Day 812: Globetrotters

15/10/2023

Lachlan was very happy at the start of the week as it started off with a minion ride with Juju as they caught up at Braehead Shopping Centre for shopping and biscuit dunking.

After all that excitement, both Lachlan and Juju nodded off as we made our way back across the river.

On Tuesday, Lachlan’s play dates continued, he has a busy social calendar. Lachlan met the new secondee babies and was having a jolly good time. We swung past nursery on the way home to pick up Eloise and rush her to dance. Eloise could not believe her luck at dance, she received another early birthday present and could not wait to get home to open it. Freya, you made Eloise very happy, her first Barbie! She completely lost her mind and could hardly sit still.

It was not just any ol’ Barbie, Eloise had a mermaid Barbie, two of her favourite things. Eloise did not let it out of her grasp and could hardly sit still at the dinner table.

Wednesday was nice blue skies, albeit the mercury is dropping. With Eloise at nursery, Lachlan enjoyed a few cheeky plays with the Barbie, don’t tell Eloise though. He made sure to bring her along with him as we went to pick up Eloise.

On Thursday, Eloise offered to look after her wee bro and suggested Super Mum could clean the whole house while she put her legs up, great, thanks Eloise.

Too cold to go outside and with Dad at work, Eloise had her sights on one thing. Her F-22 Raptor. After assembling her Spitfire last year, we had been saving it for a rainy day.

Lachlan did not seem to be phased by the aircraft assembly as he was preoccupied with mopping the whole house from top to bottom, conveniently his new favourite activity.

Thursday night, Dad had an information session at nursery, Eloise did not believe that he was going to nursery at night time. It was actually a very informative session with lots to discuss about Eloise. There were no surprises when all of her educators said how much she loved drawings and artwork.

One of Eloise’s favourite activities at nursery is woodwork, especially when it comes to making robots, she has a large army of them now. They even let me sneak in to make my very own Daddy robot.

Thursday night the Scots were furious that “McTominay golazo ruled out in loss to Spain” as VAR makes the headlines again making Scotland’s Euro qualifications a wee bit more challenging.

Friday morning, when Eloise made her way down the stairs and found a Daddy robot she was gobsmacked, giggling her head off. She quickly introduced Daddy robot to her other robots, however, poor Daddy robot got a good beating much to her amusement.

Friday morning Lachlan was big smiles as he made his way to gymnastics, his balance and somersaults have dramatically improved.

Eloise and Lachlan’s new craze is Where’s Wally? They were quite pleased to borrow the book.

After dropping Eloise off at gymnastics we ventured into Milngavie, Lachlan made it clear that he was not going in the pram this time and that there would be no midday nap.

We were looking forward to England vs Australia at Wembley on Friday night but it was a bit of a fizzer as England’s C’s beat the Socceroos A-League 1-0. It was strange timing for a friendly as England rested players for an important Euro qualifier against Italy next week.

Friday marked 169 days since Liam ‘helped’ march through the heart of London and start the Legacy Centenary Torch Relay. It had successfully made it through France, Belgium, the United Kingdom and around a large chunk of Australia to conclude at the Shrine of Remembrance at the War Memorial in Melbourne, Australia.

Saturday morning was a loud one as all the Duplo was tipped out. Eloise was excited to start building with her new Lego library book, she was so excited she had actually cuddled her book all night. Lachlan was also keen to get in on the action and of course gathered all the yellow blocks.

We had lost track of time and had to dash off to Football Buzz. Due to school holidays, Football Buzz had moved back to Westerton Hall. Lachlan was glad to be reunited with his pals.

Saturday was an enormous day in Australian history as they headed to the polls for The Voice referendum. What a disaster! By the time we made it home from Football Buzz most of the polling booths in Australia had closed less than a couple of hours earlier and The Voice had already disappointingly been defeated, in fact in Western Australia “polls [closed] more than an hour and a half after victory was already declared for the No vote nationally”. A sad outcome as “Australians have rejected recognising Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the nation’s first people in the constitution through the establishment of a Voice to Parliament advisory body”.

It was looking like a beautiful day but don’t be fooled. It is now down to single digits. We made sure we all had our beanies on as we rendezvoused with Juju’s Clan at Partick Farmers Market, the kids were desperate to catch up, even though Lachlan had seen Juju at the start of the week.

Lachlan was not happy in the pram and knew just the way to warm up.

It was a nice spot to let the kids loose and play together, we all wished we had their energy.

It was then time to hit the courts, with the girls ganging up on the boys. Lachlan managed a few sneaky intercepts.

We made our way towards Kelvingrove Park but did not get far as matching flashing headbands caught the girl’s attention. Unbelievably, Eloise got another early birthday present as her birthday month celebrations rolled on.

Of course, Gyros was the easy decision before we all froze and made our way home.

Eloise has been keen to remove her training wheels the past few weeks and on Sunday morning we finally did. Eloise made sure we had all the right tools as we piled into the car and headed to Pollok Country Park.

We made our way to the National Cycle Network with Eloise flying along with her training wheels for the final time.

Lachlan was in hot pursuit on his scooter before helping with the tools.

Eloise had a solid effort for her first attempt at cycling with no training wheels. There was one bad tumble but she quickly got up and kept on pedalling. It brought back tough memories of when Grandpa Dave pushed me on my bike into a tennis net so I was feeling Eloise’s pain. Practice makes perfect, we will have to stick with it. Lachlan was enjoying himself darting about all over the place.

On the way home there was a bit of a shopathon as we prepare for Eloise’s party and winter.

It was a late night as Lachlan could not go to bed before he had found all the “yellow Wally’s”, he is not content with actual Wally.

The good news on Sunday night was that Scotland was that Spain’s winning streak continued, “Scotland have qualified for Euro 2024 with two games to spare thanks to Spain’s 1-0 win over Norway, which has guaranteed Steve Clarke’s side a top-two finish in Group A”.