It's a bit scary to see that nearly a month has gone by without blogging. We've been ever so busy and there are so many things we've not had time to attend to. Ros has, of course, gone back to work now, for two days a week. Jess is ever more mobile, which keeps us busy, and with the longer days, she's waking up at around 5.15am far too often, which leaves us with little energy in the evenings to keep going.

So, what's new? Well, biking to work is successful so far. I'm averaging 12 minutes journey time unless it's the height of rush hour, when it takes around 20 minutes. It's economical compared to our car, at 50mpg, and I'm much happier being able to hop on and go to and from work without worrying about how long the bus will take to turn up. I say hop on, but of course getting fully kitted-up in safety gear probably takes 5-6 minutes at each end! The bike now has about 450 miles on the clock, so will be ready for its first service soon, at which point I can run up to around 10,000rpm, which will make overtaking easier. I've not done any hugely long runs yet - nothing more than about 70 minutes yet. Time is again the big constraint.

At work, I've had a lot on, with quite a lot of meetings and development work, plus two big photoshoots for this year's brochures. They're fairly military operations, with up to three photographers, and around 25 students across ten rooms! One was a Saturday, and another was in the evening this week. After the two days, we've added around 3,000 new images to our library - the joy of digital!

Jess is, of course, the main event. She's been starting to walk in the past two weeks - putting together 2-3 steps before sitting down with a thump! She's much more confident standing, and clearly enjoys padding around, especially if she can touch a hand on something solid for balance. It is a confidence thing though, as she's not actually holding on.

She's enjoying food - we don't know where she packs it really. We've had nursery days where she's started with milk, then Weetabix for breakfast. At nursery she's had lunch of lasagne with garlic bread, and fruit for pudding. At tea-time she's then had fish fingers, toast and yoghurt. Then she's come home and had cooked dinner of chicken risotto followed by a banana and fromage frais!

Mind you, that's not the only thing she's been eating. In the past month, she's separately managed to open a tub of Sudocrem and Drapolene, and cover herself with both. You'd think that they wouldn't be that appealing to eat, but that's not stopped her trying...

At the end of April, the weather was gorgeous for a couple of weeks. We bought her a paddling pool, which didn't appeal much, for some reason (probably a bit cold still). We filled it with some plastic balls, which improved its potential (great opportunities to throw them out, after all).

That pretty much coincided with the weather turning solidly awful, so we've not had chance to be out much since. Still, you take your photos when the sun doth shine...

Anyway, it's now 9.40pm and I feel bed calling. TTFN!