After visits from Gunny and Nana and Rob and Olivia at the end of the week, P and I took ourselves off to Richmond on the 65 bus on Saturday to meet up with Sarah and cool off by the river. Plan A was for a health-giving walk all along the Thames followed by a picnic when P woke and wanted a feed. Due to rough terrain and general laziness, and how very warm and sunny it was, this was ditched in favour of plan B: sit down after a couple of hundred yards in the Buccleuch Gardens dock meadow and stay there for a couple of hours watching the boats go by.

Great weekend in Swallowfield with grandparents, all went very smoothly apart from trying to travel home from Reading station on Monday morning along with several thousand festival-goers. Doh. We visited some more of P's relatives while we were there, and otherwise had a very chilled-out time with plenty of walks, nice food and Jeeves and Wooster DVDs.

Another week of visits - David, Dora and baby Anna came to see us from Oxford, and we went to Kent (P's first train journey) to visit Peter's grandparents, aunt, uncle and cousin Niamh, most of whom haven't seen him since the day he was born. He has his second train journey this weekend coming when he and I go to stay with my parents while M is in Edinburgh speaking at the literary festival. Yesterday P and I went down to visit Gunny and Picul in her cafe in Balham (seen here at lunchtime), and today P had his immunisations and checkup - the GP agreed with the suspicion that we and the health visitor had that he suffers from reflux (which may explain at least some of his very frequent crying jags), and is now trying him on some new medication since infant gaviscon was no use, with the promise of a paed referral in a week if there's no improvement. Hoping this moves us on towards him being a bit more contented and comfortable... though he's a bit grumpy today post-jab.

Eight weeks old today! Lots of visitors and outings in the last week; cousins from Cornwall, grandmother from Kent, Jenny (NCT friend) and her daughter Gracie, and aunty Picul and uncle AJ, with whom we enjoyed trips to the shops and an uncommonly good curry. I'm not restricting what I eat in the hope that (a) P won't be fussy about food flavours, and (b) I can enjoy my meals - he doesn't seem to mind channa, okra or smoked aubergine anyway. Then yesterday we met up with these friends visiting from Vienna - James, Kati, Emily and Lucien - to catch up and take in Tower Bridge and the Tate.

Mondays have become weigh-in and cafe-trip day; here we are celebrating at our favourite haunt with Clare and Zoe, some of our NCT buddies (Zoe is a week older than Peter).
Our little dude continues to thrive but also to cry a great deal round-the-clock, with what seems to be terrible wind. We've tried more conventional remedies, we've (just) caved in on offering him a dummy, and now we're sceptically venturing into the 'doubt it will work but I guess it can't hurt' realms of gripe water, baby massage and paediatric osteopathy...
Meanwhile we had visits over the weekend from Picul, then Ben and Spike back from France, and Anthony briefly home from Cape Town.

I've only just realised that the Proms are on - I mean, I never expected to go to any this year, but I should at least have looked at the schedule and caught a few on Radio 3 by now. Wish I could be at the St John Passion with Mark Padmore and Robin Blaze, but am perfectly happy to have other diversions. P's new tricks, all accomplished today, are rolling over, sleeping in his cot not his moses basket (admittedly only for twenty minutes), and, when placed face-down on a mat, rotating his body through 180 degrees (around his tummy as an axis) in gradual stages. Boy's a genius.
This week, Olivia visited, bringing a splendid wooden rabbit and much news; then my parents came the next day for lunch and a walk in the park.