Marlens Festival Weekend

This weekend there has been a Marine Lake Festival at the Clevedon sea front. The organisers got lots of bands to perform and the fun fair has been in town. The Clevedon sailing club band, Waveband performed on Friday night and Saturday afternoon. Helen, Emma and I went along after I finished work on Saturday and enjoyed a performance. I captured them playing "A Crazy Little Thing Called Love", and "Come Up and See Me, Make Me Smile". We sat next to fellow groupies, Sue and Jonathan who are friends of Rob and Leila's. Jonathan's wedding present to us was to be our photographer at our wedding. His photos can be found on the Coles Family Website. Here are some pictures too:



After we'd watched Waveband, we walked along the seafront with Emma asleep in the stroller and the replica of the HMS Matthew, a wooden sail ship kept alongside us out in the Bristol Channel. We got a few nice snaps of her out by the pier. And a funny one of Emma with her legs in the air.



In the evening we ordered an enormous indian takeaway from the Red Rose. Emma's bed time is now between 7pm and 8pm. If she's awake after 7pm she gets quite cross! Helen normally gives her a feed at about 11pm during which she only half wakes up. This used to get her through to 7am, but she seems to be getting hungrier and often now needs a feed at 5am, then sleeps until 8am.



She has been picking up some new skills too. Her attention span is growing and she gets fascinated by faces, whether they be friends, relatives, in books or on television. The Beebies channel will keep her occupied for 30 minutes.

She's started grabbing Helen's hair and not letting go! During a feed, she'll use a straight arm to keep a distance between herself and Helen so she can breathe easily. In the papoose today she was bouncing with her legs on my hands. She can lock her knees and take some of her weight, and is able to sit more easily although not unsupported yet. When put on her front she will lift up her head and shoulders with her arms and look around, but doesn't normally do this for more than a minute before getting upset.

She won't have anything to do with a bottle. Putting formula in a bottle and offering it to her gets her very angry indeed. It makes it hard for us to leave her for more than an hour or two.



Today we cooked roast beef for Rob, Leila, Connie, Jean, Rob and Becky. Rob arrived by bicycle wearing his Mallorca team colours - exactly one year after they were acquired on holiday.






Afterwards, Leila, Helen, Emma and I took a post-prandial stroll down the front, past the festival festivities and watched the sailing boats. We also took a walk down the pier. We bumped into a friend of Leila's called Denise who is also a doting grandmother. She enjoyed a cuddle of Emma.

We got back and Tigger was very pleased to see us (as always!) Here are some pictures of him. His wound is healing up well on his head.