep on washing etc for a few more days. Sas had to be washed in the basin though, as we had to fill the bath to use as our emergency supply! We didn't have to use the infamous bowsers - or not immediately at least.

So our holiday to the Dolomites came just in time, when our water did finally run out on the 26th. We packed up the car once again and set off gratefully to the airport looking forward to some welcome sunshine and (hot) showers.