The girls and I are officially on holiday! We drove to Gloucester on Thursday night through fog and miserable greyness, courtesy car over-flowing with wellies, woolly hats and medical supplies, to visit Nanny Dyllis and Grandpa Peter. Lola needed a hospital check up during the afternoon to get the all-clear to travel. Everything was fine, the Paediatrician was pleased to see her looking so energetic and well and the scales tipped in at 30.9kg, so she has a mission to hit 31kg before Addenbrooks on Tuesday!

Thanks Sally for the DVD player.. it almost made the journey bearable.The only down-side was that they had to sit next to one another in the back in order to see the screens... it means your legs and arms touch!! My favourite part of the journey had to be the impromptu renditions of 'any songs we know'. Greta does a mean Taylor Swift, Lola and Nancy knew exactly where the swear words were in Lily Allen, but the piece de resistance must have been "Wiggly Woo" en famille and recorded on answer-machine for the benefit of Joe's children... not sure they'll come back to England in a hurry!

We shopped yesterday afternoon with the girls' christmas money... an H & M frenzy of trying on hats, bags and sparkly boots which began to feel like a trolley-dash. Mum and I didn't get a look in... nothing larger than age 11! Nancy spent the next few hours at home posing for imaginary paparazzi and Greta put all her 'accessories' on at once... gloves, clips, hairband, belt and water bottle...

Lola is really interested in tracing her family tree at the moment and we spent some really precious time listening to Great Nanny Bessie tell us about her childhood and life in the war in Ipswich. The girls could relate to the places she described and knew exactly where she lived as a little girl, and where she met Great Grandad Ivan as a young sailor. They could imagine how the river and docks used to be and were fascinated to hear about Nanny's jobs as a young woman, working in an underwear factory at the top of LLoyds Avenue and making tents and sails in a factory near the football ground.

This afternoon we went to watch 'The Witches' at Malvern Theatre, which has fed Nancy's hunger to tread the boards! Greta kept reassuring me that the Witches were actors and wearing make-up, and really did have toes, didn't they? and Lola spent most of the time on the edge of her seat, grinning. More normality... things we used to do, without a thought, before October.

We even caught up on homework, piles of it, before supper. I truly appreciate things now like I never did before.