And so is my wife

Of late, Dom has very much been into role-playing. "I'm Spiderman!" "I'm Chick and you can be Lightning McQueen" etc. Some give more amusement than others -

Dom: I know, I'll be Tommy Zoom, Tilly can be Daniel and you can be Polluto, Daddy.

Me: OK ... who's Mummy?

Dom: (looks witheringly at me, and then at Helen sat to his side) She is.

My absolute favourite though is when he pretends to be a particular character from Lazytown

Dom: I'm Sportacus!

Me : No, I'm Sportacus!

Helen: No, I'm Sportacus!

I think he can hear the whooshing as it flies straight over his head.

Nice

Baldrick

Dom's current bedtime reading is Roald Dahl's Matilda, a lovely present from Julia and David to mark Tilly's arrival. It's recurring theme is the tricks played played on the nasty adults by the kids, and in the current chapter Matilda's friend Lavender has been presented with a golden opportunity. It's her job to get the evil Miss Trunchbull's glass and jug of water ready for the next lesson.

Me: What do you think she's going to do, Dom? What trick could she play on Miss Trunchbull?

Dom: I know, she could fill the jug right up to the very top and then she'd have to spill some when she picked it up, wouldn't she?

Genius. This is either testament to the absence of a malevolent bone in his body or to just how dim a view his borderline Obsessive Compulsive mother takes of food and/or drink spillages in this house.

(In case you were wondering, the prank as played in the book involved a newt from the pond at the bottom of Lavender's garden).

Carry on camping

Tilly has spent her first nights under canvas, with a test-run out in the tent for a long hot sunny weekend at Woodhouse Farm, near Fountains Abbey. She was as good as gold, entranced by all the new distractions, repeatedly rolling over, giggling hysterically and flashing five-mile smiles for our entertainment and, most importantly, sleeping all the way through.

Dom surpassed himself, accompanying us on a five-ish mile ramble in Nidderdale - the furthest he's walked by a good couple of miles. Parking the car by an ice-cream van helped admittedly, but he was mostly propelled by I-Spy and the puzzles provided by all the stiles and gates we had to navigate.

This pic is Dom after his post-walk nap when he came out with an unsolicited "Cheers Jobley! First today!". He'd obviously not noticed Helen's Pimms or our pints in the beer garden of the Sportsmans' Arms, nor that I'd sneaked off to the the campsite bar whilst he slept to bring back three well-deserved ice-cool ciders.

Good times.