It's a lovely spring day out there, and I'm feeling really pretty good about life. Aunty Helen (Ed's sis) has been to stay with us and we went on a good long shopping trip in Leeds yesterday (my Christmas present from Ed so I didn't even need to feel guilty about the money). It's going to be a long road dragging my fashion sense (such as it is) out of the eighties but we made a start, and it was good fun. Ed's away Scouting for the weekend so Philip came along and was excellently "behaved", chilling out in the buggy. We arrived back in Saltaire just in time to catch the end of the NCT nearly new sale which yielded lots of warm clothes for camping and Philip's first pair of shorts.

And so to the young man. The exciting thing is that he's so nearly sitting up that I can now prop him up with a special cushion, rather than having to continually support him. When he succeeds in slumping forwards into his front, he can then bring into play his rolling from front to back (still only done if he really has to). He then lies on his back looking somewhat stunned! Over the last couple of weeks he seems to have had another step up in his awareness of what's going on around him and is getting better at reaching to grab things (and suddenly swiping at things on the table to clear them onto the floor). The veg eating is still going well.

First nursery settling in visit tomorrow - we'll see how he copes with the big boys!

Had a coffee morning yesterday to mark Fairtrade fortnight and raise awareness of the fairtrade stuff you can get. The tea and coffee is now much cheaper and nicer and the fairtrade mark guarantees the growers get a fair price. There was a program on the TV last night though about the mark ups that some supermarkets are taking on some products which seems a shame if they are taking advantage of good natured buyers. I still think it's better for us to buy fairtrade goods than not though. As well as coffee and tea, we tried fairtrade chocolate and juice. All pretty good.

After coffee we went for lunch so my guests had just about departed by the time Ed got home from work!

Philip and I have been on a couple of exciting adventures this week. In Thursday we met with Liz D at Cadbury World to use my 2 for the price of 1 ticket. In fact is was 3 for the price of 1 since Philip, being under 4, got in free but they then give you all the free chocolate for him. We're considering taking a coach load of babies next time (not very seriously) ! The best bit for me was the chocolate tasting area where they give you a small pot of runny chocolate as you go in. We got to move melted chocolate around and watch hyperactive school children get over excited. One to the point of putting melted chocolate on his teachers face. I'm right back onto chocolate now, Philip having largely outgrown his objection to it second hand.

And on Saturday we joined my parents for my Dad's birthday treat of visiting a community of eco-homes called the Hockerton Housing Project, near Newark. The drive down was great - snow lying at the side of the road but a dry, non-frozen road to drive on. The project was very interesting. We are quite interested in using the principles to build or adapt an energy efficient house if we get the chance at some point. Anyway, we've bought the fact sheets! My Mum did a grand job looking after Philip so I could take part in most of the tour and watch the presentation in peace.

Philip update: He's now having baths in the big bath after he starting having a mad splashing time in his baby bath. We got the giggles (a sign of improved nights sleep) and he got water on his face and started crying poor love. He's done a front to back roll once infront of his Gran so Ed hasn't seen the new trick yet. We'll see if he repeats it. We've started with small quantities of food very gently so he's tried baby rice, carrot and apple so far (separately). It seems to be going well.

The South African rural technology education project had some good applications and we'll be interviewing the shortlisted students the weekend after next. So it's all looking positive there too.