Visiting Granny in Paloumba, Arcadia

After the successful crossing of three different prefectures the weekend before, you were ready on 25 and 26 July to go further than ever before, one more time. This road trip would see us crossing Corinthia and the Argolis to reach Arcadia and it would also involve a sleep-over at Granny-M's house in the country. Granny lives in the village of Paloumba in the Gortys part of Arcadia.

We all woke up for your first feed and set off as soon as you had burped and headed off for the Athens to Patras motorway. This took a little longer than it usually does because the nice people in charge of the Attiki Odos decided that early on a summer Saturday morning is the best time to resurface the motorway.

You made it through the whole journey without needing to eat, so you had your second meal of the day in Arcadia at 750m above sea level. It happened to be the hottest day of the year so it was all a little awkward being in the country house. Here are some photos of you with Granny-M. Can you see Lara and the cats in some of them?






Here is a little video of Granny-M pushing you in your pram. This weekend was the first time you sat in the pram and the first time we used it for transporting you about.



Granny-M really enjoyed the opportunity the pram gave her to take you out for walks. When it grew a little cooler in the evening, we went out for a night-time walk round the village so she could show you off to the neighbours.



We wanted to test-drive the pram as preparation for the Naxos holiday we had planned so we took it up and down stairs and put a mosquito net over it just to make sure everything was working.






You liked eating out in the central square of the village - here you are having dinner on Saturday and lunch on Sunday.



On Sunday we took the opportunity to leave you playing with Granny-M and took the car out for Mummy to try driving it a little. There is a stretch of road between Pal and Sarakini which is perfect for driving as there is very nearly never anyone on the road. Look how in-control Mummy looks here.



Look at how many kilometers we did in the weekend!

Daddy in quarantine, new soft toy

The day after the trip to Euboea, Daddy woke up feeling all queasy and weak. He even had a temperature, for the first time in ages! Because your immune system is not yet what it could be, Mummy put Daddy on the sofa for three days and called a doctor to come quick, quick, quick! The doctor came (with his bag and his hat) and he knocked at the door (with a rat-tat-tat).



Although he did not shake his head, he did make Daddy stay in bed and wrote a prescription for some pills (pills pills) because he thought he heared something odd when he put his stethoscope to Daddy's back. Daddy stayed at home for three days, you stayed in the bedroom and Daddy on the sofa, and Mummy was running between the two of us like a little electron between two covalent ions with a mask on.



Which means that all photos from this week are by Mummy!



Here's your new friend, a boomorphic stuffed toy with droopy eyes that we are calling "Mookie". Our friend Kelly brought her for you as a gift. When Daddy got better, he played with it too, making moo-ing noises which you found funny.

More shopping

Friday and time for shopping again... the summer sales have opened! This means that Mummy drags Daddy out to Ermou Street so she can show him what to buy. And when they shop at Fokas, Mummy and Daddy are happy because they get bonus points on Daddy's credit card. Something like green stamps for the 21st Century. Daddy is wondering whether by 2030 there'll be a whole new spurious justification for banks to gently push people over the edge with impulse buying. That's just about the time when you'll have a credit card... what fun!

Hello Ariadne!

Hello little one.



On Sunday we stayed in most of the day. It rained again and Mummy took you outside to smell how the asphalt smells when it is wet. Daddy spent a while playing around with nails and ropes to set up your insect mobile, a gift from cousin Esmeralda. Sitting on your changing mat was always god fun, but now you love to look at the insects above with their bright colours.



After this, Mummy and Daddy got you ready for your special photo-shoot. So many of our friends kept asking us what we are going to call you and we hadn't yet decided completely for quite a while after you were born. You were now ten weeks old and it was high time we announced a proper name for you that wasn't AKO. We had a whole bunch of names for you picked out while you were still in Mummy's tummy, but when we saw you, none of them seemed to fit. The name we picked in the end we liked because it has the nice "a" sound, it travels well, it is linked to Crete where Daddy was exploring before he came home to Mummy, it is linked to Naxos where Mummy was when she found out you were on your way, it is tenuously linked to cave diving on account of your ball of wool attribute and it is also linked to caves and Anatolia (one of Daddy's favourite places) through the second century saint of the same name who was rescued from her pagan pursuers when a miraculous cave opened to hide her.

We wanted to make a competition of it so we dressed you up in the attributes of your mythical namesake and put the photo on Facebook. The actual photo used is this one:



But we took a whole bunch before we managed to get you in the right pose. So, here you are, holding a sword and a ball of wool… we think it's obvious!



So - in this way, when you were 72 days old, we announced your name to the world, Ariadne.

Telonius, the Robot Turtle

"I am Telonius, the robot turtle", said in the voice of the Daleks. You like this game.



Endless fun with Telonius (derived from Χελώνα with some extra 60's sci-fi flourishes). Telonius is often a destructive force "I am Telonius the robot Turtle and I will destroy you" and he approaches to attack you, but sometimes approaches to protect you (substitute the word protect for destroy).

The fast paced motion of Telonius is dizzyingly exciting as you watch him appear and walk with his robot turtle gait towards you.

There's more photos and video footage of you with Telonius and they'll be coming soon.

At home with Mummy (rocket sled not included)

On Mondays, after the weekend, Dady goes back to work and you stay at home with Mummy. On this particular Monday, Mummy did some experiments on you to see how you manage to remain upright in forces of 1g of acceleration...


(click for bigger)

I guess these are not as bad as those photos of Captain Stapp on the rocket sled (qv) when he was a test pilot for NASA.



Here you are after all your subsonic experiments at a dizzying 1g! The extra large nappy was not employed to catch everything coming out of Mummy's little test pilot because of the stresses of acceleration and deceleration, but rather because it is a re-usable nappy from Popolino which is washed after use and then re-used, saving the environment from all sorts of harm. Probably.

More photos from 24 June

Here you are visiting Daddy on his balcony with Mummy. Daddy spends a lot of time out on the balcony with his plants.


And in this photo you are not wearing a silly outfit that Mummy finds funny, oh no, you are sitting together with a soft rattle toy that Mummy and Daddy call the prosopaki - it comes apart and squeaks and rattles and you like to play with it.