lovely day(s)

Dulcie and I have had lots of lovely days this week - just wandering about in the nice weather, hanging out at the park or in the back garden - but yesterday was a particularly lovely one.  I had a hospital appointment first thing in the morning, which was why I found myself heading home via Byres Road, already feeling like I'd had a whole day's worth of pushing the pram, at around midday.  I was just wondering what I could scrape together for lunch out of our bare fridge and cupboards and fantasising about a big bowl of lovely pasta with tasty sauce, sundried tomatoes, rocket, Parmesan when... it dawned on me that Dulcie and I could easily go for a fancy wee lunch, just the two of us.  So we did.  We shared a half-size portion of scrummy pasta with some garlic bread on the side and followed it up with a scoop or two of chocolate ice cream.  Dulcie loves eating out and thinks waitresses as a species are the bees' knees - she gets all smiley and flirty with them and forgets how shy she is around other strangers.  Between waitresses and the people on the surrounding tables, it was one of the more sociable lunches I've had in a long time, despite it being just me and someone who can't talk.

On the way home, we stopped off in Oxfam Bookshop and I found the latest Alexander McCall Smith (my constant quest) which always makes me pretty excited.  I'm looking forward to reading it and have fast-tracked it to the top of my to-read pile.

The rest of the afternoon was spent hanging out with the neighbours' cat (much more Dulcie tolerant than our own cats) in the back garden until we remembered we had a prescription to pick up from the doctor's.  We walked there rather than taking the pram and the five-minute journey took almost an hour.  I had to carry a tired wee Dulcie a fair proportion of the way, but while she was walking she was stopping to look at every little thing, meandering along the pavements and going into any old shop that took her fancy.  We spent quite a while sitting on the leather sofas in our local vintage clothing shop where Dulcie made friends with the staff. On the way home, we spotted Alasdair Gray, a fairly common but always exciting event round these parts.  I was just explaining to Dulcie how she was in the close proximity of real genius when I looked up and caught him smiling, all gooey-eyed, at her.  Yup, she has that effect even on the best of them!

The evening was also slightly more eventful than our usual bath and bed routine, or my usual Thursday evening at work, where I would have been were it not for a random spot of last-minute annual leave.  Graham and I are starting to make some pretty major changes to our flat, so last night we made the most of us both being around to...visit a carpet shop.  That in itself was not so much fun really, but it was such a nice evening for the wander there and back, and on the way home, we picked up a couple of beers and takeaway pizza.  Just what me and my dusty sandalled feet needed.

Yes, so it was a lovely day, but I'm so shattered (just in general - we're staying up too late trying to sort out flat stuff once Dulcie's in bed) that it has resulted in a somewhat lacklustre blog post.  Sorry about that.  Still, for my own sense of posterity, I do like to have a wee record of some of the nice times and this week has been a week of just loving the stage Dulcie is at right now.  Well, apart from today when I got dirty-looked out of the park because she wouldn't stop screaming!  I guess every stage has its ups and downs, but so far I haven't met a stage with more downs than ups and I think that this lovely stage is especially up-filled.  I get to hang out all the time with a real little person whose personality comes to the fore more and more each day and whose life is completely entwined with mine.  Swoonsville!  She makes me so happy :)