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Here is my happy autumn baby. For all that he might have been present for autumn last year, he was six days old the first time we took him to the park and I doubt he was able to make much sense of his surroundings.

This year, of course, was completely different. Over the last few months he has enjoyed any number of outings to any number of parks and nature reserves and arboretums, plus of course the Eden Project. The boy likes trees. And now, in the glorious part of autumn where it's not properly cold yet, and there's colours and crunchy leaves on the ground as well as on the trees, Jamie is also learning to walk, which means a look of utter delight as he gets set down on the ground and realises he can scamper wherever he wants and really investigate things.

Of course I never get to catch that look on camera because I need both hands to let him down and steady him for a moment while he remembers how to stand and walk in shoes, but then he's off, and even over lumpy terrain can manage a good few metres before stumbling.



So instead, I get this look, which I think is "mummy, look at these leaves!" He's learning about it being ok to hold and play with them but not to put them in his mouth, he's learning about crunching them in his hands, he's learning about falling over and leaves sticking to him (along with the mud, dirt, twigs, grass clippings etc, but this is why we have a washing machine and a vacuum cleaner) and he's basically having a whale of a time. Winter and even christmas will have a lot to live up to if they want to rate alongside a park in autumn.

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I make no apologies for this week's post being late, because as some of you might already know, we celebrated Jamie's birthday with his first trip to the Eden Project. Organising our photos has been low on the priority list.




This was the furthest we've been from home and the first time we've been away more than a single night. It took a lot of planning and a lot of work before and during the trip but it was all worth it. Of course, at 1 Jamie isn't quite in a position to understand why it's amazing - for all he knows, massive bubbles full of plants is an entirely normal thing to do with a hole in the ground. But he was certainly in a position to understand that it is a precious space to his parents, and he's always loved trees. He wasn't completely sure to make of a story time with no book but he noticed that other bigger children were watching. This picture was taken in the Citrus Grove of the Mediterranean Biome, on the chair that the storytellers use.

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This week was Jamie's first birthday and hopefully I will be sharing a picture heavy post about that soon.

For now, a pre-birthday picture of a happy upside down Jamie is, I think, a nice 52 Project portrait.

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Another Mummy and Jamie week.



This was taken at one of the parks in town, next to the river at a spot where, so I'm told, the circus elephants used to be taken to be washed. The stone bench was very cold but the metal elephant statues were sun-warmed and wonderfully tactile.

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Nap time!



Steve took this picture and I love it, as it's something that happens fairly frequently (even if never quite as frequently as a mummy might wish) but something I never get to see.

Also, it features our two best blankets. My grey one was a gift Steve gave me when we first started seeing each other. And Jamie's rainbow blanket was hand-knit especially for him by his honourary auntie Clare, given to him at the hospital on his first day, and wrapping us both up in love while we got used to being two people. I'm so pleased that the weather is once again cool enough for blanket-snuggling.